Well today is the first day I have been able to get online since we left the US, so settle in, because it’s going to be a long one ☺
Tuesday, September 26th
Today we flew from DTW to Tokyo (actually Narita airport). The flight was ok, and for sure could have been worse. We had awesome seats, the outside two exit row seats have a TON of leg room – I highly recommend exit row seating for a flight of this length. The window seat in the exit row does not have as much leg room as the other two seats because the door takes up a lot of space. We watched a few movies and tried to sleep, but neither of us could get comfortable enough to sleep. One thing I was very happy about on the flight was that there was no shortage of food. It seems that every time you were finally feeling not full from one meal they would bring you something else to eat – no complaints here! And the food was actually pretty good!
Wednesday, September 27th
We arrived in Narita airport around 4:45pm Japan time. I think it was probably the smoothest airport arrival transaction I’ve ever had. The landing was smooth, there was no line at customs, the luggage was ready for us on the carousel, we changed some dollars for yen, bought our bus tickets from the airport to Atsugi (where our hotel was located), grabbed dinner and even bought cell phones! (for the number, please email me – I’m not going to post it here). As soon as we boarded the bus to Atsugi, we both immediately fell asleep (which was weird since we couldn’t sleep on the plane, we must have finally been tired enough to fall asleep in any conditions). Two hours later, we arrived in Atsugi (Tokyo is actually an hour from Narita airport and Atsugi is another hour beyond that). We hailed a cab and went to the hotel, which was more spacious than I thought it was going to be, although all the furniture seemed smaller, including the two twin-sized beds, but it was a nice room and we were exhausted, so after watched a few minutes of CNN, we went to sleep.
Thursday, September 28th
I pretty much slept through the whole night, only getting up once to use the potty, which was one of the fancy ones with the built in bidet -- I had to try it, I couldn’t resist since in Europe we used the bidets to wash our feet, it was ok, but very strange, so I can’t say I would use it on a regular basis. I woke up early (around 6:30am), so we got up, showered, repacked a few things and then went in search of coffee. We found it just about a block away. At this point I was still very unsure of myself when trying to order something because I was afraid they will not understand me (I’m still afraid of that), so I was happy that Nick was there, even though he can’t speak Japanese yet, he’s not afraid of not being understood. ☺ As we were enjoying coffee, Nick suddenly says “I think that’s Mike Zimmerman” and jumped up and went out of the shop. It was, in fact, Mike Zimmerman, who just moved here from the US and works for Nissan. Mike is here for a 3 month assignment. I thought it was so funny that our first day in Japan we see someone we know! After coffee we returned to the hotel to collect our luggage and check out.
A man from Calsonic-Kansei Japan (Nick's company) came to meet us at the hotel, Amemiya-san, to take us to our apartment, shopping, and other errands. We first went to the rental office, which is in downtown Zama and about 45 minutes or so from Atsugi. The rental office is also nowhere near the actual apartment itself. After that, we went to the grocery store to have spare keys made since the rental office only provides one which they say can NOT be lost. We also had lunch at a Japanese Family-style restaurant – similar to a Denny’s but all Japanese food. I had tuna rolls and noodles (yes, they do have sushi rolls here ☺). The tuna rolls were not very good but the noodles were. After two meals in a row of noodles, I was ready for something a little closer to what I was used to for dinner. I also used the bathroom in the grocery store and found that one of the toilets is actually a toilet in a hole in the ground and actually looks more like some kind of urinal than a toilet. Apparently, this hole in the ground toilet is common here, but even Nick admits he hasn’t been brave enough to use one yet (I will try to get a picture of the toilet at some point). After lunch, we went to the apartment, which is actually pretty nice, and very spacious. There are only 4 apartments in our building, so it’s pretty quiet, with the exception of our neighbors above us who sounded like they were moving furniture until about 1am – Nick theorizes that they may have been battling cockroaches. The first thing I noticed when coming into the apartment was a sign on the ground telling us to remove our shoes and it said that shoes are not allowed to be worn in the apartment at all. Thankfully, there is a cabinet to store shoes in near the front door, so that they will not just be piled up at the entrance. Another thing I learned today is that no one really has driers in Japan – everyone has poles on their balconies or porches and hang clothes and clothes racks from there. Also, we are required to hang our futon mattresses out on a regular basis, as apparently futons tend to grow mold.
