Due to some intense pressure from my mom, I finally posted some pictures of the house after we’ve settled in. It’s still messy, but you can kind of get an idea of how things are shaking out. You can view it in the photo gallery. Have fun!

One of the big challenges for the new place was figuring out the plan for watching TV. Previously in our apartment there was just a giant antenna on the roof of the building, and everyone shared the feed easily enough. Unfortunately we had to deal with this ourselves with the new house, and they didn’t have much advice to offer at the house builder’s office.

Kuniko was really opposed to putting up a giant antenna on the roof from the beginning, mainly because for her it was a cosmetic issue. Besides being big and ugly, it is a giant arrow pointing at your house saying that you are inside watching TV, and for the NHK guys walking around trying to collect money it makes their job that much easier.

We actually don’t watch much TV – most of the viewing is two or three regular shows, and I like to watch the Hanshin Tigers during baseball season. It’s not a big deal to have a lot of channels, so in the end the antenna turned out to be the best option for price and simplicity, but it would definitely end up being a do-it-yourself project, and being the one with all the free time – that meant it was my project.

Luckily Kuniko’s dad has some experience in this area, and he was really interested in helping me out. Last week he dropped off an antenna that would work, and after seeing the size of that monster Kuniko was hitting the net searching for a smaller alternative. She found something on Amazon Japan that looked good, and for 5000 yen it was shipped to our doorstep and ready for installation.

The antenna we got is pretty small – about the size of a large dinner plate. Today Kuniko’s dad showed up to help me install it, and after unloading ladders, equipment and gear from his truck we tried to figure out how it would work.

The first step was wiring it to the TV and seeing how it picked up the digital signal. We hooked it up in the living room, right next to the TV, and it worked right off the bat. All the channels came in crystal clear, and the antenna was still in the living room on the first floor. We took it upstairs to the balcony and checked again, and it was still perfect.

Then we started to get creative. We moved the antenna to the attic, and still – beautiful picture. So to make a long story short we just attached it to the rafters in the attic. The picture is great, and we didn’t have to worry about climbing around on the roof, setting anchors for bad weather, and since the wiring was already running through the attic we saved a lot of drilling and extra work. What we had estimated as a five or six hour project took 90 minutes, and the antenna is invisible – hidden in our attic. Success!

Can’t wait for Kuniko to get home – we’ll play a game of trying to find the antenna. Where could it be?

Progress continues to be made here at the new place. A sure sign of progress is that the guest room is half full of flattened cardboard boxes waiting to be taken out on the once-a-month “cardboard day” next week.

Yesterday was a big day since we both had a rare midweek day off. We went to IKEA and finally pulled the trigger on a bed (to be delivered Friday) and some new dishes, then came home and spent the afternoon organizing the closet, cleaning house and building furniture.

The bar counter has been getting some use lately, and we’ve been having “cocktail hour” now and then to celebrate. All the goodies we got from my aunt and uncle have come in handy when mixing drinks. It’s a really comfortable place to hang out and drink, and with the little wireless laptop right there you can also surf the web or play music through the stereo.

The kitchen also has come out better than we had hoped. There is plenty of space, and the more we cook at home the more we see chances to make adjustments for space and accessibility. We’re always shifting stuff around to make it easier to get to, but we don’t need to make anything fit – so far there is plenty of extra space.

We cooked up an Italian dinner, and in the evening after half a bottle of Chianti I managed to install a ceiling fan in the dining room. Hopefully it won’t come crashing down in the near future.

Today I’m home alone, with a big list of things to do. Trips to the barber, doctor, bank, and the grocery store will eat up most of my day, but I’ll try to find time to upload some more recent pictures of the house to picture gallery.

As of two days ago, Kuniko is back to work with students, and so far it has been pretty busy for her. Yesterday was the first day for the new students, and so Kuniko was working late helping them get organized and starting a whole new education experience. She got home later than usual – almost 9:30!

