Flea market

Cheap 2nd hand fridge, fan, carpet, bookshelves are up for sale. Bought a fridge for 5000yen (RM150), fan for 500yen (RM15) and bookshelf for 2000yen (RM60). Got a very good buy on fridge and fan, because I was the first in line, waiting for the door to open, rushed in and hugged the fridge that I wanted. However, the bookshelves had run out of choices and the expensive bookshelf are the only good ones left.

In Japan, throwing stuff away can be expensive.
Refrigerator costs 6000yen to be thrown away.
TV: 4000yen,
Air cond: 5000yen,
Washing machine:4000 yen.
After buying, I thought, damn. Throwing away that fridge costs more than buying it!!! No wonder people would give away these stuff for free in Japan. Even cars are available for free.


Fridge: 5000yen: GOOD BUY!!! (6000yen to throw away)


Fan: 500yen: GOOD BUY!!! (500 yen to throw away)

Bookshelf - 2000 yen: Bad buy :( (500 yen to throw away)


My new assets :D

Online shopping

I know that getting a bicycle is the only way to get freedom here so that I do not have to rely on the bus to get to town or anyway. We went to the bicycle shop in Urasa to look what are the models available. However, to my disappointment, the bicycles there are without gear & is around 20k yen range... which is very very expensive. The cheapest is a 2nd hand 6000 yen bicycle, but it's small.

That night, while talking to several 2nd year students, they said I should go online to buy the bicycle. However, shopping online in Japan means surfing Japanese website, which I don't really know.

Anyway, I went on to go search for bicycles, spent the first hour going around the Japan Internet, found several sites selling bicycle before found Yahoo Japan. The 2nd hour wasted on learning their online shopping site conventions. Finally I know what everything means through the Firefox plug-in, I spent the 3rd hour learning on how to fill up the online forms with name, phone number & address.

At the end of the 3rd hour, I was so tired I just click Confirm to confirm the purchase & wait for the bicycle to arrive

First day shopping

2nd day in IUJ, we went to Urasa to shop for our food. Urasa is the nearest town, around 3km from IUJ where shop actually exists.

First thing... there's a very strict schedule for bus leaving from IUJ to Urasa and from Urasa back to IUJ. The bus leaves on the dot, accurate up to seconds. There is a limit on how many people can actually board the bus, but even if the bus is full minutes before the schedule, the bus won't leave. The driver will still stay until the scheduled time before driving off. This is the Japanese working attitude.

There are several supermarkets around here, which we called them "supa".



This is the most common place we buy our groceries, vegetables, ramen, milk etc. Things in Japan are really really expensive. A pack of 4 Fuji apple would cost 400yen, which is RM12. RM3 for 1 apple!!!

Packaged food are more reasonable. At least 1L of milk costs or 1L of orange juice 100 yen (RM3), chocolate bar costs 70yen (RM2)





The second shop which is called Musashi, which means 634 in Japan, mostly sell hardware & daily goods. First day shopping costs me 2000 yen, which is around RM60 O_o

Urasa is really small. On the map, which is A4 size, we can walk from one end of the map to the other end in just 15 minutes. The 2 shops are just across the street.





I would need a fan for my room, since it's still summer and days are still hot at 30 deg C. However, simple fan costs 2000 yen (RM60) puts me off.
1 Spoon costs 100 yen (RM3)
1 plate costs 300 yen (RM9)

I still can't get comfortable with the price here yet.

Monbukagakusho Scholarship (Part 4) - University Placement

Result of Interview




OK, after more than 1 month wait, I got this letter. I was so surprised, because I thought I have flopped the interview. Even the interviewer slept.

Anyway, now here's the hard part. In 1 month, I will have to submit a checkup report and letter of acceptance from the universities.

For the checkup report, I'll just need to go to hospital, give the doctor the list of items to check on my body & send back the report.

However, for the letter of acceptance, I have problem. I'm getting an MBA. In order to be admitted, I'll have to sit for the GMAT, the prerequisite for any MBA programs. For this exam, I have paid RM1000 just to sit for the 4 hour paper. Anyway, GMAT is not a very hard exam, just do the sample papers which can be bought from bookstore and you will be ready.

At the same time, I emailed the university on the result of the nomination for their assistance to get the Acceptance Letter from them. Well, taking into account the time to post the documents & for them to post back, it could as well take as much as 2 weeks, leaving only 2 weeks for them to process. So I sent them the scanned soft copy & send through courier.

Just in time, I got back the confirmation letter & all the documents & able to submit it to the Japan Embassy.

