A New Home

November is here already!

I have been living in Japan for little over a month now, having arrived the tail-end of September, and have already adjusted to my new home. It's nothing fantastic; a small gaijin house about 40 minutes out from the centre of Tokyo, sharing communal kitchen and washrooms. But at just 50,000 yen a month it's hard to complain.

I began studying full-time at a Japanese language school in Akihabara in October. It's quite intensive, and as the lessons are taught entirely in Japanese I found it somewhat confusing to begin with. However, I got into the swing on things quite quickly and am finding my language skills improving quite dramatically. Of course, being immersed in the language all day every day makes a huge difference.

I'm currently in the midst of some serious financial/legal problems. To cut a long story short, a company has essentially stolen a lot of money from me and I'm trying to get it back. Without it I could face having to return to England. I feel I have a strong case and everything will likely work out in my favour (luckily I have kept all my documents), but it's been a very draining experience and has adversely affected my sleep and study. Today I've been attempting to catch up with four lessons at school I've missed as a result of these problems.

I've been lucky enough to have the support of some really great friends - namely Hiro, JR and Norman - who have given me great advice, assisted me when dealing with confusing Japanese bureaucratic stuff, and generally kept me sane throughout this whole ordeal. They are all very busy people, and I really owe a lot to them for going out of their way to help me with this.