Welcome to part 1 of our adventure at TIT.
June 9th: Obtaining residence card, heading for hostel, Mt Mitake
Tomy and I landed in Narita Airport on 9th June. Upon arrival at the airport, we had to register for our residence card (due to student visa). I strongly recommend to get data before coming to Japan as it is way cheaper and more convenient. We then took a bus to the tokyo station(1000 yen) and then the subway to our respective hostels. I stayed in Senzokuike House(hostel offered by the school) while Tomy stayed in airbnb. We then took off for Mt Mitake since we had time before our orientation on 11th june. Here are some of our photos from that trip.
June 11th: Day of orientation, paying insurance, exploring around the school
Orientation in Japan is different from Singapore. The orientation we had were more for administrative stuff (class timings, allowance, school card, national health insurance etc). We met Linus, a student from Sweden, that was in the same programme. Apart from SUTD insurance, we had to buy 2 more insurances in Japan. Classes are held on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday every week. On Fridays, everyone would have lunch together, including the professors. After the orientation, we explored the street opposite the entrance of the school.
June 13th: Registration of residence
As Tomy did not apply for student visa(due to administrative issues), he applied for visitor visa instead and hence did not need to register his residence in Japan. With the residence card I got from the airport, I headed out to the Ota ward office to register our residence. Every area had its own ward office. In the same building, I had to apply for National Health Insurance. The entire procedure took about an hour.
June 29th: Updates
So far Tomy and I have adjusted to the life in Japan. Tuesday and Friday class are more relaxed as it is more of research paper sharing. Thursday class is on Enterprise Oncology and Saturday sessions alternate between Entrepreneurship and Engineering Project.