Today I have the whole day off to work on projects around the house. I’ve decided to spend the time tackling the pantry, which is full of sauces and spices and kitchen odds and ends that had gotten kind of out of control at our old place. I’m going to head into Kobe later to get some space saving ideas, as well as hopefully buying a lazy susan to spin the spices.

The weather is still cold, but it is showing some signs of warming up. It is hard to imagine that it’ll be super hot in a few months, and it is nice seeing the air conditioners all installed and knowing that at least some rooms will be comfortable during the heat.

The big project around the house this week is the installation of our old air conditioners in the new house, and the installation of a big new one (complements of Kuniko’s dad) in the living/dining room.

Since we had to move our two old air conditioners just before the move-out date for the old place, the guys that Kuniko’s dad knows went ahead and started working on getting them in place. It is far from being hot – but this will beat the rush that will happen just before summer, and keep the equipment out of our way…

The first stage was the big monster for the living room, and that ended up taking most of the day. Kuniko’s dad wanted to give us a present, and since he had gotten us an AC unit for the last place, it seemed like an appropriate gift. It’s a really nice one that has a rather unnerving feature of sensing where people are in the room and directing heat or cold to them. There are even some glowing green “eyes” the appear to show that your area is being focused on. A little spooky, but I suppose we’ll get used to it. You can turn the eyes off, but it’s kind of fun for now.

Today the guys are back and are installing our older AC units. While I’m unpacking (and blogging) they are hanging from ladders outside the house on a cold, windy day and working to ensure that our summer will not be too uncomfortable here in the new place.

I did head out to the store and bought them some bento lunches and I’m making some hot tea to serve them when they come out of the cold. Hopefully they’ll finish today, but I’m not sure – it is taking them a long time for just the bedroom one.

More than the bigger fridge, the washer that dries or the spacious kitchen, more than anything having stairs inside the house has changed how we live. As we begin to unpack in the new house it is becoming more apparent that to save time and energy you need to plan a little bit more when moving around the house.

Lots of times I find myself walking back upstairs or downstairs because I forgot one little thing, or realized that something I need for a project is in an entirely different place. The way we have planned the house is that the bottom floor has everything we need to entertain, but during our regular living time here we move between floors depending on whatever we’re doing.

So we’re starting to develop a mental checklist before going up or down the stairs. Do I have what I need to do the next task? What else can I do when I’m on the other floor? How long will it be before I come back?

From all this you might think that it is some kind of hard physical task to climb our stairs, but it is a quick, easy trip. We’ve just lived so long on one floor in just a couple of rooms that seven rooms over two floors suddenly seems like a lot.

Well, we’re living in the new place, Kuniko is back at work, and I’m dealing with all the little problems that come with home ownership. The move went really well, and we’re just now starting to get settled into some sort of routine.

We’ve got the bottom floor almost completely squared away – the kitchen, living room and shower/bath/toilet/laundry combo are all looking respectable. The upstairs is a little messier right now, but we should get that taken care of over the next weekend I’m guessing.

I’ve got plenty to write about – meeting our new neighbors, fighting bugs, the joy of heated floors, and the quest for a tidy pantry. I’ll get to these stories and more sooner or later, but right now I’ve just been too busy putting together stuff and getting organized to sit down and write blog entries.

I’ll try to make some time each day to write a little more and get back into the blogging rhythm. Check back soon!

It’s 2 a.m. local time and since all our utilities at the old place are still working, I thought I should do a quick post. We’re back from our two weeks in the USA, and getting ready to start moving in to the new place in a few hours. I’m up because I couldn’t sleep – unfortunately it looks like I’ll have to deal with a tiny bit of jetlag this time.

As for the trip, it was great. We got to see lots of friends and family, we were able to do (and eat) pretty much everything we wanted to, and the trip was smooth back to Japan. We really got lucky at both ticketing in SFO and customs in Japan – nobody even noticed our overburdened luggage (no fees!) and Japanese customs just let us through without taxing our two cases of wine bottles we brought back. Sometimes you just get lucky.

