Journey to Japan

945am: On the car to airport. Later, will have friends coming to send us off.
10pm: reached airport. Took photos talked to Darren's parents.
10.30pm: shawn and tom came for us. Saved me from being alone while Darren is with his 'WonderGirls' :)
11.10pm:They left. Darren still with his friends. I'm talking phone with my dear parents and my dear dear:)
12.20am: rushing in departure gate. First time meeting so many Japanese at a time. Excited.
1.10am: flight departed punctually.
1.30am: Feeling so excited abt the flight tv in front of me. :)
2am: Can't fight against the Z monster.
5am: Woke up for bfast. Enjoyed the in-flight sunrise.

7.11am: Reached kansai airport safely

Proceeding to the Immigration @ Kansai Airport (Not allowed to take photo further inside)

Photos Outside the Airport (Temperature = 10 degC)

A Japanese waiting for his flight.. T_T (I wonder why his hand like this...)

All Ready to Fly

Yesterday we (Me and Darren) were successfully obtained the Japan Student Visa. It is eligible for us to stay for one year in Japan. It is really faster than expected..

Tada! Our visas.

Straight after the collection of visa, I went to China Town to change another sum of SGD to JPY. I am all ready for the flight to Japan in 14 more hours time. It was really a good experience.

Today I will finalize everything I had and I am ready to go.

Confirmed Itinerary

Yesterday, myself and Darren went to Japanese Embassy at Nassim Road to apply for our visa. We went out early in the morning to find the way, and worried that if we go later we will have long queue.

We arrived at the embassy at around 10am and the guard gave us the pass, and took queue numbers, and I was quite impressed by their efficiency. This is Singapore. =) The happiest news that I knew is that, Our Visas will be ready on 18 March (Thurs)! Wow! It is totally unexpected! Thank God for his arrangement.

Now, finally, and finally.. The itinerary is confirmed:
Flight SQ618
Venue: Changi Airport (T3)
Time: 1.10am - 7.20am

Now travelling documents are ready, now what I have to do is to pack things up. Ready for Japan!

Documents arrived!

As stated in Darren's blog, we have received our CESR certificate and we are ready to apply for the visa. We are all ready now and when I arrived at SG on Monday, we could go apply for it on Tuesday.

When we go there, we will take our flight tickets and try to negotiate with the Embassy people to process slightly faster in view of our situations. Hopefully all go well.

Koji has also agreed to accommodate us with the possible change of flight dates. Now we are not so worry about the time constraints already.

Prepare for the adventure and excitement after those mundane stuffs in Singapore!

Finally...

As stated.. FINALLY..... the CESR documents were received by Osaka University!
Ms. Sasaki Yoko has made a call to Darren on Wednesday (10 March) morning told him that she will be sending us the CESR to Singapore and it will take ideally 2 days.

If the letter really reached in 2 days, that means, it will arrive today (Friday, 12 March). Latest will be arriving on Monday. I will be reaching SG on Monday evening, which means we will be going to apply visa on Tuesday morning (16 March), 3 days for visa = 19 March.

However, we will try to ask for special consideration due to our flight ticket, I hope we could really get special attention by the Embassy.

Really want to appreciate Darren who is all the way helping me during the process and also willing to offer his place for me in these few days.

I truly hope after this, we will ENJOY our SEP over there at Osaka!!

Travel plan: 26 - 30 May @ Kyoto!
Remaining days to Osaka: 7 days

Franco

Remaining days to wait before do something...

I have counted the remaining days.
We have 13 days left to Osaka.
If we subtract the 2 days needed for the COE to arrive Singapore (EMS), we have 11 days left;
If we subtract the 3 days of visa application, we have 8 days left;
If we consider the 4 weekends (Sat and Sun), which are the non-working days for issuing of Visa and posting of COE, we have 4 more days left;

Provided that the COE really takes 2 days to arrive SG, if we allow 1 or 2 days offset for both COE and Visa. We have 1 or 2 days left to wait.

We can only wait at most until Next Monday（三月八日） for the CESR..
IF NOT..... SIAO LIAO LA!!!!!!!!
えらいごっちゃや～

The end.

Written with pissed condition,
Franco

New Blog by Darren Siow

I am so glad to announce the long-waited blog set up by Darren Siow (my exchange partner to Osaka University).

The link is:
http://sushilandexchange.blogspot.com

Hope our blogs could not only inspire you, enlighten you, but transform and change your life!

Well, I have returned to my hometown (Malaysia) as a result of unable to wait for the CoE (As mentioned in Darren's blog). Somehow, got very pissed anxious about the Visa. Well, in short, the thing I am doing now is WAIT.

以上です。
フランコ