The countdown is on - 6 days until China! I've got everything prepared and ready: flight, check, bookings, check, itinerary, check, all the gear I'll need, check, and finally, Visa... er, check. My adventures in China don't start until next week, but I've been having them even before I've arrived!

It started a few weeks ago when I tried applying for my Chinese Visa. I mailed off my passport and application and waited for it to return in the mail. I got it back a week later but there was no Visa! They returned it back to me – forms, money and all – without processing it. There was no explanation so I combed through the embassy website to figure out why when found the one line that explained it all, “Mail application is not accepted.” D'oh! The only way someone can get a Chinese Visa in Japan is to get it done in person. Luckily, there’s a Chinese consulate in Sapporo, so it was just a matter of getting there…

I was at work on a Monday, at the end of Spring Break, when I found this out. I looked at my calendar and realized the only day I'd be able to Sapporo would be... the next day! I resigned myself to the fact I'd have to take another nenkyu (paid vacation) day just to get the Visa so I filled out the nenkyu form, gave it to my supervisor and explained why I was taking the next day off so hastily. She understood and told me to have fun, but I knew this trip to Sapporo would be anything but that.

So here was my first situation: The consulate in Sapporo closes to the public at noon. I live 3 hours away by train. The earliest train that left from my town arrives in Sapporo at 11:46am, so that was a no-go. The only place I could catch an earlier train was in Asahikawa, about a 2 hour drive away. From this, the only way to make it to Sapporo on time would be to wake up super early, drive to Asahikawa, and catch the 7:05am train that arrives in Sapporo at 8:30am, giving me enough time to get to the consulate right when it opens. All fine and dandy.

Here was my second situation: I was running low on money up until then (for reasons I won’t go into *ahem*) but, luckily, I would get paid that morning. The first thing I would do was go to a 7-11 (which is open 24/7) and use the ATM to get money for the train ticket and to fill up my gas tank (which was only ¼ full at this point). All fine and dandy. I thought through my plan and decided it was the best thing to do, so that night I went to bed at 8 o'clock to wake up early and start my journey across Hokkaido.

I got up at 4:00am the next morning, made breakfast, and left my house just as the sun began to rise. I went to the 7-11 close to my house and was the only customer in the store at that hour. I went to the ATM, inserted my card, input my pin, waited a few seconds… and watched my card get spit back out. There, on the screen, flashed a message that politely told me the ATM was open from 7:00am-7:00pm. It took me a moment to sink in.. but since when did ATM’s have hours!? This is Japan! I was definitely not happy.

So now, here I was in my third situation: I only had ¼ tank of gas, no money, and two hours to wait until I could get money. I didn't have enough gas to get to Asahikawa so I had no choice but to wait until the ATM's "opened". I decided on driving as far as I could until I couldn’t (or didn’t feel safe to) drive any further and then I'd wait at a 7-11 until 7:00am. It also meant that I would definitely not be catching the 7:05am train from Asahikawa. If I got to Sapporo any later than I planned, I would get to the consulate after noon and miss my chance at getting the Visa, which meant I would have take another nenkyu day to go to Sapporo for a 2nd attempt... I decided that was not happening! I ended up catching the 9:00am train from Asahikawa after a brief 30 minute wait in a town called Kamikawa. I made it farther than I thought was possible on that ¼ tank of gas (given I was nervously driving 60km/hr the entire way) so I was less than an hour from Asahikawa by the time I stopped. When I got into Sapporo at 10:30am, I still had another hour and half to make it to the consulate so everything was still fine and dandy.

After I got off the train, I B-lined it for the railcar (the old-school style trains that run down the middle of the road) which would take me close to the consulate. In my haste, I got on at the first railcar station I came across and didn't realize until ten minutes later that I was actually going around the wrong way around track! Instead of taking 6 stops it was going to take me 20! There I was, sitting impatiently, cursing each stop light we came to and watching the time tick by on my watch. I was debating getting off the train to run but realized that even with all the stop lights, I was still going faster than could have running, so I stayed on and suffered in silence at my stupidity. By the time I got to my stop it was 11:30am and I still had 8 blocks to go. I double-timed it and finally made it to the consulate, tired from my run and pumped full of adrenaline, at quarter to noon when the guard let me in. Phew! It was relieving! The Visa application went off without a hitch and I was out of there five minutes later.

After that I chilled out, took my time eating lunch, then did some errands and went shopping. I was only there for a couple of hours before I caught the train back to Asahikawa for my long drive back home. I made it home at 8:00pm and didn't feel like staying up so I went to bed and crashed. It was a busy and (kind of) exciting day. Hopefully, if this was any indication of things to come, China should be a blast!

This time of the year is special in Japan. The snow is melting, the weather is getting warmer, the sakura flowers are blooming and everyone is returning from their Spring holidays. It's a time of new beginnings.. and one of sheer madness!

In Japan, everything starts and ends on April 1st. The fiscal year is finished, students return for a new school year, university graduates are just entering the workforce, and teachers across the country play a colossal game of musical chairs! During this time, teachers wait in anticipation to hear where they will be working for the next year school year. There's no guarantee they'll be at the same school or even same town, and there's a good chance they won't even be teaching the same grade. A Gr.6 teacher may suddenly find themselves teaching a Gr.1 class, for example. The reasoning behind the constant mix and match of teachers among different grades, students, and co-workers is to allow them to gain a wide range of experience in different positions. Of course, this also prevents a teacher from getting good at teaching a certain grade so I don't completely understand the rationale. All public servants who work for cities and municipalities also go through the same blender. A Board of Education employee of several years may be suddenly moved to the Tax Department even though they have no training. Job-security might not be a problem, but it seems job-location-security is!

The crazy thing about all this is that it takes place within a two week period. The names of all new teachers at the schools are published, on an official date, in the newspaper near the end of the semester. The knowledge of where each teacher is moving to is kept very hush hush until then. Once the teachers find out their new locations they have to pack and move houses, get acquainted with their new city, and prepare the curriculum for the upcoming year.. all within two weeks! I'm currently working with a new JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) who is fresh out of University and has never taught a class before. She just moved into my town from Sapporo five days before she took over the role of main English teacher at my school. I taught with her this week and it was obvious she was pretty nervous through the whole ordeal. I knew exactly how she felt though because I was in the same position when I first arrived; being thrown headfirst into a classroom full of kids and having no clue what to do. The school themselves also do a sort of spring-cleaning in the teachers office. All the desks are removed, cleaned, and rearranged according to grade. It was fun coming to the schools this week to find my desks halfway across the room (or in the case of one school, actually having a desk now). With the new influx of teachers, I'm looking forward to the upcoming school year since all the new teachers and kids makes everything feel renewed and fresh.

Maybe the Japanese actually know what they're doing in this; by switching everything up, everyone is forced to start a new routine and are constantly challenge themselves to become better at their jobs. Instead of dredging away at the same job and place for years and years on end, their job always changes each year making it more enjoyable. I know I'd definitely prefer it that way.. except maybe with more than two weeks notice!