I had a Saturday off! Thursday my boss told me to take Saturday off. Can I argue with that? This time I quickly said, “OK” and took today off. Well, I mean, it IS the weekend after all. I got to catch up with a few people in the morning and then sleep a little bit more. It was so nice to sleep in. Having a two day weekend is kind of like what a three day weekend feels like. I still have all day tomorrow!

First of all, I wasn’t anywhere near the 7.0 earthquake in northern Japan. Don’t worry about me there.

The couch arrived with no complications. It is bigger in the apartment than it was in the store. It is fine – no problem there. It is rather modern. Low and square. It fits the apartment. Some might find the apartment a little cold but I like it. Just need to get some black and white photos on the wall to dress it up a little bit.

As for my monitor and printing … I can happily say that my 23 inch Apple monitor is so darn close to the color test card that I really don’t need to update the color profile. Yeah! We’ll see how the black and white come out but I suspect they should be good.

Today was spent looking for more things I think I need in the apartment. First and foremost on the list were toiletries. I needed shampoo, toothpaste, and shaving cream. I have determined that I have very extreme brand loyalty. If I find something I like I just don’t deviate. At all. I brought two brand new tubs of Sebastian Molding Mud with me so I wouldn’t run out. Unfortunately L’Occitane in Japan does not sell shaving cream. Arm and Hammer do not seem to be present in the dental market here. And you can forget the usual shampoo. I think I shopped for about 1 hour in a specialty store just trying to find the things that I buy without even a thought in the US. Try to find deodorant in Japan. I don’t think I have!

I got a little seat for my shower / tub. Very Japanese. On the weekends I can take a leisurely shower sitting as if I’m at an onsen. It is really quite effective. If I did that on weekdays I’d never make the train. I also got a humidity gauge and thermometer for my office. It gets hot in here and so I’m trying to determine if I should turn on the AC. I bought lots of little things to help organize the office (mail sorter, coin boxes, bookends, …) I added coffee mugs and some placemats and coasters to the kitchen. And I finally bought another light! It is very simple. An aluminum ring with a white globe. Muji of course. I’ll buy one more light for the guest room. I need to decide what to get. Hopefully tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Well, I’m out of energy. Maybe more tomorrow.

Hmmm, what do I do now? You’ll be happy to know that I am actually doing laundry as we speak. Yes, the journal writing during laundry sessions have commenced. It makes sense actually. You are a little trapped doing laundry, so if I’m just sitting at home I should do something to occupy my time. That is cleaning (next), writing, reading, studying, or surfing the web.

My place is becoming more like my place every minute. Certainly it isn’t finished, but it has reached a livable condition. So now what do I do? Every minute up to now seems to have been consumed with either work (still really busy) or apartment stuff. I still have the apartment stuff but it is significantly less urgent than before.

My couch arrives today – so that means I’m done with the current big ticket items. I don’t really have any near term plans for more. I still have more things to do like lights and trash cans. Trash cans? What is so complicated about trash? Nagoya is ゴミばか or crazy about trash. Here’s a little link. I have to separate everything and put it in a specially colored plastic bag. Then I put it in the special trash area of our building. In our “mail corner” there are all sorts of notes about how everyone is doing their trash incorrectly. The foreigners will get blamed but I’m trying my best. I’ve gotten rid of most my packing material but I still have lots of cardboard!

I’m a bit paralyzed by light purchases. It is a commitment thing. Once they are in, you don’t really change them. Somehow a light is more difficult than a couch!

I’m looking forward to more days where I can just hang out and wonder, “Hmmm, what should I do now.” Clearly I still have life support activities (grocery store, laundry, cleaning) that require my time but that happens anywhere. It just seems that here it takes about 10 times longer because I can’t really read anything. I’m going to go to the big supermarket near Nagoya Station today. At least that’s the plan. Since I bought a monthly train pass that includes Nagoya Station on my route, I can go there using my pass. The pass was expensive (about $180 for one month between my apartment and work – the equivalent of 19.2 days) and it isn’t really that economical. But since I have been working Saturdays and since my route includes Nagoya Station it could pay off in the end.