Welcome to the land of automatic

4th September, first day in Japan. Arrived in Narita Airport at 7am together with 2 other Malaysians who would be heading to IUJ as well. The Monbusho staff waited for us & gave us a bit of allowance.

Here I met another Monbusho scholar, from Vietnam and together we traveled.

We took a 1 hour train from Narita to Tokyo, where we spent 2 hours waiting for Shinkansen to take us to Urasa. We sent our 30kg of luggage using the courier service, which cost each of us 1600 yen (RM 48). It's quite cheap comparing the efficiency of the service provided. They said the luggage will arrive the next day.


We took the famous bullet train, Shinkansen from Tokyo to Urasa. From the outside, it looks like a normal train. From the inside, it still looks like a normal train, but you cannot stand. However, when it runs, it's so fast that the picture taken is blur.



At 2pm, reached Urasa, where the IUJ van is waiting for us. There were 2 other people in the bus. Being courteous, we ask whether we should close the the van door.

They said "no, it will close by itself". "Welcome to the land of automatic", said the other guy and truly, the door closes automatically.

Monbukagakusho Scholarship Statistics

Here's a bit of statistics on Monbusho Scholarship for Malaysian.

http://www.mlab.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/%7Eylfoo/Monbusho.html

If you look carefully, for postgraduate scholarship which I applied, around 621 submitted the applications. almost all of them are shortlisted, but a few couldn't make it.
Out of the 518 who sat for the exam, 20% or 107 are shortlisted.
Of those 107 who are shortlisted, 30% or 34 are nominated, successful.

This means, since I am going for the interview for every person who i see on my left & on my right in the embassy on the interview day, one of us will get this scholarship. 544 applications for 34 places which work out to 6% of the people got it.

In contrast, compared to undergraduate, 712 applications for 5 places which work out to ONLY 0.7% of the people got it.

So if you are undergraduate, your chance of getting the scholarship is really really small.

Monbukagakusho Scholarship (Part 3) - Interview

Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho:MEXT) Scholarship 2007 - Notification of Interview



This is the hardest part of the application.

On 17th May I got the letter for the interview. On 23rd June, I will have to prepare everything. I have 1 month to prepare all of these

- Completed application form. I have actually handwritten on all the 4 sets of application form. 8 pages of each form, times 4 = 24 pages of handwritten stuff. That's a lot for me since I have not used the pen for such a long time. These days people type on computer mah...

- List of 3 universities that offer your course (If you have done preparation as I mentioned in Part I then you can skip this). Choose your university carefully. This would be the final list and if you get, you CANNOT change that university! Choosing hard university will give you a hard time, because you might not be admitted to top universities such as Tokyo University.

- Finalized Field of Study. The last chance to write carefully what you wanted to study. The decision of your scholarship will be based on this very much.

- Certified academic records (go back to your university to certify all your certs, degree & transcripts)

- Recommended from university principal & employer. I have problem for this one. I left university quite some time and the principal don't know me anymore. Getting recommendation from my employer will tell them I have intention to leave. This is a very hard thing to get. But anyway, I got both of them.
For the university's recommendation, I went back to my university with a sample of the recommendation letter which I wrote myself, tell him the story why I need that recommendation, let him copy it again & sign it. Getting a professor should give more weight, but I can't confirm this. I just get one of the professor to write it anyway
For the employer's recommendation, I told my manager about it & I'm glad he's more than happy to write it for me. Later I found out he is also leaving the company!!!

- Other documents... should be easy to get. Read the instructions in the Instruction Page 4.

OK, 4 sets of each documents, prepared. I'm ready to go for interview.




NOT.... Interview is not easy. I got 30 minutes to present yourself or all your hard work preparing the documents wasted. So... I actually went all the way to learn back my Japanese, write some sentences, memorize it, write down all the possible questions & answers.

Now, i'm ready to go for the interview.

I went to Japanese embassy, dressed smartly & 2 hours earlier, just to prepare myself mentally. I went into the embassy half an hour earlier than scheduled, expecting to wait. Suddenly, a lady said, since the other candidate is not prepared, I can go inside first. What a shock, as I was still not really prepared yet. Anyway, I went into a room with 6-7 people sitting in front of me. One of it is a Lecturer in UM, representative from JASSO, alumni, representative from the industry, and a few others. They started questioning.

Some of their questions are...
"... why do you choose this course..."
"... what you have done in your undergraduate's thesis..."
"... what makes you choose IUJ as your university... "
"... what will you do if suddenly IUJ has insufficient fund for your scholarship..."
and all sorts of questions.

30 minutes went on and I actually didn't do well in the interview. My talking was so boring that one of the interviewer slept. I'm not sure it's because of me or because it's just right after lunch time. I went home without much expectation.

