Honest to blog, it has been a lot of work today. (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Honest to blog\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a phrase Tomo has started using from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Juno\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). I have my apartment, as y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all know. It is been 9 years since I really tried to make a house. Sheesh, it is a lot of work.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I would LOVE to show you pictures of my new place. As a matter of fact, they are in my camera. But I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to find my cable to connect it to the computer. Darn! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll look again tomorrow at the apartment. Anyway, I have some pictures of my pristine apartment and the craziness that it is now.<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 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.<\/p>\n
Next came the Tokyu Hands office furniture. That, unfortunately, was delivered as boxes. Honest to blog, there is a LOT of cardboard. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m the least excited about the office furniture. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll figure something out.<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see later what the story is.<\/p>\n
Finally, BoConcept delivered my dining room chairs. To quote Borat, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Verry Niiiccce.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t buy custom curtains here, so the size doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really work. So be it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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 ( \ud83d\ude00 ), 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 do you hear that Ben, WALKABLE to the Apple Store!).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 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!<\/p>\n
It is going to be nice. As long as I don’t look at my bank account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Honest to blog, it has been a lot of work today. (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Honest to blog\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a phrase Tomo has started using from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Juno\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). I have my apartment, as y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all 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 … <\/p>\n