Basically Useless Information @ MindSay

I finally got my visa... and my final information concerning where I will be! First, the visa part.

I had a Certificate of Eligibility... basically a nice form that isn't really a visa, but sure as hell speeds up the process. I traveled to my local neighborhood Japanese embassy and turned in all my paperwork and pictures. I was then told that because everything was in order and I had a COE, my visa could be assigned immediately... which in bureaucratic government terms means I was able to pick it up the next day. Now, I don't know about you folks and your foreign consulates, but the one in Chicago is a royal pain in the ass to get to any time of the day... and it keeps weird hours. Regardless, I was able to drop off my passport on Thursday and pick it up on Friday. It is now in my grimy mitts and ready for it's ultimate purpose, that being to keep me from breaking international law.

Next, I received my assignment. Beautiful Nara Japan will be my home for the next year or so. Nara is a pretty cool place... it's got a lot of historical sites, the kickass deer park (which I will write more about later) and is very close to both Kobe and Osaka. Nara is in the Kansai region so it's denizens speak with the awesome Kansai accent, which is roughly equivalent to a southern American accent or a... I dunnow... Manchester accent in the UK? Maybe? Whatever the case, I love the idea of studying in a place with a more localized and non-traditional dialect. Hopefully I'll pick up on it and start sounding like a native Japanese speaker in no time! Well, you know... until they actually look at me and see I'm not Asian.

I will specifically be teaching in a small ward of Nara called Kashihara. It's a nice looking place with a smaller population and lots of stuff around it. I'm hoping that after I arrive I will be able to get a bike or scooter... preferably a scooter. I would love to tell my kids one day that their dad scooted around Japan for a few years when he was young... -er. Even if a scooter is out of my reach most stuff in Japan is walkable, bikable or train-able anyways, so I'm sure I'll be fine.

I have made an effort to find out more about what it's like to actually live in Kashihara, but the main page for the ward is in Japanese (of course) and although I could probably read it with minimal help from a dictionary (well, marginal help), I'm still intimidated by that much Japanese writing even after all these years... No, wait, intimidated is the wrong word. I'm simply too lazy. But I suppose I will get around to it before I go, despite my laziness whenever I have a date that something needs to be done by I tend to get it done... albeit at the last possible minute.

I will have two flat-mates... one from Canada and the other America. I was honestly hoping to live with people not from my continent, but you have to take what life gives you. Besides, I'll probably have to move out when my fiancé arrives so we can live together, so again, not as bad as I thought. Anyways they might be really cool guys so I'm not going to be negative. Well, not more negative than usual.

Another cool thing is that I'll be arriving at Kansai International Airport (KIX). The airport itself is built in the middle (roughly) of the bay just adjacent to Osaka. It just sorta floats there... and sinks there a bit as well. I doubt I'm unlucky enough to be on the flight that actually puts the whole thing underwater, but it is a bit unnerving.

I’ll update again with more on Nara and those guides I was talking about before.  This is my last full week in America and I have to get all my stuff together, do shopping, exchange some monies… I had all this time on my hands and it STILL gets hectic in the home stretch. I guess that’s the way it has to be. C’est la vie.

-Maru!

I would also like to add that Mindsay suggested the tag "basically useless information" for me when I was on about the second paragraph of this update. Thanks for the bode of confidence guys!