Monthly Archives: August 2016

002 – My Five Steps For Preparing to Leave

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I’m sitting at my desk, air conditioning on full blast behind me in Athens, Greece. I’m reading over my acceptance letter from Sophia University, glee filling up my chest with a weird tingling sensation. I have so much excitement running through my body that I could jump up and dance like a maniac right now, and I haven’t even had my first cup of coffee for the day yet. 

Has this ever happened to you?

It’s the end of August. If you’re going on exchange, or you’ve ever gone on a trip, I’m sure you can relate, anyway. Maybe not the dancing part. Or the excessive caffeine consumption part.

This post is mainly about preparations for your exchange trip (with a focus on Japan, of course), and how to deal with the anticipation, as well as coming to terms with the fact that you’re, well, leaving. I always find this part tough, especially because of my aforementioned New Year’s resolution: take the most indirect route to your destination possible. I have some very specific packing to do, but based on past travel experience and what have you, I hope some of what I have to say will be useful. And again, you can just get a chuckle out of the struggle I face.

Step 1: Wise words from Douglas Adams himself:

dont-panic-and-carry-a-towel

When Arthur Dent was suddenly pulled away from his home planet (which was subsequently demolished to make way for a hyperspace freeway) and forced to go on a long, arduous journey with Ford Prefect, he was told to do two things to prepare: drink a ton of beer and bring a towel.

While I can’t condone the first one since you’ll be flying and sitting at a high altitude (read: one in the air is two on the ground), the second one rings true with travelers: don’t carry much, but carry something that is simultaneously comforting and useful. Something that might remind you of home if you’re the type who gets homesick, or something for loneliness. I like to carry a little agenda to write little thoughts down in and collect tickets from my travels to help me reflect back on what I’ve been through. If you’re one of them young’uns who grew up with computers and mobile devices, a tablet or a laptop may be a nice option as well. At the end of the day, though, make sure it’s something lightweight. If you’re a backpacker like I am, you don’t want to carry something heavy. And if you hate tablets like I do, you try to find something that can withstand a great deal of punishment.

My weapon of choice is a Lenovo ThinkPad T420. This bad boy was used as the laptop of choice for rentals from my college’s library. It’s battery lasts and it’s build is very strong. It’s not very heavy, and it fits in both my travel and school backpacks, so I can drag it across the world or just down the street to a study group.

As for literal towels: Packtowel Personal Towel by MEC is pretty useful, especially in Japan, where the public washrooms do not usually have paper towels or anything for your face and hands.

Step 2: When packing, take about half of what you think you need. 

A lot of people say this in blogs, to the point that it’s become a sort of stereotype for packing. But I stand by it all the way. I always think I need that extra pair of pants or that one extra shirt that makes me look amazing, just in case I go to some sort of nice function or whatever. But do you really need that extra hat or that whole Nancy Drew set? Chances are, it can stay at home for a year.

The best thing to do when packing is consider where you’re going: are there supermarkets everywhere or just a street market on Wednesday? Consider what you use in your everyday life: is something you use specifically only found in your country? Can you live without it? If you’re like me and you’re a larger size, local stores might not carry clothes that fit you. I know that here in Greece, I’ve been stocking up on a couple extra pairs of pants that fit me, since I am curvy and have trouble finding my size in Asia. But I’m not bringing many shirts since my size actually exists in Japan. I’m also bringing stuff I prefer like stick deodorant, a small toothpaste and toothbrush for my stopovers (all five of them in the next two weeks) and a few small gifts for friends and acquaintances: in Japan, it’s customary to give a small gift when first meeting somebody or when helped by a family/friend, it’s called omiyage. I’ve given small Canadian flags and things like that in the past, but this time around, I figured I’d bring small Greek trinkets like koboloi and seashells and whatnot, they go a long way in helping you acculturate. 🙂

Step 3: Get your visa and paperwork ready! 

So you’ve been accepted, and you finally have the tools to go get your visa set up. If you’re staying longer than three months in a country for the purpose of study, you typically need a student visa. As I recounted before, I made a sweaty trip to the Japanese embassy here in Athens. I filled out the application form, gave them my COE, my Canadian passport and a photocopy of the acceptance letter from Sophia. In return, they told me to wait a week and gave me a 23-page booklet entitled, “Guide to Living in Japan”. It’s actually a nice guide, it covers what to do in an emergency, how to approach your neighbours, so on and so on.

