The beginning of the trip had to be rough – but it is better to be rough on the start than somewhere in the middle. After disconnecting from the gate we had to wait a bit before taking off because mechanics didn’t do their job as they should have so because of technical problems flight was a bit delayed. Mechanics arrived, solved the problem and soon we were on our way for Munich. Landing was also a bit rough – it felt like we hit a speed bump on a highway going 80 mph.
We exit from the airplane and enter the bus which will take us to the terminal. There I meet Biljana – a girl from Serbia who is going for master degree in Japan and Krsto who is going for PhD in physics. We had a conversation about living in Japan – I had to gather some info and Biljana was already in Japan. I wanted to buy a sleeping pillow for next long flight in duty free shop but because of very slow service – I decided not to. I later regretted that decision… We have sat around in the gate, Biljana went to have a smoke in some very small space for smoking, it was surrounded with glass – I think 5×5 meters. We didn’t have time to have a proper rest – and we realized that boarding is 30 minutes before what we thought. Krsto, Biljana and I grabbed our stuff and went into the queue full of Japanese – I really can not think of a reason why there was so many of them… In the plane I go to my seat and I was surprised that I am not sitting next to the wing – every other flight I had a seat next to the wing. Sitting right beside me was a Bulgarian guy who is 32 years old and he is also going to Japan for PhD in medicine. He says that 13 people got scholarship in Bulgaria and that two of them are going to TUFS also. This flight went smooth, the pilot knows his job. I succeed to take a nap during the flight but when I woke up I felt a little dizzy. After complaining about that to Biljana and Krsto they told me to ask the flight attendant to give some medicine – which I did. He gave me aspirin to thicken my blood, some water and coca cola – to bring up sugar level in my blood. As I was feeling better afterwards I realized that I was dehydrated… it was a classic case of a hangover. One suggestion to all of you – if you are sitting in a plane drinking wine, and you release some amount of liquid from you (you know what I mean), and as we know a person releases one liter of liquid trough invisible perspiration – you have to drink enough water before going to sleep.
When we landed to Tokyo Narita airport plane taxied for around 10-15 minutes – it is very large airport. After that we had passport control and then customs. And after leaving the gate there was a person with my name on a paper waiting for me. I approached to him and he told me to wait for others – the Bulgarians. The luggage had to be sent by company for that because we had to much luggage and it couldn’t fit into the taxi. The bill for sending one bag from Tokyo Narita to TUFS is 17 dollars. We were than taken by taxi to the TUFS – it was great that the fare was payed by Japanese government – the fare was around 300USD.
Around 13:10 we arrive to the campus, our tutors approach us, they try to take our backpacks to carry them for us. We entered the dorm and were handed keys of the rooms, magnet ID cards so that we can enter the dorm and an envelope with some written material. After visiting the room we have to go to some classroom to fill in some forms for Alien Registration Card – it is some form of ID for foreigners in Japan – for gaijins. They took us to city hall to hand over those forms and to apply for National Health Insurance. Applying for Alien Registration Card went kind of funny – when it was my turn I sat down, gave mine passport, forms and the lady at the other side looks at the documents. She looks at the forms – citizenship SRB, in passport – it is YU… she does not understand that and asks me about that and I explain to her that Serbia was Yugoslavia long time ago. Then she just went somewhere for 10 minutes and returns with a book and says – OK it’s Serbia and Montenegro. Sigh. I than had to give her a lecture about history of our country – FNRY, SRY, Serbia and Montenegro, Serbia… I just start laughing, and also my tutor who is translating al I am telling to Japanese. The lady on the other side does not understand why we don’t have Serbian passports, why Yugoslavia… she looks at her book again and tells me to return in 15 minutes. When I got back she told me that Japan only recognizes Serbia and Montenegro as a whole so I in forms I will have citizenship of Serbia and Montenegro. I explained that in couple of months we will get new passports – Serbian ones, but she remained with Serbia and Montenegro. I see that I will not be able to change anything so I agreed and we went further trough the forms. Now there was a problem in address and city name… in address I put “Novi Beograd” and in city name I put “Belgrade” – I shouldn’t have used an English name for Belgrade – it only confused her so she decided to put Serbia for the city. So in around a month I will get Alien Registration Card which will state that mine citizenship is of country that no longer exists and National Health Insurance will send me by mail ID card. After finally finishing the bureaucracy we were taken shopping. I had to buy some prepared food, some chopsticks, soy souse and some things that I needed in my room. The things which I thought that they won’t be available – bed linen, blanket and the other thing that is thicker than blanket used for covering in the winter, I don’t know the word – it was available – but I will use my own linen and my favorite sleeping bag. It is the best!
I made a beginners mistake. I started hanging out with our “brothers and sisters” – the people from USSR. They say that my Russian is really good. So I met people from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Leningrad, Russia… After shopping I went with my tutor to try to call Serbia – I bought some prepaid card for international calling – it is 10USD. We were trying and trying but without success. We asked in the shop what is wrong but the clerk just pointed us to the support number on the card. So we called support line and they tried to call Serbia but without any luck. After 45 minutes of trying we decided to forget about it since it was late in the evening, and we even succeeded in getting cash back, which as I realized is quiet unusual. I returned to room, eaten my meal, read the papers from the envelope and I am writing this…