Today I hope to get laundry done, get to the grocery store, maybe buy a trash can or two, ponder lights, get my couch delivered, organize, and finally get the pictures off of my new camera and in to my computer. Maybe I’ll go to dinner with colleagues as well. That’s a full day!

Well, I wanted to take you on a tour of my place.

Here’s what you see when you first walk in …

Looking good. When you turn around, you get the typical beautiful Japanese front door …

But … look at all the closets there! Lots of places for shoes. I guess I need to buy some shoes. Just to the right side is the toilet.

The seat is heated. To the left when you walk in is the master bedroom that I am using for storage. Then comes the powder room and the shower / tube.

They don’t look that big but they are good sized for a Japanese place. Out of the picture is the space for my washer and dryer.

Next comes the fuller view of the living room / dining room, with my office off to the early left and my bedroom at the far end.

The wide angle lens make it look bigger than it is.

Here’s the office:

And here’s the bedroom:

Then as you step onto the balcony …

Not bad, huh? Finally, here is the space completely violated by boxes:

Honest to blog, it has been a lot of work today. (“Honest to blog” is a phrase Tomo has started using from “Juno”). I have my apartment, as y’all know. It is been 9 years since I really tried to make a house. Sheesh, it is a lot of work.

I went to the office on Saturday morning, but Saturday afternoon I had scheduled delivery of all my purchased things. My colleague offered to help ferry some things from the hotel to the apartment. What a great help. I really appreciated that. There are definitely some nice folks at work. Thanks MJ.

I would LOVE to show you pictures of my new place. As a matter of fact, they are in my camera. But I can’t seem to find my cable to connect it to the computer. Darn! I’ll look again tomorrow at the apartment. Anyway, I have some pictures of my pristine apartment and the craziness that it is now.

Once of the nice things about delivery in Japan is that usually the stores have the delivery folks assemble the item you purchased and then they remove the trash. I didn’t really realize how much packing material is used. Wow. So Furniture Dome was the first to arrive. Bed, mattress, duvet$$, pillows, nightstand, TV board, dining room table. I caught them assembling my bed with the headboard backwards. But … we got that turned around. Literally. The mattress was a little taller than the demo mattress so with the mattress and the pillows it is kind of hard to see the design of the bed. But I like it.

Next came the Tokyu Hands office furniture. That, unfortunately, was delivered as boxes. Honest to blog, there is a LOT of cardboard. I’ve been working over the last two days trying to build up that stuff. I am generating so much cardboard waste. Nagoya is crazy about trash, so I can’t recycle that with the regular recycling. I have to do something special with it. So it is gonna pile up in the guest room until I figure out how to get rid of it. I’m the least excited about the office furniture. I’m not sure how I want to arrange it. I have tables, chairs, a file cabinet, and book shelves. I could have done without the file cabinet. I’ll figure something out.

Next Eiden came with the refrigerator, washer, dryer, TV, and microwave. See, I really did get all this stuff planned for the same day. Pretty darn efficient. For those that miss my laundry stories, well, I did do a load of laundry. Eiden set up all the appliances as well and removed the boxes. I had them leave the TV box though so I can easily ship it. My TV has about a zillion channels but I can’t tell if there is a special weekend of free cable because I had everything. I kept getting an info box that looked like they were running some campaign so we’ll see later what the story is.

Finally, BoConcept delivered my dining room chairs. To quote Borat, “Verry Niiiccce.” Until I started tearing into everything it looked really good. I bought a duvet cover (thanks Mugi) washed it (ha!), and made the bed. It looked really nice for about 5 minutes. Then I started building up stuff. I only had the light from the living room at the time, so I was working in the dark. Anyway, got started.

Today I learned how difficult it is to run errands and buy big things without a car. This morning before I went to the apartment I bought dishes. Those were heavy! So I took a taxi with three heavy bags and dumped them in my kitchen untouched. But I wanted to get as much as I could since it is so hard to actually get to shops after work. I bought some tools as well. I wanted to get some chair mats, but apparently they were sold out. After much bad Japanese, I was able to get them to call another store and but two on hold there.

