Tokyo: arrivals and decisions

Due to the shinkansen timings, I arrive rather early in Tokyo. Basically I had to check out of the hotel by 10am, and I'd already exhausted the very limited nearby delights of Hamamatsu, so there wasn't much reason to hang around for long. It looked like waiting for the 11am shinkansen would get me there at late lunchtime, which sounded like I could easily end up very hungry. There's typically a certain amount of faff before you can really set about finding a meal; I wouldn't want to do it with all my luggage (especially given how cramped restaurants tend to be in big cities, and Japan in particular), and I wasn't sure there'd be much near my hotel.

So I decide to rock up before 10am and get the first train possible. In fact, this turns out to be an extra-express train with only a handful of stops, so I'm in Tokyo by 11.40 and a bit stuck. Previous hotels have let me check in early, but I suspect this one (which seems more modest) probably won't. On the other hand, I can't see anywhere tempting to eat in the station, and I don't want to leave because I'll lose the ability to use my shinkansen ticket to reach the hotel if I exit the barriers. Plus, I'd have to pay to store my luggage, if I could even find an empty coin locker, which seems frankly unlikely.

I'm staying in the Grand House Chang Tee Hotel, which at least sounds impressive, even though it's a modest building on a narrow side street in a suburb (Ikebukuro).

Time travelling III

So my efforts to pre-adjust towards Japan time crashed and burned last night. Although I'd been up since 4.30am and had eaten several hours early, and was really quite tired by the evening, it didn't quite work out somehow.

One issue is that I almost feel like I was too tired; the combination of lack of sleep and waking early maybe meant that my rhythms were way off. Another is that, I suspect mostly because of lack of sleep, I was unusually anxious all day and struggling with mood. This, coupled with the feeling that it was important to get to sleep (partly because of adjusting time, partly simply because I really wanted to shake off the damned anxiety) meant I was quite stressed as I tried to get to sleep.

It also doesn't help that I live on a main road, in an area apparently full of boy racers, in a set of flats with iron steps that resonate gongishly whenever anyone walks up and down outside, with interior and exterior walls apparently made of tissue paper. At the best of times I can hear my neighbours snoring when I go to bed. When most people aren't even thinking of going to sleep, well... that's a lot of background noise. And I'm not good with background noise, even with my white noise on in the background.

So what happened was, I lay in bed for two hours, drifting repeatedly towards sleep and then bouncing back again. Eventually I got up, read for half an hour, had some water and went back to bed. I eventually got to sleep around midnight and slept until 6am. Not an absolutely and total loss, but it wiped out my gains for the week. Getting up one hour early I can do any time!

I'm sticking to early mealtimes, and trying to stay in low light from the earliest point in the evening. Unfortunately that's about 6pm rather than about 2pm, which would be better. And I'll try to gently drift towards bedtime.

We'll see if things go any better tonight. So far this plan isn't looking so great.

More Time Travelling

My attempt to adjust to Japan Time continues, this time by getting up at 4.30am. Unfortunately I stayed up until nearly midnight, which means very little sleep, but apparently (according to SleepCycle, anyway) I woke from shallow sleep. Whatever happened, I've been pretty much completely functional all day, just rather tired.

However, I have found myself being quite negative and really quite anxious. I'm sure some of this comes just from the effort of preparing for a one-month holiday abroad and all the stuff that needs doing. On the other hand, there's good evidence that lack of sleep genuinely triggers anxiety, and that "naturally anxious" people (which would tend to include me and my stress/depression issues) are worse affected. So I'm really, really hoping that an early night tonight will beat off the worst of that.

One problem with this strategy is that it plays havoc with mealtimes. The working day is really not set up for people to want two meals during working hours, but unfortunately that's kind of what I need. Today I took half an hour for lunch at 10.30 and another half at 4pm for tea. The big problem here is really that you don't get a midday break, which means the day is extremely long and tiring. Tomorrow I'm aiming to have lunch just before work starts, and then have my tea as a late lunchbreak.

I basically have no idea whether this is a sensible plan. It's somewhat inconvenient, it makes mealtimes complicated, all my colleagues think I'm loony, and I don't know whether it'll make any difference to the jetlag. We can but try. I suppose I'll know for next time...

On the plus side, I've now done almost all my packing - just need to tuck that computer and phone away before I go.

Time Travelling

So I'm due to fly out to Fukuoka on Saturday. Annoyingly this will involve stopping in both the Netherlands and Korea, which adds about eight hours to the whole journey, since I'm supposed to spend at least five in Schiphol. I've heard it's one of the better airports to wait around in, which presumably means it is merely a soulless corporate void of pointless duty-free chocolates and watches aimed at the sort of people who should probably be in prison, where people with enormous amounts of money can occupy themselves buying things they don't need to stave off boredom, rather than actively hostile to your existence.

Also I heard they offer half an hour of free wi-fi, which in a situation like this is equivalent to offering half an hour of free seating. Apparently they have upgraded to offer unlimited free low-fi internet, which should be fine.