The visa will gain you entry to Japan as a resident/student. When you land, they fingerprint you, take your picture, and issue you an ID card that you must carry at all times (all of this was also explained in the guide). If you want to work while studying in Japan, you need to fill out an additional form called, “Application for Permission to Engage in Activity Other Than That Permitted Under the Status of Residence Previously Granted”, which you hand in after you land in Japan.

At the end of the day, everybody’s paperwork will be different, depending on where you’re going. The best thing that you can do is make sure you’re organized and informed on what needs doing. I keep all my stuff in a standard-issue file folder that I picked up here in Greece (they’re not too creative when it comes to stationary), and keep it all tabbed and ready.

Step  4: Say Goodbye 

Now, this is what I did back in April. I was about to leave for a summer in Europe, and I knew I was not coming back to Vancouver for a long time. So I packed a day early, made sure it was all ready to go, then I did what I love to do in that city: I went to a cafe and I drank coffee with some of my favourite people.

They wIMG_2304ere sweet and made me these adorable cupcakes, which spell out ‘GANBARE’ in Japanese, which means ‘Do your best!’ Shout out to my homie Meghan, who baked these goodies. It was so sweet and I was flattered.

After drinking all the coffee and enjoying all the friends, I went home and stayed up all night with my little sister, binge-watching our favourite TV shows and playing video games, since I had to leave at 5 o’clock in the morning. It is a fond memory I can look back on, and also made me ten times more suspicious-looking when I went over the US border a few hours later by bus.

Next week, I will have my last day in Athens, after having lived here for the last three months. Again, I will do what I love to do: walk around, drink my coffee, go say goodbye to my favourite people, and make sure my beloved backpack is all ready to go.

And then I will cackled with glee as I flee from this disgusting summer heat.

Step 5: Let the Culture Shock Hit You Like a Sledge Hammer

This is weird advice. I realize that. But I think it’ll be useful for you. Bear with me here.

When you leave, stuff isn’t always gonna go your way. You can prepare for months and months, using algorithms and boolean searches to try to predetermine how to act and what to do and all this stuff, but from the moment you land: you don’t know how it’s gonna go. Stuff isn’t in your control, and that is both a scary and exhilarating notion.

Stuff is gonna be different, your everyday life is nonexistent. Replacing it is a new life that will be wonderful and unexpected, but getting used to your new surroundings can be a real challenge. Your very beliefs will be challenged. So in this step, I advise you: Stop fighting what’s happening. Be yourself, but try to be open to change. Culture shock is gonna hit you, what with the new language and rituals, and you will feel isolated and weird. The best way to combat this is to be okay with the fact that you are going to do a lot of growing this upcoming year, and the only way to let that happen is to acknowledge this change and growth and come to terms with it. Listen to music, meditate, do what you gotta do, but try to remember to breathe and relax.

Example: When I was last in Japan, I was called out a lot for being white. I imagine this will come up a lot again in the coming year, not just for me but for all exchange students of different backgrounds. With my anthropological training, I accept that there is no such thing as race within the human race, just minute differences. However, in Japan, that is not a popular belief. It clashed with my own, and all I wanted to do was prove to every Japanese person that I met that I was human like them. But with this endeavour came frustration and tension. It just wasn’t a good time. Every time a Japanese person freaked out because I could speak in sentences and used chopsticks, I would be annoyed and insulted. Recently, when this happens, I’ve changed my approach. I have finally accepted that those Japanese people have been raised to believe a certain way, and it is not my place to impose my beliefs on them. I can show them who I am as a person and leave it up to them to think what they want, but it’s not something that I can control.

So let the culture shock hit you like a hammer. At first, you might feel like it’s breaking you down, but trust me, that’s a good thing. After you’re broken down, you’ll build yourself back up, stronger and more savvy than ever before. Also, maybe even a little more attractive~. ;D

So do what you need to do, peeps. Have coffee with friends, pack your bags as carefully or loosely as you want, go to that one last party before you leave for a fun year abroad. Either way, you’ll have a blast, and you’ll learn a lot!

Those be my five steps! I pick up my visa in two days, then I leave on September 1st. As I mentioned before, I’m not leaving directly for Tokyo. Ehhh, but we’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

001 – Paperwork in 40°C Weather

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I’m marching up one of the main streets of Chalandri, doing my best not to twist my ankles on the broken sidewalks. Cicadas surround me, seemingly screaming at me from the trees. Squinting through the haze of the Greek summer heat, I see a white flag with a big red circle in the middle of it, waving like a wet towel over the Embassy of Japan. I clutch the bundle of documents in my hand, praying that my sweaty palms have not damaged them… 

Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Hi, I’m Vikki. I’m pursuing a double major in cultural anthropology and Japanese culture and language at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. I am just beginning my third year, which will be spent on an exchange year in Tokyo, at Sophia University (上智大学).

