For the past week I’ve been getting nicely settled in with my host family in Nagoya. Everyone is super nice and treats me as part of the family. I really lucked out this time! My host mom cooks really yummy food every night, so I have to be careful I don’t gain 10 pounds coming back to Canada. I haven’t developed much of a routine yet as school hasn’t started, but I have been pretty meticulous running errands all week.

The first big errand was getting my residence card registered at the ward office. In Japan everything seems to revolve around paperwork. They really don’t try to make it easy for foreigners to get by on their own. If I didn’t have Eri-san with me translating everything (and mostly just speaking for me) I would not have gotten everything done so efficiently.

My first major problem was not knowing what the current year was. Japanese people still prefer to write dates according to the Japanese era name and not the western calendar. Hence 2015 is written as Heisei 27. To make it more confusing, my year of birth is from the previous era. Needless to say they really don’t try to simplify things for foreigners.

While I was at the ward office I also applied for the National Health Insurance plan. Again it was another round of paperwork and waiting. I had to go to the ward office a second time after receiving my confirmation at home to pick up the actual card. Basically they do that as a way to verify your home address.

The last big thing I did was opening a bank account at UFJ. I’m pretty sure the employees there have never had to deal with opening an account for someone on a working holiday. The teller took a long time trying to check and double check all the procedures before finally setting up my account as a foreign resident. I didn’t really question too much as I was just grateful I managed to get a basic account in my name.

After taking the subway back to Nagoya Eri-san and I had a late lunch together. I missed eating Chinese food so I was happy I got to eat it! The last thing I did was stop by the school to check it out. The lady who helped me with my enrolment was there and introduced herself. She was really friendly and helpful, which gave me a great impression of the school. I’m looking forward to starting classes next week! =)