Kyoto Holiday

From the 8th to the 16th November, I had my first holiday at the Bohme Academy. I originally planned to travel to Seoul in Korea, but it became too expensive and complicated to plan with little notice, so I instead chose to stay in Japan and visit Kyoto for 3 days. I had 2 main reasons I wanted to visit Kyoto; the Golden Pavilion temple Kinkaku-ji and of course...the 'mecca' for many, many gaming fans- the Nintendo Japan HQ building!

So I booked a 3-night stay in a hostel on Booking.com. The International Guest House Tani House was cheap enough (6000yen for 3 nights, about £30) and had good reviews, so I went with that.
To get to Kyoto from Ichinomiya I took the train to get to Nagoya and then rode the Shinkansen (Bullet train). It was expensive compared to the normal trains (another 6000yen each way) but still better than British Rail prices haha (and better service/cleaner trains!).

The best part of travelling in Kyoto is the bus service. It can get pretty crowded, but basically the buses have a flat rate of 230yen for adults (just over £1) and you can stay on the bus as long as you want. It was a 40min journey from the Kyoto station to the Tani house (which took me a while to figure out, as google said to get the bus from the Emmachi Bus Station, but confusingly here, normal bus stops are called 'bus stations'. So I wandered around for about 30mins looking for a big bus station building...) and yeah, the cost was still only 230yen. You also pay as you get off the bus, and the machine gives change!
I wish First would take a look at this...

On the first day I took the train to Jujo and followed Google's directions to the glorious Nintendo HQ buldings. My heart skipped a beat when I could see them over the other buildings, haha!

After being told I wasn't allowed in to either building (well I had to at least try!) I decided to grab some lunch from the restaurant across the road from them. While I ate (about 12ish) some employees came as well! I wish I'd been brave enough to chat with some of them, but I don't trust my Japanese level that much yet and I didn't want to bother them. If it had been Miyamoto of course I would have jumped at the chance to talk to him!

After that thrill ride, I returned to the main part of Kyoto, and visited the Kyoto Tower. There so many gift shops and souvenir stands I could feel my wallet emptying by just entering! I got a few trinkets, then relaxed in Starbucks. They do an excellent 'crunchy toffee' latte here just now, with cornflake sprinkles. It's pretty tasty!

The next day I went to visit the Kinkaku-ji, the temple with the Golden Pavilion. It was a cloudy day, so my pictures weren't great, but it was still great to learn about the temple and do fun things like get my fortune told and taste some good mochi! I also visited some of the surrounding shrines.

After that, I visited a nearby Cat Cafe, Nekokaigi. It was so relaxing, and the cats were super-cute and really soft! I think many people in Japan bathe their cats, and you can really tell the difference!

                                                  

I will definitely visit Kyoto again. While I did achieve my two primary goals, there is so much more to see there. I fancy going around the Christmas period, but we'll see!

Shops and 'combini', money

One of the first things we did once I got here was go to the local 'combini', ie convenience store. There are loads of them dotted about Japan, and my nearest is just 2 mins walk on the same street. The 3 biggest chains I have seen so far are Family Mart, Lawsons and 7-11. I got my first 'bento' and the shop assistant actually microwaved it for me :) I also got some oreo daifuku, which is like mochi with icecream inside! Very tasty.
When paying, you can hand over change or put it in a small tray by the till. I wasn't sure why, and thought it might by a hygiene thing or some polite custom, so I looked it up. There's not really a solid answer, but this article has some ideas: Change Trays

You also get a lot of coins and change here, as the notes only get used for 1000 yen and more (I think of them as like tenners, but they are a lot closer to fivers in value). You get change in similar denominations to UK currency: 500 yen, 100 yen, 50 yen, 10 yen, 5 yen and 1 yen coins.  

Flight and airport stuff

Well this week has been busy! And I only have fleeting access to internet, so I will have to post a bunch of stuff in one go, then there might not be anything for a while. Sorry!

Well the flight went fine, it was a long journey!
When I got to Aberdeen airport in the morning (the 2nd Oct) it was incredibly foggy, so much so that we couldn't see anything a few metres ahead of us in the car! I thought it might delay my flight, but it didn't! It actually left early o_o

It was a quick 2 hour flight to Frankfurt, where I then got lost and nearly left the airport :/ I then had to go through security again, which was an hour. I wasn't fussed though, as I mentioned before I had a 5 hour layover to burn! And I got chatting to some people in the queue so it wasn't so bad. Afterwards I just wandered the shops and cafes until my flight came though.

On the 12 hour flight to Japan I just wasted time watching movies (Ted 2 and Terminator Genisys) and playing my 3DS, listening to music and sleeping. Since there was a tablet with movies I didn't feel the need to use my laptop, though I heard something about there being Wi-fi on the plane somehow..? I also had a nice meal on the plane, beef goulash and green tea noodles with wasabi! It was interesting. All the announcements were in 3 languages, first German, then English, then Japanese. I tried to decipher the Japanese ones as I heard them for a bit of practise! xD

So we touched down in Nagoya around 8:15am. I had to go though customs and immigration, it was a bit of queueing but not too long, as they gave us forms to fill out while still on the plane. Once I exited the building, it was lovely and sunny! And HOT. The teaching rep that met me at the airport told me they'd been having a heatwave the past few days, and yeah, I felt it! We travelled to Ichinomiya via the airport link train (Meitetsu), it was nice. The seats rotated before we got on for some reason. It was a great journey though, got to see some nice scenery.

