It turned August yesterday, and that only means one thing - I'm being told by everyone 'you're leaving this month!'. By.Everyone. T___T Of course I'm super mega excited, but there's a few things to do still! I figured now would be a good time to list through all of the prep I've been doing.
Dorm acceptance
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| The Japanese Embassy in London! |
I have a place to liiiiiiive~ It's called Zelkova House/欅寮 (Keyaki ryo) and it's referred to as a bit of a 'prison' with extreme security measures.. eep! Roommates are also going to be a thing I'll have to get used to. Being a university student in England, I've got used to student accommodation - in first year I lived in university owned accommodation, and in second year moved into a shared postgraduate house (although I'm an undergrad), so housemates are a part of my daily life. However, we don't really do roommates here! I really hope we get along!
Visa application
I went on down to London and applied for my Visa,and it's arrived safely. All that has to be done is fill in a form, take your Certificate of Eligibility and a few other things to the embassy, pay a fee and hand it in. It was a bit scary though, because there's a security guard and metal detectors to get through as soon as you step through the door! I'm glad it's done now though.
Booking flights
Although it seems simple, this seriously took the longest of all. It took me seven hours to book a flight for me and my classmate. As I submitted my payment details online, the website glitched and I was left in 'did my payment go through or not?!' limbo, as the airline said it didn't, whereas my bank's fraud department messaged me asking if it was really me. After phoning the bank and going through three people, they promptly hung up the phone on me, so I had to go down there in person. It also turned out my debit and credit cards had my name spelled wrong on them, and after this I got another hour of waiting on the phone to try and book the tickets... surely no-one else could be this unlucky :')
Packing and Planning!
Luckily my friend who I'll be travelling with has booked our hotel for the first two days before dorms open at a ryokan in Asakusa. I've been talking to some American girls online who are going to ICU too, and we're all going to stay in the same hotel! It'll be nice to have some friendly faces on our first few days at university.
I haven't quite started packing yet, but I've bought some nice new clothes and a gorgeous camera (the Fujifilm SL1000, for those who're interested) to take to Japan with me. I've been puzzling over what omiyage to take too, but most importantly... started sorting out ~concert tickes~! Being the huge K-pop fan I am, I'm hopefully going to see SHINee /and/ SMTown Live in October, where I think I'll cry a river of tears over how perfect SHINee, f(x) and Henry are. My poor heart won't be able to take it </3
Still to be done is to actually pack my stuff, which means buying a few more things, and trying to remember some Japanese, maybe.
