In the years 2011-2013 the scholarship application time was the third Wednesday of April, this year it came a little late, for Mexico I called last week and was told that it would be opened this Wednesday April 23rd, I keep refreshing the page in hopes of seeing the new guidelines. As for contacting a Japanese professor I started doing that in January and already found a lab that would take me in in case I'm awarded the scholarship, after that I did not try to contact any other Japanese school teacher until later on in case I do pass the first screening. About my research proposal, I started preparing it since last September. In my case I don't live anywhere near Mexico city and I will have to take a two hour flight.. pfft.. lets just see how things develop. lets keep this thread alive until the end and hope for the best. By the way do any of you know where you want to study? or the area?.. in my case I want to live in the kantou area and the primary school I want to attend to is Tokyo Institute of Technology, but currently the Japanese school I have receive a response from is Yokohama National University