Life of D: Day 1 in Japan

Hi, this is D, I’m back!

I kinda like how Life of ‘D:’ looks like an unpleasantly びっくりした (bikkurishita) face so I think imma keep this heading, lol.

Let me share with you my unlucky encounter at the airport yesterday, as well as my day one in Tokyo so far. But before I start, perhaps I should share with all of you that GJH has been feeling pretty apologetic for his lack of updates recently. I admit that I am part of the cause because he had to spend time throwing stuff out to make space for me and my 2837471823 pieces of clothes, bags, shoes and toiletries but really, it is because he has been busy scurrying between Tokyo, Singapore and Korea. I’m sure all of you know of his dad’s condition, which he returned to SG for, and subsequently, he had a business trip in Korea. And now this poor dude has to sleep on the floor because he only had time to arrange for his bed to be thrown away but not enough time to get a new one. Show him some love if you can, all!

Anyway, yes, I’m also sleeping on the floor. I think this is his way of giving me a full immersion experience of getting furniture and waiting for furniture to arrive when in Japan, lol.

So! As I was saying, my unlucky encounter at Haneda.

So you see, when you have a visa of some sort e.g. working visa, you do not need to go queue at the super long queue for foreigners because you can go through another lane. The first hiccup occurred when Staff A told me I could use that lane *YES!* and I happily went ahead, only to be told by Staff B that I can’t, because I have yet to receive my Resident Card *Dang*. So, neh-mind, I went to queue. Nearing my turn, I was then assigned by this same Staff B, to wait behind Counter 24, which was serving a dude from country X. I had a really bad feeling about it because the last time I was stuck queueing for 1+hrs at the immigration at Tao Yuan, I was stuck with a group of people from country X as well.

Lo and behold, I watched at least 5 people go past immigration on each of Counter 23 and 25. Basically, the whole world moved, except me. The whole queue cleared out and a new hoard of tourists from the subsequent flight was streaming into the queue.

But as I was attempting to be a ruly Japan resident, I waited patiently. I really did.

I kept turning to look at Staff B, who happily directed people to queue beside me, ignoring the fact that I was stagnant the whole time. I bent forward, twisted my waist left and right, stretched my arms up, all in an attempt to subtly let him know that HELLO-I-WAIT-DAMN-LONG-LIAO-HOR but it was pointless! Even when GJH was standing opposite from the counter looking at me, rolling his eyes, pointing to his watch, nothing worked.

So I finally did it. I dreadfully alerted him and told him honestly, “別のラインを。。。”

What kinda pissed me off was that he obviously knew I was waiting the whole time because the moment I alerted him, he looked so apologetic and immediately directed me to another line before I could even finish my sentence! Pfffft. How long do you think I would have to wait if I had kept quiet?

But I guess I made it worthwhile because I took forever as well HAHA. It was my first entry into Japan and they had to make me my residence card on the spot, hence the longer processing time.

Upon receiving the residence card, I have to actually go to the local ward office where I am staying at to get my address registered within 14 days. So to those who are heading over, do take note of this. And while you are getting your residence card done at the ward office, do remember to get registered for National Health Insurance (if your company does not provide you insurance, like Gaba).

So since my first day in Japan until now (which really is just 2 days HAHA) I have seen some really interesting things that I’d love to share with all of you. Like the parking feature that ‘locks’ your car and doesn’t allow it to move off unless you pay for parking first, hahaa. Am wondering if I should start a separate insta account just for people to follow and for me to share these interesting stuff about living in JP. Let me know if it’s something you’d want to see!

Last but not least, I’ve signed up for Netflix JP for entertainment and I realised that it is actually really useful for learning Japanese because of Japanese subtitles! It is hard to pick up Japanese while listening to Japanese conversation and reading Japanese subs because, well, sometimes I don’t understand either. But watching American films and reading Japanese subtitles is very doable because, well, listening and understanding is easy and all that’s left is reading how it would be in Japanese through the subs. I love it especially because I get to learn casual spoken Japanese. Yay.

So that’s all for now!

Till then,
D.

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