So after dropping our stuff in the apartment, Amemiya-san took us back to the grocery store for some supplies. We just bought some basics – towels, water, toilet paper, tissues, pillows (the ones provided by the apartment were small and made with little pieces of plastic, so we opted to buy some made with cotton instead), plates, glasses, a few food items – really just things to get us started. Unfortunately, one of the necessities we did not buy there was alcohol. They had plenty of wine, sake, and beer, but their liquor selection was small and very expensive (a small bottle of Jack was around 2,500 yen, which is around $25), so Omemiya-san brought us to a liquor store called Mine Mart (my theory is that the translation error comes from Mini Mart and Nick thinks maybe it could be a translation error from Wine Mart), where they had a nice, and decently-priced selection of fine liquors. So, being that we were not sure when we would make it back to Mine Mart, since it is not in walking distance from the apartment, we picked up a fifth of Bacardi Oro, a fifth of Captain Morgan, a fifth of Jim Beam and a 4 pack of small cans of Guinness (don’t be worried, this will last us a while). When we got back to the apartment, Nick got in touch with Mahesh, Harada-san, and Erin (Mahesh and Erin are from Nick’s office in the US) and we arranged to meet them for dinner in Atsugi. So, until it was time for us to make the 15 minute hilly walk to the train station, we unpacked and had a few drinks to relax after a mentally exhausting day. We met up with the boys in Atsugi, and Harada-san took us to a restaurant called Domo-Domo, where I had a pizza (considerably smaller and healthier than pizza in the US, but delicious anyway). We went back to the apartment fairly early since we were both tired and everyone had to get up for work in the morning. When we arrived back at the apartment we saw a gigantic cockroach on the wall in the room where we had set up our bed. When Nick tried to catch it, we discovered that cockroaches run very fast (we found out later that they fly as well), and it ran behind the closet. So, we moved our bed into the other room.
I forgot to mention that our bed is a twin-sized futon. After moving our bedroom, I called Mum to check in and was trying to figure out how many minutes it has cost when I saw another cockroach come out from behind the refrigerator in the kitchen. Nick said “that’s it, we’re not staying here. I’m getting us a new place tomorrow.” He ended up waking up at 1am, and ended up killing 3 cockroaches and called his boss in the US to complain about our problem. After talking to his Japanese boss, he found out that cockroaches are a common problem in Japan, and he suggested we go to the store and buy cockroach traps, so that is the current plan.
Friday, September 29th
Well, today was my first day on my own and I think it went pretty well. It was also Nick’s first day of work! After Nick left for work I hung around the apartment, did a little laundry and such. I went for a run a little before lunch (got a cramp, so I’ve got a definite lack of potassium, which is not a surprise since food rich in potassium do not seem to be a part of the standard Japanese diet). The run felt good though anyway. I ran the long way to the train station and the short way back, which makes a nice little 40 minute loop. After shower and a lunch of Noodle cup, which smelled like some kind of fish, I strapped on my bag and headed for the Uny, which is the grocery store we shopped at yesterday. I would compare it to some version of a Walmart. It has three levels. Level 1 is grocery, level 2 is mens and womens clothing, and level 3 is home items, electronics, books, and childrens clothing. The walk to Uny was a breeze as it is downhill the entire way, but the walk back was not fun at all, not only was I loaded down with everything I bought, but it was uphill the entire way back. By the time I got back, my back was drenched in sweat from the backpack and the fact that the weather here is 20 degrees warmer than back home. After I put all of the groceries away I was hungry and exhausted, so I made myself a half of a pb&j and some crackers and watched a movie on the laptop. Nick called and told me he and the boys from Nissan and CK would be going out to dinner, and for me to get the train and join them, but that he would call when they were leaving so I could meet them at the Hon Atsugi train station. So I got up, did some ironing (after the clothes have been hanging outside all day they are wrinkled and stiff), changed and Nick called around 7pm. So, I walked to the train station, but got there just after the train had been there, so I had to wait about 10 minutes for the next train.
Once I met the boys at Hon Atsugi, we walked around for about a half an hour trying to find a place to eat. Each place that we went to could either not seat 6 people or the food did not look appetizing. Finally we decided to go to the place we had gone to last night, Domo-Domo, but there was a long wait there, so we ended up at McDonalds.
After a nice, satisfying meal at McDonalds, we went to an Irish pub called Blackstone which, we were delighted to find, served Guinness and Bacardi Oro. After that, we were pretty exhausted, so we caught the train back to Zama, and took a cab back to the apartment from the train station, which I was thankful for since my legs were pretty dead from all of the walking I had done that day. When we got back to the apartment, we checked the traps I had set up for the cockroaches (which look like little houses) and found that we had caught one cockroach, although it appears as though it is not one of the big ones. Nick says that there will be a guy coming out on Monday to do some kind of extermination, so that is good. We didn't see any other cockroaches the rest of the night, however we did see some kind of bug with lots of legs scurry across the floor, which Nick was able to tackle immediately.
