Tentatively, until the company approves of the JAL flight I found from flight center, I will be leaving on May18th and arriving Narita airport on May 19th! My company's paying for the flight, so I needed to get a "travel quote" before I can purchase the tickets. At first I was super confused about what I really needed do since I've never purchased plane tickets on my own in my life before. (sheltered?) First I looked at flights from expedia.ca and I called them about giving me a "travel quote" and they seemed confused about it too. XD I made some clarifications with the coordinator, and turns out we need to get the travel agent to hold the seat for me for a couple of days and until the company approves then I can purchase them. Expedia didn't allow that sort of thing, but flight center did. A really nice travel agent answered the phone and she was very friendly and helpful - her name is Vera, I hope she gets recognized.
Emotions
So far, as the program coordinator has pointed out, my emotions have been roller coaster-ing. I'm frantically tying up loose ends in Vancouver and trying to figure out what I need to bring to Japan and what I need to do before leaving... I was anticipating the leave time to be 19 or 20th, but I lost 2 days (it's a lot! to mentally prepare myself..) :( I'm feeling afraid and somewhat anxious... Mostly about whether or not I can live up to the position that they've hired me for. I still have one week left in Vancouver to catch up with all my friends and to review a bit of my C++ and hopefully read up on some OpenCV (seems like difficult stuff though) (and study Japanese too). I'm trying to keep my thoughts in the positive range, to be more optimistic about things.
Tomorrow I'm picking up my passport with the visa... Not sure what else needs to be done downtown... Hopefully the Tru Optical will call me to pick up my glasses... (the glasses I'm not sure will look good on me T_T, why am I such an irrational being?!!?)
updates later, maybe one right before I leave since I've heard it takes sometime for internet to be set up in Japan. Bye~ (my posts are bit boring, just blocks and blocks of text, I'll try to add some type of picture next time :P)
Bess
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Update
Waiting period Mar 11 - April... 23rd(?)
After the earthquake came a period of angst where I waited for the travel restrictions to be lifted in my area so I could go to Japan. At that time, I was thinking a lot, I found myself constantly looking up news about the radiation levels etc. I also thought about how I didn't really have a back up plan if I didn't get to go. The only back up plan i really had was to stay in Vancouver, take a course, hang out with friends and perhaps volunteer somewhere.. But the idea of not going to Japan in the end made me sort of depressed. :P During this period I discovered reddit, more specifically reddit/r/japan. It's a pretty neat place where people post up to date links related to .. Japan. I found out there that the travel advisories were lifted for my region, it was a great day.
Japan Co-op Training week May 2 - May 5
The week I met all of the other students going to Japan for co-op! Everyone was super nice and it was great meeting people who were all in the same situation as I was after the earthquake too. A lot of the questions I had were answered during this week. A lot of useful information was provided during this week. Some highlights include:
- the tea ceremony in the nitobe gardens at UBC - We had to kneel for the longest time, and many of us lost feeling in our legs afterwards. Women in kimonos served us tea, it was sort of bitter, looked like matcha green tea. I think I would've enjoyed it more if I wasn't sick. That way it would've tasted better (olfactory sense) instead of just tasting the bitterness of it..
- Lunch at the consulate.. general of Japan's house. We all introduced ourselves in Japanese and partially English all dressed in business attire. The lunch provided was epic, hoping to eat more of this in Japan. The house was beautiful too.
cons of the week: I was sick... Sounded like a frog the entire week,couldn't entirely taste the food during the lunch and I regret not taking any pictures. (which ultimately makes my blog a tad bit boring to read)
Today May 6th 2011
I went downtown to submit my visa application after I received my CoE on Thursday. I went downtown to the consulate's office after my eye exam and choosing my frames.. I arrived right at 12pm when the office was closing for an hour (lunch break probably) =_= so I had to lounge around downtown for an hour.
I'll try to update more often soon otherwise I'm just prone to forget most of what happened and end up not blogging about it at all. Just that this week has been hectic and I've been feeling under the weather.
Next time I blog will probably be right before I leave or something!
またね！
After the earthquake came a period of angst where I waited for the travel restrictions to be lifted in my area so I could go to Japan. At that time, I was thinking a lot, I found myself constantly looking up news about the radiation levels etc. I also thought about how I didn't really have a back up plan if I didn't get to go. The only back up plan i really had was to stay in Vancouver, take a course, hang out with friends and perhaps volunteer somewhere.. But the idea of not going to Japan in the end made me sort of depressed. :P During this period I discovered reddit, more specifically reddit/r/japan. It's a pretty neat place where people post up to date links related to .. Japan. I found out there that the travel advisories were lifted for my region, it was a great day.
Japan Co-op Training week May 2 - May 5
The week I met all of the other students going to Japan for co-op! Everyone was super nice and it was great meeting people who were all in the same situation as I was after the earthquake too. A lot of the questions I had were answered during this week. A lot of useful information was provided during this week. Some highlights include:
- the tea ceremony in the nitobe gardens at UBC - We had to kneel for the longest time, and many of us lost feeling in our legs afterwards. Women in kimonos served us tea, it was sort of bitter, looked like matcha green tea. I think I would've enjoyed it more if I wasn't sick. That way it would've tasted better (olfactory sense) instead of just tasting the bitterness of it..
- Lunch at the consulate.. general of Japan's house. We all introduced ourselves in Japanese and partially English all dressed in business attire. The lunch provided was epic, hoping to eat more of this in Japan. The house was beautiful too.
cons of the week: I was sick... Sounded like a frog the entire week,couldn't entirely taste the food during the lunch and I regret not taking any pictures. (which ultimately makes my blog a tad bit boring to read)
Today May 6th 2011
I went downtown to submit my visa application after I received my CoE on Thursday. I went downtown to the consulate's office after my eye exam and choosing my frames.. I arrived right at 12pm when the office was closing for an hour (lunch break probably) =_= so I had to lounge around downtown for an hour.
I'll try to update more often soon otherwise I'm just prone to forget most of what happened and end up not blogging about it at all. Just that this week has been hectic and I've been feeling under the weather.
Next time I blog will probably be right before I leave or something!
またね！
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