This blog will appeal to you if…

  1. You’re thinking about going on exchange yourself.
  2. You like anthropology/Asian studies/gender and sexuality studies.
  3. You’re a super cool person and like to read stuff written by a reasonably together writer/student.
  4. You need a laugh at the end of a long day, reading about me stumbling through yet another new culture.

I’ll try to make this blog informative as I can as I go. It’ll also help me out, writing down my experiences. This ain’t my first rodeo, but it will certainly be my longest. Before I get this party started, let me give you a little background on who’s writing this thing.

I am a Greek-Canadian dual citizen who worked in retail for five years before deciding she should probably go get a Bachelor’s degree or something. So now I’m in my third year, pursuing the aforementioned double major. It was always my dream to attend school in Japan, as I taught myself the language’s basics when I was twelve. I’m hoping to get into research, preferably about gender and sexuality in Japanese media.

Eh, but we’ll get to that later. Where’s the fun in telling you everything in one go anyway?

For now, let’s start at the beginning.

May, 2016. I had just left Canada and landed in Reykjavik, Iceland. Why? Well, I was on my way to London and Icelandair asked me if I wanted a free stopover. I said, sure, why not, put me down for four days. Turned out to be four days full of geological beauty, cheap outdoor thermal baths, and wonderful new friends. Then I hit up London, Paris, and Brussels, mostly visiting friends and sightseeing. It was fabulous. I’m making a video of it, so I’ll save it for when I post it when it’s done.

Anyway, I then came here to Athens. I thought it was important, to come back to the motherland to see my family. I also made a New Year’s resolution to take the most indirect route possible to get to any destinations I had. So I had that done. Again, the video will show it in detail, but let me just say it was the best resolution I’ve ever made. It was well worth keeping.

Now, as far as the paperwork is concerned, being in Greece has made the entire process very interesting. Most of it has been online work, thankfully. When I was in Vancouver, I got all the medical physicals and stuff done, so I was prepared. Also found out that I don’t have TB, which was cool. (Why they asked me for a chest x-ray is still beyond me.) However, I did have to receive some documents here before I could get my visa application done. I was also away for two weeks on a road/camping trip with a friend through a bunch more countries, and it got a little scary waiting. Why, you ask? Because Greece: total mess when it comes to snail mail.

Also a mess at everything else that would be convenient in any other country.

I digress. Despite all of my stressing, documents showed up, including my acceptance letter and the Certificate of Eligibility (COE) (the thing that makes the entire process way smoother and faster), and that’s where we come back to my sweaty trip to the embassy. I landed back in Athens last night from Amsterdam and went first thing this morning, dressed in the lightest yet most decent-looking outfit I had lying around. I’ve been backpacking, which means I’ve looked like a homeless person for months. So it felt weird strutting down the street in a decent blouse and nice pants. I entered, stumbling through security with my limited Greek, which has endowed me with the eloquence of a five year-old, before finally being able to speak Japanese and sound like an adult again. The air conditioning was a welcome relief as well, not to mention the quiet, although the cicadas’ cries still rang in my ears like a fire bell.

Let me tell you, reader, the visa process itself is pretty easy. If you get a COE, which your university takes care of for you, it’s a cake walk. I can’t speak for everyone’s experiences since I am in Greece, but the embassy here only needs a week to process. In the past, I have also gotten pretty big visas, especially for China, and it was similarly straightforward. It helps to have a plan though. As soon as you know what you want, research and set up for the future as much as you can, especially when it comes to finances and logistics, like where to get your visa picture taken and lining up appointments. I find making lists of all of the stuff you have to do ahead of time very helpful. It’s also very satisfying to strike each item off of said list.

I hope it’s going well for my fellow exchange students. I’m sort of cut off out here, being in a country in economic turmoil where people barely get to go on exchange. I mean, there is Erasmus, but still, I’m unbelievably lucky.

Anyway, I better wrap this up, I got studying to do. It’s exactly two weeks until I leave Greece, and I need to review my Japanese grammar and whatever. And before you ask; no, I am not going directly to Tokyo. That would be ridiculous.

Where am I going?

Let’s save that for next time, shall we?