Tuesday, September 26th
Today we flew from DTW to Tokyo (actually Narita airport). The flight was ok, and for sure could have been worse. We had awesome seats, the outside two exit row seats have a TON of leg room – I highly recommend exit row seating for a flight of this length. The window seat in the exit row does not have as much leg room as the other two seats because the door takes up a lot of space. We watched a few movies and tried to sleep, but neither of us could get comfortable enough to sleep. One thing I was very happy about on the flight was that there was no shortage of food. It seems that every time you were finally feeling not full from one meal they would bring you something else to eat – no complaints here! And the food was actually pretty good!
Wednesday, September 27th
We arrived in Narita airport around 4:45pm Japan time. I think it was probably the smoothest airport arrival transaction I’ve ever had. The landing was smooth, there was no line at customs, the luggage was ready for us on the carousel, we changed some dollars for yen, bought our bus tickets from the airport to Atsugi (where our hotel was located), grabbed dinner and even bought cell phones! (for the number, please email me – I’m not going to post it here). As soon as we boarded the bus to Atsugi, we both immediately fell asleep (which was weird since we couldn’t sleep on the plane, we must have finally been tired enough to fall asleep in any conditions). Two hours later, we arrived in Atsugi (Tokyo is actually an hour from Narita airport and Atsugi is another hour beyond that). We hailed a cab and went to the hotel, which was more spacious than I thought it was going to be, although all the furniture seemed smaller, including the two twin-sized beds, but it was a nice room and we were exhausted, so after watched a few minutes of CNN, we went to sleep.
Thursday, September 28th
I pretty much slept through the whole night, only getting up once to use the potty, which was one of the fancy ones with the built in bidet -- I had to try it, I couldn’t resist since in Europe we used the bidets to wash our feet, it was ok, but very strange, so I can’t say I would use it on a regular basis. I woke up early (around 6:30am), so we got up, showered, repacked a few things and then went in search of coffee. We found it just about a block away. At this point I was still very unsure of myself when trying to order something because I was afraid they will not understand me (I’m still afraid of that), so I was happy that Nick was there, even though he can’t speak Japanese yet, he’s not afraid of not being understood. ☺ As we were enjoying coffee, Nick suddenly says “I think that’s Mike Zimmerman” and jumped up and went out of the shop. It was, in fact, Mike Zimmerman, who just moved here from the US and works for Nissan. Mike is here for a 3 month assignment. I thought it was so funny that our first day in Japan we see someone we know! After coffee we returned to the hotel to collect our luggage and check out.
A man from Calsonic-Kansei Japan (Nick's company) came to meet us at the hotel, Amemiya-san, to take us to our apartment, shopping, and other errands. We first went to the rental office, which is in downtown Zama and about 45 minutes or so from Atsugi. The rental office is also nowhere near the actual apartment itself. After that, we went to the grocery store to have spare keys made since the rental office only provides one which they say can NOT be lost. We also had lunch at a Japanese Family-style restaurant – similar to a Denny’s but all Japanese food. I had tuna rolls and noodles (yes, they do have sushi rolls here ☺). The tuna rolls were not very good but the noodles were. After two meals in a row of noodles, I was ready for something a little closer to what I was used to for dinner. I also used the bathroom in the grocery store and found that one of the toilets is actually a toilet in a hole in the ground and actually looks more like some kind of urinal than a toilet. Apparently, this hole in the ground toilet is common here, but even Nick admits he hasn’t been brave enough to use one yet (I will try to get a picture of the toilet at some point). After lunch, we went to the apartment, which is actually pretty nice, and very spacious. There are only 4 apartments in our building, so it’s pretty quiet, with the exception of our neighbors above us who sounded like they were moving furniture until about 1am – Nick theorizes that they may have been battling cockroaches. The first thing I noticed when coming into the apartment was a sign on the ground telling us to remove our shoes and it said that shoes are not allowed to be worn in the apartment at all. Thankfully, there is a cabinet to store shoes in near the front door, so that they will not just be piled up at the entrance. Another thing I learned today is that no one really has driers in Japan – everyone has poles on their balconies or porches and hang clothes and clothes racks from there. Also, we are required to hang our futon mattresses out on a regular basis, as apparently futons tend to grow mold.
