A brief apartment tour

Now that we're moved it (well sort of, we still don't have a fridge and washer and other little things), I though we'd shard some pictures of our living space. I haven't taken a picture of every room because our luggage is still spread everywhere and we're not done unpacking.


Above you see the tatami room that is Japanese style. This is our living room. Tatami are the mats on the floor. These mats are new and it smells like hay in here. Kind of strange, but I like this room. It's mostly where we've been hanging out so far. It's the room with some furniture in it as well, so yeah, it's where we'll mostly be. It connects to the dining room which is basically full of our junk right now cause we don't have a dining table yet. We can't quite afford it, but eventually I hope to have a table there. I don't like eating in the tatami room because if you spill something your screwed. The dining room floor is vinyl tile, so it'll wipe up easily. The apartment is much bigger than I imagined for Japan. Granted it's not cheap, but I don't think it's a bad price either. It's cheaper than a place this size in NYC or Chicago would cost.
Another picture is of our kitchen. It doesn't really have anything in it yet. We just got those burners put in, but I have no fridge to store the food in and no rice cooker til Sunday of next week, so it's not much good yet. I liked the kitchen in this apartment better than any others I had seen . I like the little countertop to set food on.

The bathroom is typical Japanese style. You walk in and have a sink and place for a washer. On the left is the showering/bathing area, Japanese style where you rinse off outside the tub in front of the mirror and then soak in the tub and get out again. I haven't had a chance to clean the tub yet, so no bath for me yet, just a shower. I just noticed you can see my leg in the mirror...haha. The toliet in a separate door to the right of the sink.
Other rooms not pictured are the dining area, the hallway to enter, and the bedroom which is kinda a mess at the moment of clothes which we have no drawers for. So far I really like the place. We're on a side street of the main street so it's pretty quite. There isn't much traffic down the street. Neighbors I've ran into seem friendly even though I don't know what to say to them. We're very close to school (10-15 minute walk, even shorter by bike), and very close to the Peace Park which is a nice place to walk around. Our place has an elevator which makes life easier and there is a security code to get in the place so just anyone can't walk in. I like our roomy apartment! Now if only I had a fridge and some cooking stuff!!!

I think I need a drink...

Ugh....horrible day....I'm still sick. Markian keeps getting and losing a fever; I don't know what terrible plague he's acquired. Mine doesn't seem to go away, at least he looses his for a day or two. We walked a long, long ways across the city looking for recycle shops, trying to get our appliances for cheaper. It turns out after doing more research and checking the shops out, they're almost as expensive as new, and look rather crappy. I saw an expensive fridge with holes in it for example.

Also, part of the crappy day comes from my credit card being declined for a fridge and washer...and still not knowing why. The out of the country help number doesn't work from a Japanese phone. I'm told my parents the situation and hopefully they will call Capitol One, cause I surely can't from here. So, I had to drop tons of cash on it, and now I'm past the point of broke. I'm hoping will survive till payday, which is over a month away. The fridge can't even be delivered for another week, which means more eating out, which is getting old and it's not cheap. arghghghgh.... I'm so irritated, especially not knowing why my card decided to be an ass even after I'd called them before I left to tell them I would be here for two years!!!!

We are in the apartment. It's very nice, with the exception of no means to cook. We even have to supply the stove. I realized this morning when I got up we didn't have soap, (I thought Mark packed it, but he said he forgot) which was sucky. It took us forever to find a place that sold regular bar soap. I kept finding stupid 3,000 yen beauty bars. I thought the 100 yen shop would have some, but the one we checked didn't, just dish soap. We finally found some and now I can be clean.
The pictures show the large variety of sake at the Jusco, where we dropped all the cash on the washer and fridge. You can get so many different kinds of sake here and they even come in the milk carton like boxes seen above. At this point I could use a drink, but we're saving it for a party. I was invited to one of my A5 student's houses for a Japanese BBQ party. So I'm really psyched about it. We just have to bring something to drink. A nice lady at work who is going to the party as well is meeting us at the school to show us the right bus to get on to get to this guys house. It should be an experience, hopefully I'll be feeling better by then.

Why won't the window open?

I'm suffocating in here. The window of the hotel will not open and it's been miserable in the hotel for the past four nights. The a/c won't come on, just heat. I just want to open the window. The air is stale and I'm sick with a cold and feel like crap and can't get any sleep. Some other people's windows in the hotel are different and open. How come I have to get the one that won't?

