Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Applying For Alien Registration Card & Buying A Bicycle!!! =)

As i mentioned before! the Bicycle is the MAIN for of transport here in Japan! haha.. check out the first picture of the 'Bicycle Stop' right outside the Subway entrance! haha (MADNESS!!!) i can't imagine looking for my Bike is that load of mess!!! =).

This post is mainly about the trip to the Higashi Ward Office to apply for our Alien registration cards! PLus right after, we all headed to a nearby mall called 'BoxTown' to get our Very own wheels! (Kinetic-ly powered though...zzz)

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ABOVE: From the right - (1) Nayeong, (2) Woong's Tutor (Tatsuya), and (3)Woong.

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Check out the Ward office, bustling with activity... !!! actually, eh... i didn't know where to head to initially when i first entered... so many ppl all over... but then i took a look around then realised that there was an area that was totally POPULATED by either foreigners or my own JTW people!... from there... even an idiot would know where to go! =)

BELOW: The few of us with (1)Jungwon right next to me.

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Each of us took turns to fill up these forms and i realised exactly easy it was for Singaporeans to handle their foreign applications. In comparison to my Korean counterparts, they all had to look through a Korean - Japanese Dictionary and translate their home addresses to Japanese Kanji / Katagana, but it was actually ok for me to just write the whole load in Romanji (English).

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The registration took almost about a total of one and a half to two hours for all of us to finish everything. They told us that we had to return to the office again in a weeks time to collect the card... zzz faints... need to come back again... it was already so damn boring that i nearly fell asleep. BUT what really shocked me about the office was that is seemed to be really 'MANUAL' - meaning that everyone was still like using pen and paper and writing on forms and clips etc... and this slightly changed my impression of Japan being such an advanced country! =)

BICYCLE TIME!! WOOHOO!!! after the largely boring part of the day, we proceeded to the more interesting and anticipated event of the day! =) TO BOXTOWN to get out bicycles!... if you look at it clearly, the place was actually like a super market [pic directly below]... and they actually sell bicycles in the super market!!! haha weird japanese culture! =)

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Choosing the bicycles was a serious chore! haha... but eventually i just took the cheapest one... It was one of those AUNTY BICYCLES that you see in Singapore but i think that the most important thing for me here is the price and the comfort of riding everywhere THUS my eventual choice! the bike costs around 5800yen which translates to about $S80 so it was really rather cheap!

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Finally After all the hassle!! check out my proud AUNTY BIKE!!! wahahaha! KAWAIIIIIII =) (actually its not that kawaii... but i still love it!) hehe...

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So i finally got my wheels and this wheels are really going to serve me well in my coming days in Fukuoka! from this day, literally EVERYWHERE i went i rode my bike! like downtown(about 45mins), everyday to sch (30mins) and to nearby convenient stores (5 to 10mins). i dare say that this is the cheapest most convenient transport system that i could have possibly chose in FUKUOKA... [Just think... a bus ride to my sch costs about S$3 and a ride to downtown costs about S$5 so its just absolutely ridiculous to take a bus everyday!!!] I'M JUST IN LOVE WITH MY WHEELS!!! haha!!!

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