So after dropping our stuff in the apartment, Amemiya-san took us back to the grocery store for some supplies. We just bought some basics – towels, water, toilet paper, tissues, pillows (the ones provided by the apartment were small and made with little pieces of plastic, so we opted to buy some made with cotton instead), plates, glasses, a few food items – really just things to get us started. Unfortunately, one of the necessities we did not buy there was alcohol. They had plenty of wine, sake, and beer, but their liquor selection was small and very expensive (a small bottle of Jack was around 2,500 yen, which is around $25), so Omemiya-san brought us to a liquor store called Mine Mart (my theory is that the translation error comes from Mini Mart and Nick thinks maybe it could be a translation error from Wine Mart), where they had a nice, and decently-priced selection of fine liquors. So, being that we were not sure when we would make it back to Mine Mart, since it is not in walking distance from the apartment, we picked up a fifth of Bacardi Oro, a fifth of Captain Morgan, a fifth of Jim Beam and a 4 pack of small cans of Guinness (don’t be worried, this will last us a while). When we got back to the apartment, Nick got in touch with Mahesh, Harada-san, and Erin (Mahesh and Erin are from Nick’s office in the US) and we arranged to meet them for dinner in Atsugi. So, until it was time for us to make the 15 minute hilly walk to the train station, we unpacked and had a few drinks to relax after a mentally exhausting day. We met up with the boys in Atsugi, and Harada-san took us to a restaurant called Domo-Domo, where I had a pizza (considerably smaller and healthier than pizza in the US, but delicious anyway). We went back to the apartment fairly early since we were both tired and everyone had to get up for work in the morning. When we arrived back at the apartment we saw a gigantic cockroach on the wall in the room where we had set up our bed. When Nick tried to catch it, we discovered that cockroaches run very fast (we found out later that they fly as well), and it ran behind the closet. So, we moved our bed into the other room.
I forgot to mention that our bed is a twin-sized futon. After moving our bedroom, I called Mum to check in and was trying to figure out how many minutes it has cost when I saw another cockroach come out from behind the refrigerator in the kitchen. Nick said “that’s it, we’re not staying here. I’m getting us a new place tomorrow.” He ended up waking up at 1am, and ended up killing 3 cockroaches and called his boss in the US to complain about our problem. After talking to his Japanese boss, he found out that cockroaches are a common problem in Japan, and he suggested we go to the store and buy cockroach traps, so that is the current plan.
Friday, September 29th
Well, today was my first day on my own and I think it went pretty well. It was also Nick’s first day of work! After Nick left for work I hung around the apartment, did a little laundry and such. I went for a run a little before lunch (got a cramp, so I’ve got a definite lack of potassium, which is not a surprise since food rich in potassium do not seem to be a part of the standard Japanese diet). The run felt good though anyway. I ran the long way to the train station and the short way back, which makes a nice little 40 minute loop. After shower and a lunch of Noodle cup, which smelled like some kind of fish, I strapped on my bag and headed for the Uny, which is the grocery store we shopped at yesterday. I would compare it to some version of a Walmart. It has three levels. Level 1 is grocery, level 2 is mens and womens clothing, and level 3 is home items, electronics, books, and childrens clothing. The walk to Uny was a breeze as it is downhill the entire way, but the walk back was not fun at all, not only was I loaded down with everything I bought, but it was uphill the entire way back. By the time I got back, my back was drenched in sweat from the backpack and the fact that the weather here is 20 degrees warmer than back home. After I put all of the groceries away I was hungry and exhausted, so I made myself a half of a pb&j and some crackers and watched a movie on the laptop. Nick called and told me he and the boys from Nissan and CK would be going out to dinner, and for me to get the train and join them, but that he would call when they were leaving so I could meet them at the Hon Atsugi train station. So I got up, did some ironing (after the clothes have been hanging outside all day they are wrinkled and stiff), changed and Nick called around 7pm. So, I walked to the train station, but got there just after the train had been there, so I had to wait about 10 minutes for the next train.
Once I met the boys at Hon Atsugi, we walked around for about a half an hour trying to find a place to eat. Each place that we went to could either not seat 6 people or the food did not look appetizing. Finally we decided to go to the place we had gone to last night, Domo-Domo, but there was a long wait there, so we ended up at McDonalds.
After a nice, satisfying meal at McDonalds, we went to an Irish pub called Blackstone which, we were delighted to find, served Guinness and Bacardi Oro. After that, we were pretty exhausted, so we caught the train back to Zama, and took a cab back to the apartment from the train station, which I was thankful for since my legs were pretty dead from all of the walking I had done that day. When we got back to the apartment, we checked the traps I had set up for the cockroaches (which look like little houses) and found that we had caught one cockroach, although it appears as though it is not one of the big ones. Nick says that there will be a guy coming out on Monday to do some kind of extermination, so that is good. We didn't see any other cockroaches the rest of the night, however we did see some kind of bug with lots of legs scurry across the floor, which Nick was able to tackle immediately.
posted by Stacy Bee at 11:19 AM
2 Comments:
I don't like bugs much...
Good thing you had term in Europe and you have Nick, because without that everything you are doing sounds kind of frightening. But you seem to be doing well and having fun!
Your fat cat is laying at the foot of my bed, watching me...and he growls if i try to make him get down. (or he did earlier, when he was laying on my chest watching a movie on the couch, and he growled when i tried to make him leave, so i threw an empty soda can against the floor and scared him)
Awww... see he loves you :) and he's not fat, he's fluffy ;)
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