I'm about to go teach my last lesson of training. Mark is off to the train station to catch a train somewhere to teach a beginning kids lesson. Glad it's him and not me having to ride the train somewhere cause I'm bad about getting on the wrong one. I'm teaching at a fertility clinic of all places which is about a ten minute walk supposidly, but I'm leaving 10 minutes early to make sure I can find it. I was looking forward to it, but I'm feeling so horrible. I hope I don't scare them off with my really bad cough and hoarse voice. We just paid off the majority of the apartment deposits, which leaves me broke, but almost free from debt. Mark's temperature is down though. I might have one though... I haven't checked, but I do feel like crap.

On another note, after tomorrow I won't have internet for a while, so updates will not be as frequent for that time being. Do check in though, because if I
can, I will post.

I thought I'd post a bad "Engrish" sign because it make me laugh, and I need to laugh, cause I'm hot, and sick, and cranky.

Thursday we are moving!

I'm writing double today because these are the last couple of days that I know for a fact I will indeed have internet access. On Thursday, we'll be out of the hotel and into our apartment! It's exciting, but scary because we still don't have everything we need. We got the bill today for the apartment set up expenses and it's pretty horrid. It was exactly what I expected though, about $4,000 US, which includes the rent for the rest of this month and next. Yeah, it sucks, but this is Japan and that's the way it works. We have to decide how much we can afford to pay and how much to take as a loan from the company. That means I have to determine how much I owe people for used furnishings, how much I need for a fridge and washer, which have yet to be purchased, and how much money I need to live on for the next couple of months. It's all overwhelming, but I guess we'll figure it out.

The pictures above are of our home for the past month, the hotel. The poster shows the instructions for how to work the toilet since in includes a bidet and shower. It shows you how to heat the water before you push the spray button and how to control the flow of water. Many toilets like this have heated seats as well, but this one doesn't. Our hotel has been nice, but it was so tiny for two people to live in with all our stuff for a month. I will miss the free breakfast, but I will be happy to cook my own food.

The lower, bottom-most picture is of the outside of our new apartment building. Markian and I walked down there to make sure we knew where it was and to get a description of the building for deliveries. Only 2 more days!

Lost little Nekko

Mark and I were walking back from another day of exploring on Sunday morning, and near the hotel in a little park area, this poor lost little cat was sitting on a rock. I stopped for a moment to look at him and he starting meowing at me and got up. He was very friendly and an old man stopped to pet him. I walked up to pet the cat too and the old man started talking to me at lightning speed. I think he was saying something about the cat being old and boney, from the way he was gesturing. However, the only word I could decipher out of the entire conversation was, "nekko", which means cat. So, even though I know random words, I'm still totally lost here when it comes to conversation. I'm looking forward to getting my permanent schedule so I can go sign up for free Japanese lessons at the international center. Being able to say more things would sure be a plus. I've gotten down basic things now, like ordering correctly at the Mos Burger, and being polite at the grocery store, and whatnot, but that's about it. I can read Hiragana, but without katakana and kanji, it's worthless most of the time.

The little kitty as far as I can tell followed the old man home. I hope he kept it. I was a nice friendly cat. I can't stand to see hungry, homeless animals on the street. I don't know what I would have done if it would have followed me home since I currently live in a hotel...

Spring has Sprung

Spring is here, as you can see from the pictures of the first cherry blossoms to bloom. It's been incredibly warm all of a sudden. It's actually hot in the hotel because they haven't switched it over to a/c yet, and the windows don't open which makes it nasty and stuffy in here. I'm hoping they either turn on the air soon or it gets cold again.

These are some early trees I found, but most trees look like the first one pictured here. Most trees are just budding. By the end of this week, there should be cherry blossoms everywhere. I've already picked out some nice viewing spots. When the trees are in full bloom people gather together and pick-nick and drink lots of sake under the trees. It sounds like a lot of fun. I saw some people pick-nicking under the trees that just have little buds this past weekend.

Mark is still really sick. I'm feeling crappy now. I think it's because of all the pollen in the air, well my sickness anyway. He still is running a fever and sounds horrible. He hardly ate anything today. I had to help him finish off both his meals, which usually doesn't happen. I'm hoping he starts feeling better soon. We're still busy with work for the next couple of days, and we have lots to do with moving into the new apartment. Because he's been sick we didn't get to go looking for a fridge and a washer like we had planned.

