Painless!

Today was the most painless visit to the ward office I've ever had!!

Normally I get tripped up on all the different words for all the different taxes, but for some reason, today was as smooth as it could ever get.

I was worried about my gaijin card coz it's expired and because the new system comes into play soon, renewing now is an advance application for the new residence card, so I won't get that until after July 30th. It's gonna be ready in the immigration office, but I'm just hoping there won't be any problems since I come back to Japan after pickup window. The guy said it would probably be fine but gave me a number to call if I wanted to check anyway. Silky smooth.

Then it was onto the health insurance section, where I thought I'd have to argue really hard about paying twice for February. I explained it, found out that I was actually right, received an apology and got told the money would be deducted from my June payment and I'd only have to pay the excess.

Sometimes I really underestimate my own Japanese ability. Of course it's not perfect, but it really is enough to get by.

I even managed to ignored the petrified faces of the staff as they saw me coming towards them - the more rewarding thing was watching them relax into their chair when they realised that they wouldn't have to use any English.

Knackered after my aqua class. I swear that it has gotten so much harder - and not only because I haven't been for ages! I was talking to one of the other women who goes religiously every week and even she was knackered so that was OK. There's a new aqua class starting next month which looks more like boxing in water - DYING to try it out if I can sync the class times with my work schedule. If not, I'll just wait until August and plan work around it. 

Definitely gonna need a red bull before work today!

xoxo