Living (studying) abroad 🇨🇦
First of all, I need to mention that all these sentences are from my experiences. So of course experiences depend on people. Don’t take it true. It’s just a view of so-called working holidays.
I can say there might be a big difference between studying abroad and living abroad. I’ve never had an experience of studying abroad so I don’t know what’s going on there. Today I’m gonna tell you what working holidays are like from my view.
1,school
That’s great experience, I can say. For three months since I started living in Toronto, I went to a language school, which is smaller than others as for students. Actually it was my first time to go to countries where English is spoken. I was kind of nervous for sure. But if you got used to it once, it would be pretty good to have friends from many countries. Then I’ve got two things I gotta say.
First is that they tend to go back home after some months. I don’t know why, but only Japanese and Korean have visas that permit you to work abroad. Others like Brazilian and Mexican have sightseeing visas, so they just enjoy some weeks to go around famous spots in Toronto and go back their home. That’s sad for me cause they leave way soon when I start feeling the sense of getting along with them. I can’t help it though.
Second is that we have nobody who can speak English properly and fluently except teachers. Fortunately, my class was highest one and we have some guys who can speak English very well. There I was able to learn skills of speaking. The funny thing was that one of my Korean students said it was totally useless except making some friends haha. But if I didn’t have such friends, my skills of English wouldn’t reach where it is right now. I remember my friends from other class saying like “In my class, nobody speaks English properly. We communicate with them with just a few words”. That is a thing that made me think bad things of language school. If you wanna concentrate on studying or improving your skills of language, it would be better to go to collage where you get certificates after finishing it. I guess there are more opportunities where you can speak English or focus on English.
Number wise, our school was small so we got close soon. After the class, we went to many places like Korean bbq, sea shore (strictly speaking it’s lake by the way), farm-ish park, museum… I can’t say everything in detail. That was great to spend time like that.
on first wed in a month you can go there for free, awesome
2,job hunting
That sucks, I mean so tough. A friend of mine, who can speak English fluently, is still struggling with finding jobs here. He is a kind of character though. Earlier, a company that has been charge of my whole life of studying abroad said like “the most important thing is your mind never to give up. So drop your resume everywhere you can see and you will get some responses from them”. Real is like almost zero response except my work place right now. I believe I left more than 50 resume with many restaurants. But efforts didn’t pay off. And the tough thing is that the more you drop your resumes and you don’t get any responses, the bigger your sadness becomes. And after that you realize that it’s impossible not to give up. I think this is the one that many people get through when you do working holidays.
I don’t know why I was kicked out, but I can say Toronto is full of immigrants who want jobs. Let's say Tim Hortons. It’s famous coffee shops in Canada but the thing is that all staffs are from India. And I remember a day when I dropped my resume with them. They said like “Sorry we are family business”. And I was like, “What!?, What the hell is that!?”. Now I can take it as a foreign-ish thing, but at that time I was kind of mad with it. This is just an example but it could happen a lot. On the other hand, my friend who had arrived Toronto around a week ago, got the job at Tim Horton. So funny. I really don’t know what’s going on there. All I can say is that luck could be important.
Plus it might be good if you have experience working in global scale shops like Starbucks. My friends who have experience working at Starbucks in Japan were able to get a position here too. I guess they, work places, want people who can be helpers as soon as they’re hired.
By the way, I worked for a Tempura restaurant. I think I was also very lucky. The facility itself is clean, neat and organized, and more people are so kind. Food is good either. Come say hi to the restaurant if you are in Toronto. My coworkers are probably waiting for you.
3,living
Money wise it’s pretty hard. I thought I was gonna make living by myself in Canada. But it absolutely failed haha. Although I’ve got much more money campared to part-time in Japan, still it’s not enough to make living by myself. Thank you soooo much my family, who supported me a lot on mentality and money. I am gonna pay them back gradually when I get a job in Japan. Anyway, it’s hard particularly in the case where you don’t have any jobs. It would be better if you have a job and earn CA$. But it could be hard for you to have only JP¥. Now JP¥ is so weak as you know. So if you change your JP¥ into CA$, the amount of money would get smaller. Plus the price of everything is higher compared to Japan. So I recommend you to save a lot of money before going abroad. The more money you have, the better your life is gonna be. Time wise, I think I had decent time doing whatever I wanted. Working holidays are kind of holidays so that was very good.
The way of living here is really good, I think. Particularly summer here is great, from June to September. People spend time under the sun like reading books, listening to music, smoking, just chilling, whatever. The temperature is also awesome. I really don’t go back to summer days in Japan, which is so humid and incredible hot. I don’t even wanna recall about it. Anyway, summer in Canada is great. Access to US is easy too, so if you are interested in going to US in particular NYC, Toronto is best place for you to choose for working holidays. I am also talking about something else great about foreign countries in my other articles, so if you have interests, please check out the note of Manhattan either.
