Category: apartment life

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Starting to get to the details

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.

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Now what do I do?

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!

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Trying for pictures

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

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

Entry to living room

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

Inside front door of apartment

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.

Shower? Heat?

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.

The

Shower / bath area

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.

Looks spacious, doesn't it?

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

Here’s the office:

The Office

And here’s the bedroom:

The space I will use for a bedroom

Then as you step onto the balcony …

The view from the balcony

The view from the balcony

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

What happened to the clean apartment?

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It’s hard work!

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.

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Happy as a clam

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.