To his credit, he was sick and still walked down with me to find our apartment because we have to describe it to the guy we're buying a bed and some chairs from so he can arrange to borrow his friend's truck and bring them to our apartment. It was so easy to find, and I am horrible with finding things. I'm happy we picked somewhere that is that much of a straight shot. It takes exactly 15 minutes to walk from there to the main school at a normal pace. I don't think that's so bad, and it will take even less time once I get my bike I'm buying from a leaving teacher on Thursday. The one Mark was going to buy broke before he bought it, so I guess we'll have to go to the bike shop to find him a bike.

Did you hear about the earthquake?

You might have heard about the earthquake in Japan this morning. In case you were wondering, it was not here, and we didn't feel anything. It was somewhere hours northeast of here. I'm not sure how far, but I saw it on a map, and it's not near here. It looks like most of the damage was on this island from what they were showing on tv here. Scary. I guess I should find out what I'm supposed to do in case one hits here.


The pictures here today are kinda random. I haven't downloaded my newer ones yet cause it's too much trouble with that camera. This is from March 14th (according to my computer files) when were were just exploring around at night. We found this little Shinto Shrine in the middle of the city. It was all lite up with lanterns and I thought it was pretty. So we stopped and took some pictures. I love that there are little shrines randomly placed around the city. I like the mix of old/new Japan, although nothing here is that old cause of what happened in the war.
There are some exceptions. Today we passed a temple near this mountain that said it survived the bomb, all except the room. We were tired and Mark wasn't feeling well, so we walked home and decided to go back at a later time and check it out.

Mark has a 102.5 degree temperature according to his thermometer. He says he doesn't feel that horrible, but he sounds horrible and he can't get warm and I'm baking in here. I'm hoping he gets better so. We were going to go hiking tomorrow, but that's probably not happening now. We'll just have to stay at the hotel. I guess I may go out tomorrow by myself while he's sleeping cause I can't stand to be cooped up in this itsy bitsy hotel room all day.

I choose you Pikachu!

I finally saw a Pokemon. Although not that horribly popular over here like it used to be, some kids apparently still enjoy the Pokemon. I tried to catch it in my poke ball but he was too big. :-( Alas...

So Markian and I took a trip over to Diamond City to go shopping for cheaper furnishing. Diamond City is a western style mall (or as close as you're going to get to it over here). Apartments in Japan come totally unfurnished. Usually no light bulbs, no stove, no fridge, no anything..... So, it can be very costly to get yourself set up. All the washers and fridges we'd looked at before were very, very expensive and a friend of us told us if we went to Diamond City we could get things cheaper. Also, I guess I should mention, you have to pay a deposit of 3 months rent, + a 50,000 yen agent fee + a 20,000 yen apartment insurance fee. So, you can see how you'd be broke after this and why I would want cheap furnishing. Also, in other areas (thank goodness not here usually), you pay "key money" which is basically a bribe to the landlord to let you live there (can be around 1000-3000 bucks US that you'll never see again).

Diamond City is in what I guess you would call the the suburbs of Hiroshima. I'm trying to be cheap with all these huge apartment costs, so we decided to walk to Hiroshima Station instead of taking the railcar. That took about an hour and then we had to figure out how to catch this bus with no English on it to Diamond City. It was a free bus, so I was determined on taking it instead of the train. Long story short, we figured it out and ended up on the right bus.

The Pikachu and Godzilla pictures were taken at an arcade in Diamond City connected to this music store that had tons of guitar stuff that my sister would have loved. The lower Pikachu picture is what the inside looks like where you play the game. I was going to crawl in the Godzilla, but I was a little big and thought I might get stuck.

We did find cheaper furnishings here at Diamond City and we're going back on Sunday to purchase them, hopefully. We may be able to bring someone for translation help, as a friend of ours has volunteered his pregnant Japanese wife as a translator, which is really, really nice. I was wondering how on earth we were going to negotiate delivery! We move into our apartment on Thursday! At that point updates will be spotty for a bit, as I won't have internet until we get things figured out/and until we can afford it. These apartment costs are killing us!

I love fishes cause they're so delicious!

Well, normally I really like fish/seafood, but this is taking it a little further than I'll usually go. Sunday Mark and I ventured north up to the main train station to have a look around. The big train station in a city is usually a good place to shop, and get lunch cause there are lots of choices. We'd already eaten by the time we got down there, but decided it would be interesting and fun to walk around and look at the restaurants and the plastic food and see what is available in case we want to come back later and have a bite to eat.