Once I got to the apartment, I started working on breaking down the cardboard. Then I kept building. Around 3:00 pm I went to lunch and got the chair mats and curtains for every room as well as shears for my room. I won’t buy custom curtains here, so the size doesn’t really work. So be it – it is what it is. I dumped that at the apartment and then went BACK to Nagoya station and bought an overhead light (and some power strips) for the office. I went BACK to the apartment, dumped that, and then went to the Apple Store and bought my new monitor ( ), some speakers, and an Airport Express. Once again, on Saturday I had Visa issues, so it was all cash except for things reimbursed by work. I caught a taxi back home (it is walkable to the Apple Store but not burdened with a monitor … do you hear that Ben, WALKABLE to the Apple Store!).

Once I got back home I hung the light, and kept working. I hung the shears and decided I liked it in combo with the curtains. Then I ran out of time.

Now I’m going to concentrate on getting the curtains up, getting everything built, and getting the kitchen clean. Then at least the place is livable. Only when I have internet will it really seem livable!

It is going to be nice. As long as I don’t look at my bank account.

Yeah! I got the keys to my apartment today. Everything went without a hitch. I was starting to freak out and wonder if I had made a mistake. After all, 800 sq ft with three bedrooms was seeming smaller and smaller and smaller. I started wondering if it was going to be a rotten place, and uncomfortable to live. After all, I had not seen it since April 8 or whatever day I first went apartment hunting (and the only day I went apartment hunting).

I am happy to report that I think I made the right decision. The apartment is really nice. Indeed it is small, but not at all small by Japanese standards. As a matter of fact, I’m sure calling it small would be offensive to many people. It is certainly more than enough for me. It has all mod cons as well. Heated floor, nice bathroom with real tile, a travertine entry way. AC in two rooms, a modern kitchen, some recessed lighting, and even a dishwasher (that I didn’t know … really not important to me but I have it). There is even a special box for residents when they receive large packages, so you don’t have to be home for that.

I am going to be very comfortable there. The noise from the street below is detectable, but remember I live near an airport and a fire station in LA, so what’s some street noise?

I’m really excited to be getting my furniture on Saturday. Yippee!!!! I’ll try to get some pictures and post them ASAP. Then Sunday will be filled with further purchases to minimally complete the place (lamps, drapes, duvet cover, etc). What a nice feeling.

Well, it looks like I was able to move up my apartment key date to May 22. That is quite convenient and the timing works out well with my work schedule. The only problem is Tomo is unavailable that weekend. He has to work. Bummer.

When I flew in to Nagoya, I bumped in to the manager who had to approve my housing situation at the airport. I convinced him that he really did need to do something, so he sent an email of approval on the spot. Unfortunately, it is also Golden Week here so most offices are closed. The consulting office was closed, and the Tokyo office person who controls the purse strings is on vacation until Friday. Shoot. So I sent an email trying to set the expectation for Friday, but that will be impossible I think. I shall have to postpone all the deliveries of my household things. That’s pretty disappointing. I was very ready to move in. My hotel room is starting to look like a trunk room. I have three large boxes and expect to get two more soon.

With all my whining, I’m glad that my place looks like it will come through. I think it will be nice. It better be, because I’ve made quite an effort to get it!

I’ll put pictures up once I get the keys.

That’s Japanese for troublesome. Apparently there are difficulties reaching agreement for my apartment contract between the lessor and the lessee. No, I have no control over my own rental contract. I am hoping it can get resolved. Unfortunately, this is a holiday week in Japan, so any resolution may prove to be difficult. I am afraid I will miss my planned date for taking “ownership” of the apartment, which ripples in to Tomo’s visit and the delivery of all my recent purchases. Uh oh. Additionally, it means that I may have to go looking all over again and start the negotiation process all over again. I’m pretty frustrated. The housing situation is not so easy in Nagoya at the moment. I’m seeing what I can do.

In the meantime, here’s a slightly fuzzy picture of me modeling the outfit that Ben recommended I buy. I’m not so sure that it works on me. I love the pants, but I can’t really pull them off (so to speak).

No, I don’t think I’m Dickens, writing serials for a newspaper. I just have a lot to say apparently. I wish I had some pictures to spice things up. Alas, I’ve not been much of a shutterbug.

