London + JLPT

2038-01-19T03:14:07Z

So I went to london yesterday to do the JLPT.

London:
I got up at 5 in the morning and got to Xochipilli at around 6. Got to the gate at 6:20, and boarding was at 6:25. I didn't have any luggage to check in so i could just walk past everything quite easily. Anyway, i had these packs of chocolate in my bag for lunch, because that's what i take with me when i go to Delft anyway, but this time i forgot i was going by plane. So they had to be removed.. which was pretty stupid. That liquid prohibition is quite pointless if you ask me.

So after the plane ride which departed at 7:10 I got to london at 7:40 orso (local time of course). Changed too much money, got myself a day travel card and then took the tube to covent garden where i met up with prof_blink! At 9:30. The ride took less than an hour I later found out so i wonder where all that time had gone. I was quite surprised there were so many people on the subway btw, as it was a sunday and you don't usually go anywhere during that time of day. The weather was very nice though.. clear skies the whole time! And lots of sun.

Anyway, met up with Kiran. Went to a cafe nero, had a sort of breakfast. It was quite nice to see her again, tiny as always. After that we walked around for a bit, we went to Trafalgar square to see the tree, and then to Oxford street to check out the decorations. But it was daytime so the lights weren't on obviously. And because it was sunday all the shops were still closed at that hour so that was pretty stupid too.

Eventually we headed towards Russel Square and my test location at around 12 o' clock, there we went to a Waterstones with a cafe in the basement (they always have a Costa cafe right?). We found Tales of Beedle the Bard there! so we bought that obviously. And then we sat there untill 1 at which point we went back to the SOAS which had gotten quite busy by then.

JLPT:
After a while we said goodbye and I went inside to take my test. Lots of oulde people. Which was quite surprising to me as i had the impression that only people like me were taking this test. Maybe it's because of the difficulty level that's not very high that makes it more accessible to a greater group of people interested in Japanese?

So I went to the test room at around half past 1. The room was a small quite... dirty looking one. We had 3 proctors and there were about 20 candidates in the room.

The proctors were quite funny btw, we were in england so all the instructions were given in English, but none of the proctors were actually English it seemed (1 Japanese, 1 Chinese probably and 1 from an undisclosed non-english speaking part of the world). So all the instructions, which were given by the person with the mysterious ethnicity, had this slight accent to them with stresses on words placed all over the place but at the correct position, which was quite humorous.

The instructions/rules themselves were quite funny too, like not opening your booklet before told to do so, and you were not supposed to talk during the test. And if you broke the rules in any way you would invariably get the capital punishment apparently, which was ofcourse disqualification.

As for the test set-up, there were 3 parts. Writing & vocabulary (35 mins), Listening (35mins), Reading & Grammar (70 mins). Now the whole test was multiple choice, so one might wonder how one would test writing, but there were questions like "which character goes here". The listening part was quite difficult, because the japanese spoken was well.. somehow quite colloquial :/ And they'd somehow manage to mention all the possibilities lol so that was quite annoying. And the grammar section was the one i had dreaded the most but that one didn't go bad at all.. i had 20 minutes to spare.

Between each of those sections was a 20 minute break, during which i would drink my fruitshoot which i bought at a tesco's across the street from russel square station, because i had obviously lost my chocolate to the security monkey at xochipilli. And i would eat one of those italian bread things my mom had put in the oven at 5 in the morning. They were quite flat, cold and moist by then ofcourse but they were still good. I noticed i was the only one drinking and eating something, which was quite ennerving. During those breaks i'd also hear others talking about the test "I failed this test last year. Yeah me too! And I think this year's test is way harder than last year's!" so that was sort of annoying to hear.. lol..

The way home:
So yeah.. the first section began at 2:10 and the last one ended at 5:20, at which time i went straight to the tube station to head off to Heathrow. I had become quite tired by then actually.. even during the test I was trying to sleep after I had finished each section waiting for the break. So I slept during most of the tube ride.

What's also funny to note is that before the test began, I didn't know from which terminal my flight would leave, so Kiran found that out for me when she got home and she texted me the terminal. That was quite convenient because the distance between terminals on Heathrow is quite large. And even when i got to the correct terminal, i didn't know which gate i had to go to, as i had already checked in at home, and my boarding pass said find out your gate information at the airport" so that was sort of.. interesting :P Eventually I waited at Heathrow for about an hour after which the gate would finally show up on one of the screens.

I also had 40 pounds left over :/ So i bought 2 books which were both about Japanese history so that was cool. I also managed to finish my fruitshoots before the security check btw! :P as i had to 2 bottles left over.

Boarding was at 19:45 and the plane left at 20:15. And the flight itself was quite uneventful. I slept during most of it. Landed at 22:something (local time again), and caught the bus. Arrived in my town at 22:39. Rode my bike home and was there before 11. So from 5 to 23 it was a busy day that lasted for 18 hours. I also walked quite a bit with my heavy bag so my legs were quite sore.

	Busstop at 5 in the morning. What my bus stop looks like every morning. But this time i was an hour earlier than usual.
	Sun behind covent garden. The sun was very bright!
	Chrsitmas decoration in covent garden. I had been here earlier, but it was summer and hot and not as decorated as it was now.
	Tree at trafalgar square. The Christmas tree! It rather looks the same as the one they usually put up at Dam square in Amsterdam.

So that's it! I hope you have enjoyed this entry. I haven't taken any pictures of the test building or anything which i think i've should but the building didn't exactly look very cheerful anyway, despite those two incredibly orange palm trees with flashing lights they had put up on the square in front of it.

Tass his Trash

London + JLPT