Annoyingly my stopover is just less than the length everyone agrees is the minimum needed to go into town and explore, so I get to spend the maximum possible time stuck in an airport.

Anyway! In preparation, I've started adjusting my body clock to Japan time, which means losing nine hours. In principle, this is much harder than the alternative - staying up late and sleeping in every day is way easier. In practice, I have a job and am obliged to start work at 9am, so actually getting up increasingly early is easier in the sense that it's actually physically possible.

Today wasn't so bad; I was up at 5am and am now enjoying the soft light of just after dawn. It'll get increasingly difficult over the week as I wait until the equivalent of noon for the sun to rise.

I'm also looking forward to confusing my colleagues as I start having lunch mid-morning and then switch to instead having a break for tea in mid-afternoon (only one meal break, after all).

Weather forecast

I know the weather in Fukuoka will be a little different from what I'm used to. My visit to Hong Kong a few years ago was pretty unpleasant to be honest, and I'm expecting something similar for the first few weeks. It's been hot and humid in the southern UK recently, so I ran a quick comparison courtesy of the Met Office.

Just the ten degrees difference then...

I'm very glad I booked to arrive a few days early. Hopefully by the time the Monday rolls around I'll be physically capable of movement.

I have a home!

The school have managed to sort out my living arrangements! They got back to me today with the address and details, including a set of rules. I'm a little concerned about the "thin walls" warning but it's probably no worse than the shared houses I've lived in, and quite possibly better.

Google Maps reckons it's about a 40-minute walk to the school, but that route isn't actually viable because it's across a pavementless bridge. However, I turned up a viable alternative with some digging around on Street View, although I'll only find out how viable once I arrive. Given the weather this time of year...

...I suspect I'll be getting the bus! There's nothing quite like getting to work soaked and sweating after a 40-minute march through rush hour traffic.

Cooking with gas

After continued frustration with insurance companies (short version: don't bother with Direct Line) I had a Monday off in lieu of weekend working. Keeping the old nose to the grindstone, it's actually been a very productive day. After a marathon 2-hour Japanese lesson (with a distressing amount of vocab forgotten) I nipped into STA Travel, where I was able to speak to a human being in person, and get insurance sorted in a matter of ten minutes - most of that reading out loud of obligatory financial regulation stuff. They weren't bothered about some counselling sessions a few months ago provided I wasn't on medication or regular doctors' visits. So yay.

I've also managed to pick up visitors' permits so that Mum & Dad can park the van they're bringing down to collect my stuff, and called in to check about getting some yen. In fact they had them in stock, and it sort of seemed easier just to deal with it rather than have to try and find another time to make the trip, so I did so. Walking back home was a bit alarming, I don't normally carry that sort of cash around with me, though it's not that much in the grand scheme of things. Enough to get me through the first week or so without stressing about cash machines.

Insurance issues

I'm a bit surprised by how many posts I'm coming up with before I even leave. The latest stumbling-block to turn up is what should be a simple step: insurance.

Reasonably enough, Japan doesn't want people turning up without health insurance, and I'm not daft enough to venture overseas for months without both health and possessions insured. Unfortunately, actually getting any is proving a problem. Several companies are unwilling to sell policies lasting more than three months, which puts them right out. Endsleigh sell what appeared to be the perfect thing, a scheme for people going to study abroad - except that it's only available to people studying at degree level, not to full-time students at a language school. I've finally managed to order a couple of quotes and am waiting to receive them.

The other problem is that tricksy "pre-existing conditions" bit. Having had therapy last year, I now have to tick this box everywhere, and even after giving detailed and personal information that highlights how I never even took a day off work, let alone any medication, it still triples the price of insurance. Not helpful.

Fingers crossed, I suppose. If I find out anything useful I'll post it for future reference by anyone in a similar situation.

On the more cheerful side, I've begun very slow packing. I have a lot of books, and usefully these can be packed up and put back more or less where they were, with minimal effect on space. Hopefully this kind of ambient packing will leave the final stages much less stressful, as well as helping me gauge just how much packing stuff I'll need. Another dozen or so printer paper boxes, for a start!

Confirmation

After a few rather fretty days, I've finally heard back from the school that they've received my tuition and accomodation fee, so everything is in hand. On the strength of that, I handed in my resignation letter today. It's the first time I've ever had to resign - although I had quite a lot of jobs before settling into this one, they all had fixed contracts that I completed and moved on from, or were day-by-day temping arrangements that I stepped away from. So that was a novel and slightly nervy experience.

I'm now feeling out of Limbo, and able to push on more with planning and researching Fukuoka. I didn't like to do too much of that as it felt too tenuous; I just hated the thought of building up excitement and getting disappointed if things went wrong. I'll also, of course, need to plan to visit family, and those friends who are especially keen to see me again before I head off to another continent! With things settled I felt safe to announce it publicly, and a couple of people who've been to Japan have offered to advise, which is really handy. The more, the merrier!