Once I got to my flat, I just conked out. I was jetlagged though and only slept 4 hours xD

Getting ready to fly!

It's gonna be a 2 hour flight to Frankfurt straight from Aberdeen, then a 5 hour layover in Frankfurt, then a 12 hour flight to Nagoya... x_x (with Lufthansa)

So today was about  some last minute things. I'm mainly taking clothes with me to Japan, as I'm sure I'm bigger than most of the females that go there haha. Also my PS2 and WiiU- they are wrapped up tight! The most important thing though is my computer. I went out to get a case for it today, got a nice basic one from Currys/PC World, I had to remember the measurement (17" for mine) is diagonally across the screen size, like resolution is. Most cases were only 15" for some reason.

I also got a nice weather update from my contact at Bohme, it seems there is a weird heatwave going on both here and in Nagoya! 20 degrees celsuis there! So I'll wear light-ish clothing. I hope it's at least a little warmer generally over there too...!

Travelling is easy with Tech!

I've spent the last week or so looking at the place I'm going to! It still amazes me how even about 10 years ago travelling across the world was much more difficult.
Thanks to the internet (mainly Google) I have seen the place I will be working, looked at the streets nearby, looked up local restaurants and shopping centres, seen a great list of things to do in the area and more!

Most of the trip has been planned without me needing to leave my house. I love technology!
All that really remains is for me to pack. I am not looking forward to that....how do you decide what you will need over a year that you can't get in a foreign country? I'm planning on taking mostly clothes and games haha.

Please let me know if you have any recommendations!

It's official; I got a job in Japan!

I received an email at 2am on Friday night (Saturday morning) from the Bohme English Academy. I got the job I applied for with them! It's a job teaching in a school, mostly primary school children with some adult classes as well.
The school is located in the Aichi prefecture of Japan, around 2-3 hours from Tokyo by train. I start on the 6th of October, which is only a month away! (I will fly there a few days before though) The contract for employment is for a year.

I'm so excited and relieved. I applied for around 10 places since I received my TEFL certificate, and only got to the interview stage with 2 companies. I am also nervous though, I have just a month to plan my goodbyes and get my affairs in order!


Things I have done:
I renewed my passport, as I had a few months left on it but obviously need it to last until October 2016. They add on any extra months at the end of the passport's life though!

Things I need to do:

• Check if I need any vaccines with doctor. I got some vaccines on my trip to Malaysia last year.
• Let my bank know
• Let the relevant goverment sectors know, such as HMRC and DWP
• Tell my phone company, I am currently on a rolling 1 month contract though so will probably just need to cancel it.

I won't need to give any notice for work as I work with an agency. So one less thing to worry about! 

TEFL Courses

Teaching English as a Foreign Language

When I first started researching going to Japan to teach English, the first thing I was recommended to do by various Internet sources was to get myself TEFL qualified.
It isn't a necessity, but it is a popular qualification and it is required if you wish to teach classes at a school or English teaching institute in Japan.

There are different kinds of TEFL courses, and many institutes in the UK (and around the world of course) that award qualifications.

The courses are usually sorted by length, from around 20 hours to over 150 hours. The standard qualification time most desired by employers is 120 hours or more.
After much research, I chose to take the 120 hour course from tefl.org.uk. The main reasons I chose this course were:

• They had several dedicated teachers around Scotland and a tutor right here in my home town of Aberdeen :)
• The course was not too cheap, and not too expensive. Too cheap and I feared it might not be properly accredited; recommended authorities to look out for are the British Accreditation Council (BAC) and the Open & Distance Learning Quality Council (ODLQC). The course was around £250, which seems like the average cost for institues within the UK.
• There were good reviews generally on sites around the internet (I just Google'd each TEFL course provider with 'reviews'. Some had great-looking sites but less than favourable reviews...It's always good to check what past students have said about the course provider.

With tefl.org.uk, you get 6 months to complete the 120 hour course. It is 100 hours online and 20 hours over a weekend doing the in-person class. It took me around 3-4 months to complete the course, while most of the time doing a full-time job. You also get some extras, for example tefl.org.uk offers free access to their jobs section for life along with some free materials such as course books and videos.
At the end of the course, I did the in-person segment over the weekend with 8 other people (and instructor). The in-person section was really useful, fun and challenging, and gave a sampling of all sorts of pieces from the online part of the course. It mainly covered group work, using games to teach and presenting in front of others.

I now have my TEFL certificate, a good reference from the in-person course tutor and lots of materials to use with students. I feel like I know plenty about English grammar and techniques for teaching it to non-English-speaking students.

I definitely recommend getting TEFL qualified!

- Millie
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-The Quest Begins-

Hello everyone! こんにちわみんな！

I finally got around to making a blog to keep people up-to-date on my progress in getting to teach English in Japan. I am already using Facebook for this, but I decided a blog would be great too as:
1. It will be easy to find as the years pass, rather than digging through Facebook history
2. It might be helpful to have all the info in one place for others who are thinking of doing a similar journey
3. It's public so who knows, I might just get famous ohohoho~

Anyway, as I am actually about halfway through things, I will make a few posts that describe what I've already done over the next few days. Hopefully I can make some sort of archive system. But for now, I am passing my CV around GaijinPot, so wish me luck! 

- Millie
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