Here I have attached all the Instruction & the application form for this stage

Instructions
Instruction Page 1

Instruction Page 2

Instruction Page 3

Instruction Page 4

Application Form
Application Page 1

Application Page 2

Application Page 3

Application Page 4

Application Page 5

Application Page 6

Application Page 7

Application Page 8

Monbukagakusho Scholarship (Part 2) - Sitting for written exam

UPDATE: Link for the 2007
Postgraduate English Test,
Japanese Test A,
Japanese Test B,
Japanese Test C


Soon after submission is over, JIS will inform only Successful applicants to sit for the written exam.

I'd say... Don't worry.

MOST of the people who submit the application will be called to sit for the exam, unless you are really not qualified such those over 35 years old. JIS won't penalize you over the small mistakes in your application. However it's good to be careful with your application.

Don't worry too much if you don't know Japanese Language. Several of the Scholarship recipient including me didn't sit for the Japanese Language paper. What they want is someone who is eager to learn Japanese Language & culture.

Nomination of Written Examination


Map to examination center




In mid of April, my first ever letter from JIS & I'll have to sit for the exam on 7th May 2006.

The nights before the exam, I was thinking what kind of question would be asked, essay? Comprehension? I prepared myself all the way for all sort of questions.

On 7th May morning, I was in Confusion Secondary School together with almost 1200 other people!!! The whole hall is packed. There are 3 papers, English test (Paper 1), Japanese Language test (Paper 2 & 3).

When I got the paper I was so relieved that they only asked English language questions including grammar, comprehension etc. Objective. If you don't know, just select a), b), c) or d).

So to all applicants, please brush up your English language. With >1000 applicants, even 1 point counts.

I understand that different country have different country have different set of questions. Some have Maths questions, general knowledge, science, etc etc. Some previous recipients also mention the written exam is more than just a language test.

Test was over in 1 hour.

See the little scribble in the top of the paper? On your desk where you sit for the exam, there will be a piece of identification paper that will write down your name, IC number & other identification on it. There is also a notice that states that you have error in your application form. Most of the applicants will have some error in their application. So?

Just go home prepare correct your application. If selected to the next stage, fill in the new application with the corrected answer.

Next: Part 3 - Interview

Monbukagakusho Scholarship (Part 1)

I was introduced to Monbukagakusho Scholarship by my friend, Zadli in CNY gathering 2006. I was interested and I immediately Google about it.

I'll go in detail on the application procedure and hope this guide will be able to help other people in applying for the same scholarship.

Application for Monbukagakusho scholarship normally opens end of February (ie during CNY) & closes on 31st March.

Here's what we got from the website

There are a few scholarships available
- Undergraduate Student
- Postgraduate (Research Student)
- Young Leader's Program (YLP) - 2006 only
- Japanese Studies & Teacher Training - 2006 only

Young Leader's Program and Japanese Studies & Teacher Training are not available every year. Anyway, I'll talk about Postgraduate (Research Student) scholarship first as this is the one that I'm receiving. I'll talk about the other scholarships later.

1) Start Early
Even though the application have not start, you can start by researching on the university that you intend to apply. One of the question in the you have to write in the application is Field of Study & the Study Program in Japan in detail.

If possible, write to the professors in the university about your intention to study there. This will give you an big advantage if you are selected for the interview.

2) Find at least 3 universities that offers the course you wanted to apply.

3) Download the past year's application form & try to answer the questions in the application. Question number 7, the proposal for your study in Japan is the hardest to answer, but is the most important question as well. Answer 1~6, 8~9 makes sure you are qualified. Answer no. 7 is the one that makes sure you get selected.

Think of it, the committee goes through more than 1000 applications and with almost everyone qualified, the committee can only judge you by how you get this question correct. It can take weeks to come up with a short but persuasive & effective answer.

When submitting the form, do keep a copy of what you have sent, because you might need fill in another form again based on what you submit in the initial application

Next: Part 2 - Sitting for the written exam

First Post

For most people, going to a foreign country to study or vacation is one of their dreams. What more if we can go to a place for study & vacation, it's like the greatest dream come true.

For me, I have my chance, thanks to Monbusho scholarship, I am able to study in Japan for the next 1 year & 9 months. I'll be going to IUJ for MBA course in September 2007. However, I'd have to admit that I am sad to let go a lot of things which I treasure here.

3 things I promise myself that I will do in Japan.
1) write a blog of my wonderful experience in Japan
2) climb Mt. Fuji
3) run in Tokyo international Marathon.

Having said that, item 1 is done & I hope I will continue to post about studying in Japan.