Actually living abroad is eye opener for me. Everything is totally different from Japan. The ways people speak English are too various for me to hear it precisely. We have to pay tips everywhere we go. We can see crazy guys on the streets. Foods are always oily, which have too much amount either. We don’t have any convenience stores like Japanese one. We hardly see washrooms but trash bins in the town. We can’t get beer or something unless you go to exact stores that are permitted to run alcohol. The stuffs in cheaper supermarkets are almost dead. Stuff like that. These things sounds terrible. I know it. But, the funny thing is that I got used to them gradually and it becomes natural for me finally. Now I kind of miss the atmosphere of North Amerian style like I said. Places change you, that’s how human works I guess. Interesting, isn’t it?
in japan, of course it’s impossible to do it in summer
but in canada it isn’t!!
mmm, beautiful…
4, how living abroad works for me
I don’t know honestly. But Right now I don’t say like I completely change in personality because of my life here. Still I am not good at speaking to strangers and I always feel uncomfortable when I am in the situation where there are tons of strangers. So I would go to a theater, which is unbelievably great by the way, or flee markets to dig some pieces of vintage. Things like that motivated me a lot. And I was almost alone.
That was literally “alone”, like there was no close friends, now I’ve got some though, families and my partner. The thing told me a lot of things including good and bad stuffs. Sometimes it brought me the darkest place in mind I’ve ever been to, where I never be positive and never think about good things on me. I had thought I had been a kind of optimistic man, so I was not able to believe what happened to me. Right now I am completely fine and I almost forget what I thought, so never mind. Ultimately, optimistic is one of my personalities lol.
As I said before, being alone taught me important lessons. That’s like how important being mature is, how difficult handling your own life by yourself is and stuffs like that. Now I know myself better than before. So that would work for me when I think about how I should build my life in the future. I can say that is the best thing I got while living in Toronto.
i realized again that watching movies in theatre is the best.
Shining was really game changer to me.
when you watch Kubrick’s in theatres.
i also watched Eyes wide shut there,
but they didnt have its poster:(
it might be too sexy to put it on the wall haha
i cant put it into words, which tells you how great it was.
i believe it’s my best live ever
5, traveling to other countries
Travels makes me refresh again and again. I went to NYC/US, LA/US, Montreal/CA and Mexico city/MX. I wrote about how awesome my trip was in other articles. So please check them out too.
I had companies when I tripped to NYC and Montreal, which was pretty normal for me. It was nothing but great. But the thing is that I was alone when I went to LA and Mexico. And actually going to LA was my first time to travel alone to other countries even though I never did it in Japan. Of course I was excited about it. But at the same time, I was also little bit worried about it because I didn't have anyone that I can rely on.
After all, it was completely fine though. I was literary fine, there was no sadness on me and I was obsessed with landscapes I’ve never seen. I was able to do whatever and whenever I wanted to do and wherever I wanted to go. How great it was to me! Such freedom beat loneliness a lot of times.
And one thing I realize during my trip is that it’s way important to refresh air inside my body. I mean I can feel something new coming inside me after trips to other countries. I don’t know why precisely. I guess other countries affected me little by little without me noticing it. I hope people who have experience traveling to other countries agree with it. I was able to be fully obsessed with new atmosphere where I’ve never been to, then I could feel that something new and great was coming into my body.
Earlier I said I didn’t change in my personalities. But as for my cells and blood in my body, they are completely changed. And I believe that is a great thing. A thing that comes to my mind is that I should’t settle down an environment where I just feel comfortable. New enviroments taught me a lot I don’t realize in Japan. So I think I must take steps going forwards, find something challenging, then work on them to keep improve myself. Plus after those trips, I could realize how great our home is too. I mean, relatively I can learn to find something different between Japan and others, and then I notice clearly something great you don’t realize when in Japan. So right now I can say travels make everything awesome. There is nothing bad to traveling! Great, isn’t it?
So if you stuck in something bad or you feel something weird in your environment, then I would say you can take flight going abroad to refresh youself. That is not all, but I believe you can find something great out there.
Thanks to the travels including living in Toronto, these things came to be one of my philosophies. Travels could change your mindset. I am pretty sure they will though.
6, conclusion
I know I wrote too much lol. Anyway this is almost all that I felt for 10 months in Toronto. I hope these tips help someone who is wondering if he/she go abroad or not.
The title of this article is “living (studying) abroad”. The reason I do so is that I feel like my experience may be differnt from studying abroad. In working holidays, you have to do literally everything. Working, living, chores, shopping, making friends, saving money and whatever that support your life. And many of my friends got bored of such life style and went back to Japan although they were supposed to be here for a year. And I feel them. It’s really tough to live abroad alone.
But I do believe that there are some sparks in abroad that motivates you hella much. And feeling such sparks is the most, literally most important and priceless things against our whole lives. That is my opinion on living abroad.
we are always together wherever we go :)
Thanks again who supported me a lot.
See you soon, Toronto~!🇨🇦