As for my shopping frenzy, the saga is almost over. I’m losing enthusiasm for writing it, so you must be growing weary of reading. For my life here in Nagoya, it seems a home office is important. As a matter of fact, that is why I insisted on a 3 bedroom place – so I could have a separate office and guest room. When I started adding up all the space I thought I needed it was getting rather big. I have my MacPro, my photo printer, a monitor, speakers, my work laptop, my laptop, and space for a guest. No air-conditioning in the office right now. With all the computing power, that may change! I bought several desk / table type things, a file cabinet, a bookshelf, and two office chairs. They are nothing fancy, but seem functional. A step up from Target. Barely. Of course I had credit card problems there too, so now I owe my complete balance. I may just pay cash for that provided I can get enough cash out.

That’s it! That’s all the shopping so far!

Oh, after shopping I went to dinner and my work Citibank card didn’t work. So by the end of the day my ATM and three credit cards were dead!

Last night I spent over an hour on the phone after midnight with the three credit card companies. I didn’t display the restraint I should have. Anytime someone said, “I understand” I would reply, “No, I don’t think you understand.” Not very gracious on my part and getting angry wasn’t going to get me anymore service. So I’m not proud.

Now Furniture Dome informs me that I need to come to their store and pay. The problem is, they are on the other side of the bay from work. That means I have to go all the way up to Nagoya Station (30 minutes), get on another train (30 minutes), and go to the store for one iffy credit card swipe. All before 8:00 pm. That is not easy to do. Basically, I’ll need to leave work at 6:00 pm which is crazy early it seems. Actually I’ll take the 6:17 pm train I guess.

I’ve searched the web for my goods. Furniture Dome is not really web based. But here’s a picture of my couch style (without all the accessories) and the fabric.

My dining room chairs (in brown, not black).

Here’s my washer and dryer.

My refrigerator, kind of cute size.

And my TV.

I had plans of continuing my interesting saga but then I fell in to the post-dinner work email trap trying to make sure things get kicked off in the US so they have the day to work and my inbox can be full of surprises in the morning.

Oh yeah, credit card problems. My bill from Furniture Dome added up to a non-trivial amount. I figured since they accepted credit cards I’d use my credit union credit card, get some points, and save the cash for other stores that might not take credit cards. And you know what happened next. REJECTED. Sigh. Fortunately, I always have a backup credit card in case something stupid happens. REJECTED. Darn. Of course, both of these credit cards know that I am living in Japan. I felt pretty stupid. I called my credit union credit card and they informed me that my card is marked for living in Japan, but such a big purchase at a furniture store will always raise a flag. So what’s the point of having a credit card? Oh, I was on hold for 20 minutes. They authorized a transaction and the store did the old school imprint of the card. I found out today that they cannot process an American Visa card, so I have to figure something out. I don’t believe them of course., especially since my credit card balance shows a lack of balance with a lack of charges which means a lot of authorizations. I paid part of the balance in cash – now I just have to figure out how to get the rest to them before delivery.

Next, I had found a very nice store called BoConcept in Tokyo, and they have a store in Nagoya as well. It turns out they have a store in LA too! I had planned the couch to be a big purchase. The joy and the trouble is the couch is custom made. We had to choose the size, the arm style, the leg style, and then the fabric. I didn’t have much problem with the size, the arm style, and the leg style. But the fabric – that is a different story. There are 5 grades of fabric and of course I stumbled on to fabric from the most expensive grade. I really like the couch and anticipate that I will ship it back to the US when I leave Japan. BoConcept also had some nice leather covered chairs that I really liked. I wanted to buy one as just a side chair in the living room. However, Tomo did some quick calculations and came to the conclusion that it would be almost the same price to buy 4 of these chairs instead of the icky ones we saw at Furniture Dome for the dining room table. There was some rounding and justification, but in the end I saw what he meant. So I bought 4 of the chairs I liked! I can put two in the living room and two in the dining room or variations as I see fit. I’m very excited about that. Unfortunately, I had not paid. In spite of the fact that I had cleared another credit card, it didn’t work. I gave BoConcept the remainder of my cash and a promise to pay the balance later (somehow).

Next on the shopping list was electronics. No problem with work Mastercard there. Only later. I got a washer, dryer, refrigerator (kind of small), microwave, and television. The TV is nice. We had shopped around other stores and had price differences, so we were able to do some negotiating.

I still have one more store to go to … but I’m tired. Time to call three credit card companies now.