Hiko-nyan

This morning, I went with another contact to set up my residence and bank accounts with the city office and post office. It took the best part of the morning and in fact, by the time we'd finished setting everything up it was nearly 2pm. I currently have a ridiculous amount of paperwork on my desk which I intend to, at some point, tidy up into folders.

I now however, am the proud owner of a national health insurance card which I can use at the clinic or hospital should I need to visit and a bank account which comes with a little bank book and card - the card should be in the post for me soon.

The town mascot here is my favourite mascot so far - Hiko-nyan!

Here's a picture: 

The mascot is all over my paperwork and everywhere in Hikone and I love it! Whilst at the train station, I took some pictures of the beautiful artwork on display there - the first shows the depth of the colour better but the second shows the scale of the painting.

I also managed to snap a picture of the countryside behind the houses here as we drove past yesterday:

After my contact had carefully taken me through all the steps to register for everything I needed and even helped me finish my wifi set up, I was free for the rest of the afternoon. I met with Amy who also lives in Hikone to do some shopping for my flat. Most importantly though, we went for some food as I had been so caught up in getting everything done just right that I'd neglected to eat anything.

We went into this unassuming place on the shopping plaza and found a really nice cute restaurant where we each ordered a pork katsu. It was delicious.

After food, we went to this amazing store called Daiso - it's a hundred yen store which sells pretty much everything! At the time of writing this blog, 100 yen is equivalent to roughly 70p and the stuff that you can get from there is not bad quality either! 

I got some really cute and amazing stuff but here are a few highlights:

Later we went to a home store, which even had a pet section. I again, bought quite a few things for my flat there but I couldn't leave without visiting the kittens and puppies in the store. I fell in love with this Norwegian forest kitten which I so wanted to take home with me, but alas - I couldn't.

The time is just always flying away from me - and I have made plans with Amy for both this weekend next. What with starting work from Monday - my schedule is staying very full! 

The adventure continues...