The station had some of the most awesome plastic food dealing with fish. The top picture, being my favorite where you can get a fish head complete with eyeball floating in your soup as the main part of the lunch set. Mark's favorite is picture number three (counting down from the top) with the fish laid bad with his belly sliced open as if he's wailing in pain. Horrible, horrible, yet funny. Keep in mind these pictures are of plastic food, but when you order this stuff it always seems to look identical to what you saw in the plastic food. Even the way they position stuff on the plate. And of course you can't forget the lovely fish head platter.

Hungry yet? I know I was. Obviously someone likes this stuff because they seem to serve a large variety of it!

Burn, Burn, Burn, the Floor with the DDR!

We found it! We found two of them actually in separate arcades. After my visit last year, I was told the DDR (Dance, Dance, Revolution) was too old and lame to be found here still. Apparently I found some old and lame arcades which is completely awesome. So Mark saw it and we went and danced a few songs. Awesomeness. Not really any different other than there seemed to be a larger song selection and it costs more money. I was happy to see it though. The other machine is a guitar game like Guitar Hero, except it's made from the makers of DDR. I thought Lena would want to see it. hehe Oh and playing DDR after enjoying a meal at Mos Burger...not a good idea. I don't think we really thought that through.... you will get cramps.

We fought long and hard, but the toast won...

So last night was St. Patty's day. Many of our colleagues went out drinking and partying at this Irish Bar called Molly Malone's. I didn't want to go pay a thousand yen cover and then run up more of a bill from eating and drinking. Instead we decided to go have a good, nice, hot dinner instead of eating cold stuff from the convenience store for the fiftieth time. We went to this garlic restaurant that we'd been to once for lunch with friends. The lunch menu is in Japanese, but there is some English on the dinner menu. I got the Thai style chicken and Mark got the garlic style chicken.

We sat around talking, enjoying our food, and we noticed this huge thing that someone at another table had. I thought it looked like bread filled with ice cream. We asked the lady in Japanese what it was, and she pointed to the "honey toast" on the menu. Wanting to try something new, and thinking it was full of ice cream, we ordered one huge 700 yen thing of honey toast. So this thing comes and it's HUGE as you can see by comparison to Mark in the picture. It basically was an entire loaf of toasty break soaked in honey with ice cream and whipped cream on top. It was not filled with ice cream as we had thought, it was solid bread! Now only in Japan, would I think it be a great idea to eat this huge loaf of bread for desert. It tasted really good, but I would recommend sharing it with at least three other people.

The picture on the bottom left is as far as Mark and I ate to together. The picture on the bottom right is what else Mark managed to finish off after I quit. We painfully walked back to our hotel, laughing about it the whole way, thinking, "Why did we just eat an entire loaf of bread?" hehe It was fun though.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

So yesterday was our first day of teaching. We had to ride the tram to Hiroshima station, which took about 20 minutes once we finally caught it, and then we had to get on the correct train to go about 20 minutes outside of the city to get to the kindergarten and branch school.

Our first class was in a Kindergarten. I had a class of three and four year olds, Mark had four and five year olds, and then I taught a class of five and six year olds. So, we made the train and
tram ok and got off at the correct stop. Our map said that the kindergarten was on the hill, which wasn't pictured on the map, and that someone would pick us up at the station. So, when someone says "hill" I think you know, a hill you can possibly walk up. This wasn't the case.

This older lady picks us up in her SUV and I swear it was like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. You know, that crappy, jerky ride at Disney World? Yeah, like that except I expected to die or have my body parts mangled. She was going super fast and not even stopping for pedestrians! I really thought she was going to hit someone! Then we start going up this "hill" which let me tell you was more like a mountain to scale. It was crazy steep and windy. I thought it was a one way road but it was two! She didn't want to move over for other cars and was taking the curves at like the same speed as everything else! It was really scary! Nice lady, but crazy, crazy driver. I liked the kids, but I'm hoping I don't end up with that school because I don't know if I can handle that all the time.

The children at the Kindergarten were SOOOOO cute!!! Basically they have set activities and they know exactly what to do. I was going to play this game with them where you put four cards on the carpet, and then I say, "Go to the bear." or whatever the card is and they run to it, but don't touch. I lay two cards down on the carpet and the kids start screaming, "No touch!!!, No touch!!!" haha They can count really fast and high too. They all wanted to show me their bags decorated with their favorite cartoon. The lessons are 30 minutes a piece and are all back to back. I liked it, but I can see how it would get old after a while, as you really don't mix things up for them. Apparently kids like predictability. I just didn't feel like they were learning as much as they could by always doing the same activities and using the same cards.

