It is Sunday morning. I’d love to be in my apartment, nursing a cup of tea while I catch up on life via the internet. Already this morning I’ve paid bills, read the news (if anything CNN posts could actually be called news), and generally futzed around. But, alas, I’m doing this all in the confines of my hotel room. As expected, I didn’t get in to my apartment before Friday. Now, the estimated date is June 1. June 1! That’s crazy. I’ve asked the relocation company to try to accelerate that. Yesterday my shipment from LA arrived at the hotel, so I have two large boxes of my stuff, one medium box of stuff, a boxed MacPro computer which I am dying to use (but I have no monitor yet), a printer, and 5 suitcases worth of clothing and accessories (only three suitcases but I took multiple trips so it kind of adds up to be 5 suitcases).
We got a slight taste of summer here in Nagoya last week. It got warm and humid enough to turn on the AC in the factory, and then turned wet and cool while the AC stayed on. I froze in the factory yesterday!
Tomo came down to Nagoya to help me move this weekend. Ooops. Well, glad he’s here. We went to Yamachan for dinner on Friday night. Yamachan is a famous Nagoya tebasaki (手羽先) restaurant. Basically, spicy chicken wings. They were sooooo good. Probably not that healthy but delicious. The bad news is there are two Yamachans within one block of my apartment. I’ll have to watch my consumption. I worked Saturday and got home about 4:00 pm. Then we went bowling! It was a good time. A wee bit more expensive here of course. But hey, why not? We didn’t completely embarrass ourselves, so that’s cool.
As much whining as I’ve been doing about not being in my apartment, I am very comfortable in the hotel. The Nagoya Marriott starts on the 15th floor of a skyscraper. My room is the 31st floor. The room is comfortable, the hotel is comfortable, and since it is literally on top of Nagoya station, there are a ton of restaurants nearby. Things are walkable as well. It isn’t like when I was staying at the Intercontinental in Luxembourg. That was outside of town, no nearby restaurants, and just depressing. No one has to feel bad for me in the hotel here.
On Tuesday I’m off to Germany to present a paper at a conference. My first paper! It is not a good time to leave, but is there ever? Fortunately, I have management support.
Finally, I thought I’d show a few pictures looking out my window here on an overcast morning in Nagoya.


