So Many ROAD BLOCKS

First, let's start with some exciting news! We are approved for our apartment and our move in date will be October 15th! We're beyond excited as we think this will really help us begin to feel settled here!

OK, but now to get back to all of the road blocks we've hit-- geez. So, as mentioned October 1st was a wonderful day for us. So many big things happened! But, we unfortunately followed October 1st with a day full of road blocks.

The day started with us venturing out in the morning to try and get

Japanese phone lines, something that we needed in order to sign a contract for the permanent apartment that we were hoping to get. We tried two places and were unsuccessful at both places. The first place denied us because our residence cards state that we will only be in Japan for a year. This is not accurate. As we've said, we plan to be here around 2-3 years, but for some reason our initial visas say 1 year and now our residence cards reflect what the visas said. Anyway, we ventured over to a second phone company store and were turned away because they were unable to assist us since we are not Japanese speakers. After these disappointing trips, we then ventured over to 7-11's bank (yes they actually have a bank over here). We wanted to open an account with them because they have a lot of English language support and all of their documents are in English. We were turned away from opening an account because we haven't lived in Japan for 6 months.

Later that night we ventured out to another phone store with a different carrier, only to learn that they were closed. So, Oct 2nd was a day full of disappointments and road blocks.

The next day (Oct 3rd), Miklos was able to get help from an ITBM employee who helped him open up a bank account at another branch. The process took 2 hours and was very grueling. All forms were in Japanese and there were not any English speakers at the branch, so we're incredibly thankful to have had support in this process from ITBM. The bank had a strict rule that only the applicant was able to fill out paperwork, meaning Miklos had to write his name in Japanese characters. Thank goodness for Google translate which spelled out the characters for him.

Tori also attempted to open a bank account at the same branch. However, because her current visa status has her listed as a "dependent" she would not have been able to have an ATM card to use to pay for things. She would have only been able to withdraw cash with her ATM card. This may sound odd, but Japan is a huge cash culture. Many places do not even accept card payments. The Japanese government is currently trying to make incentives for store owners and customers to make the shift towards card payments, however. Tori was not happy with the ATM card limitation so she opted not to open a bank account at that bank.

Later that night we finally had success in getting Japanese phones! We were happy to finally get this setup.

On Oct 7th, Tori went into another bank and tried to open an account. However, once again she was turned away because she hasn't lived in Japan for 6 months.

Finally, we tried yet a different bank and--- success! We were able to work together to get Tori a bank account. We went into this bank (Japan Post) without a Japanese speaker. Again, there were no English speakers at the branch to assist us and all forms were in Japanese. We understand and are not trying to complain that there were not English speakers working here. We understand we are visitors in a foreign country. It just makes everyday tasks so much more challenging, navigating the language barrier. While the process of opening this bank account has been typed into one little paragraph, it was no east feat. It was one big process, and we were so proud to be able to do this alone. Again, thank you Google translate!

Check out the photo from one of the forms Tori had to fill out. It only shows part of the form because we don't want to post sensitive information, but you can see that Tori also had to write her name in English and Japanese, and the form was entirely in Japanese. Nice teamwork for the 2 of us in getting this account opened!