So after the Kindergarten lessons we got back on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and went over to the lady's house which is basically in this building connected to a temple. That's what her and her husband do. Her husband is a monk or temple priest and they own the temple and keep up the grounds. They live in the buildings around it and hold English classes and piano lessons. It was pretty neat. That's the temple pictures you see there. The other picture is of the classroom Mark had to teach in there.

Obviously, we survived as I'm here to tell the story, but it was a crazy day. Traveling makes the day seem SO much longer too and we were starving and really really glad to see a bathroom when we got back. Oh, and I ate pizza!!! PIZZA!!! Oh, I had forgotten how good food tastes! It was cheap, at least I thought, about 504 for a personal cheese pizza and tipping is not customary there. It wasn't good as some stuff I've had in the states, but wow it was so good cause I've missed hot food. Hot food I know I can eat. Just thinking about it makes me get my appetite back.

Meals with other "gaijin"

Here you see pictures from two different outings with some of our colleages. One is from when we walked down the street from the YMCA to eat lunch during the day we had to go to the kids course (the bottom picture and the small picture on the left second down from the top). Here we ate at a garlic restaurant, which is a popular type of restaurant in Japan. As you can guess, there is garlic in everything. It was good, I had some type of fried fish with a tangy, sweet garlic sauce which came with salad with a garlic dressing, and garlicy chicken broth soup, and tea. This was one of my few real meals here. It was my first. The menu was totally in Japanese and there wasn't any of that lovely plastic food, but all those people you see with me, most of them can read and speak some Japanese. One of our friends even ordered the fish without the mayo for me!

The other pictures are from a night out with a friend of ours eating Yakitori. It was the first time I'd ever had it, and it's really good. If you don't know how Japanese restaurants work,nicer ones anyway, first off that big plate of cabbage which is pictured and pickles, which aren't, ...that's from the table charge. When you walk in and sit down they bring that stuff even if you order it or not and you're charged for it. I still don't know what the charge was because I couldn't read the bill. Anyhow, it was good stuff, but you'd better eat it, cause you paid for it. Yakitori includes many different types of veggies and meat with sauce on them that are stuck on a skewer and grilled. It's very tasty and basically they have something for everyone. However, it's hard to get full without spending tons of money. Me, being the cheapy that I am, and loving my veggies, ordered mostly veggies, so most my sticks were only 100 yen a pop. I had tofu, chicken, peppers, eggplant, and leeks. The ones you see laying on the plate are two tofu and some kind of pepper. They were seriously yummy. We had a lot of fun, and it's definitely something I'd like to do again. Afterwords we were invited over to a friend's room to partake in some sake, and we stayed up late just talking about random stuff. It was so much fun, and it was the only night we've really just goofed off and had fun. I should mention, I hadn't had any sake yet when that picture of me was taken, I just don't do so well when someone takes my photo. I wasn't going to post it, but Mark looks nice in it and he's the one with the beer! haha

Oh and I should mention...here are some things that you can get Yakitori style that I wouldn't want to eat, but found rather interesting. If you click on the photo with the menu and make it bigger, you can see some of them .....Chicken's Peel (chicken's skin), Chicken Neck, Chicken sashimi (raw chicken), Chicken tail, fried cartilage (not sure from what animal), quail's egg rolled in chicken, duck's peel (I think they mean duck skin), tongue (not sure which animal), gizzard.

Branch Schools

So, I am based at a school, but I also will have to teach out at branch schools. This one was about 30 minutes away from the train station in the city. Since we were observing, and this was our first time out, a group of us went together and we were told where to go. However, when the time comes, Thursday for us, we'll be doing this kinda stuff all on our own! It's a little scary, but thank goodness Mark and I have a similar schedule this week so we can both be lost together.

The picture of the bunny on the turtle is a little scary because sometimes the turtle's nose looks like the turtle's other eye. hehe!
Other images seen here include another cutesy add, for who knows what, fellow employees waiting at the train stop, and the mountains in this rural place we went to observe a class. The class was taught in this tiny building connected to someone's house. There was no bathroom! So if you had to go, you had better do it while you were inside the train station BEFORE you turn your ticket in! I was wondering what would happen if a kid had to go potty, because this was a kids class. I guess you just tell them to hold it!