I should head back to bed and see if I can get some sleep – we’ve got a busy couple of weeks ahead. I’ll post again once we get some solid internet access…

Finally we are approaching the day of our trip to the USA, and preparations are in high gear. Not only are we packing for our trip, but also our move which will happen the day after we get back to Japan. I’ve packed most of the house, but with nowhere to take the stuff for now it is just a bunch of boxes.

Tomorrow I have my last day of work – morning classes at Mitsubishi and an evening class at Kawasaki. Then finally Tuesday afternoon we take off for America. The suitcases are packed with Japanese junk food and just enough clothes to protect the fragile stuff.

Today was our final walkthrough of the new house. Originally they had planned to give us the keys today, but since we wanted to take the trip they agreed to hold onto them until we got back. The interior and exterior of the house itself are finished, but the outside landscaping and back patio aren’t built yet. Hopefully they’ll be done when we get back to Japan.

The walkthrough was pretty mind-boggling. They explained all the devices and controls to make our lives easier, including the obligatory Japanese super toilet seat, and the bath room that is insanely complex – three control panels to run that. The kitchen also has lots of electronics to handle the heated floors, camera intercom, washing machine, and stove. It is like a really hard Japanese kanji test just figuring out how things work in our house.

But it was fun to find out just what toys we’ve got to play with, and the house itself looked great. Kuniko and I were both really satisfied, and I’m hoping we’ll feel the same way in the long run.

I probably won’t get a chance to blog here before we leave, but I’ll be back in a few weeks. The internet situation in the new place is unclear right now, so it may be a while before I can post again. In the meantime, feel free to send me mail directly to my mobile phone: bryanf@k.vodafone.ne.jp

Catch you later!

This article was an interesting read on the intersection between food, culture and waste.

One of the common impressions of Japan is that it is a high tech society. It is, and it isn’t. It is common for the most senior of senior citizens to carry around a mobile phone, and for everyone else mobile phones are an essential part of life here. Computer and electronics stores are similar to those in the USA – full of lots of gadgets and toys for electronics geeks, and there are plenty of young to middle aged men walking the aisles gazing at them.

But outside of the big cities electronics and high tech play a much smaller part in daily life, and in many ways has a long way to catch up with America. While mobile phones are everywhere, personal computers are comparatively rare. Japan’s society is old and getting older – with a falling birthrate and older people living longer and longer there are a lot of people out there who can’t or don’t want to use computers. One kind of store that is becoming popular is a computer learning shop. I’ve seen them popping up everywhere, and they charge a monthly fee to teach weekly classes to an older clientelle about how to use Microsoft Office, make postcards or use email and the internet.

This trend extends to the company offices – where records are still predominantly paper-based. Huge rooms full of filed papers are common, and a lot of Japanese business culture is focused on stamping approval on pieces of paper and shifting them around. With all this paper flying around, the FAX machine is a very important tool for business and many people I know even have a dedicated FAX machine at home.

So for me this all seems a little old fashioned. Often I am frustrated with businesses and government offices that have not yet moved to the web or email and insist on calling during business hours or sending postcards. Luckily the company I work for, OTC, recently started moving to electronic documents for paperwork and it has made my life (and I’m guessing theirs) much easier.

In our apartment I’ve set up a wireless network connecting two computers, the Wii, a networked hard drive, our stereo system, and our laser printer. Everything works very smoothly until we turn on our microwave oven – it operates on the same frequency as the network and if you are listening to music on the stereo being streamed from the hard drive over the network it can sometimes interrupt the music. Kind of a bummer, but the microwave was here first and we don’t use it enough for this to be a problem.

However, now we’re shopping around for a cordless phone for the new house as our old one is near death (again). Almost all the cordless phones being sold now operate on the same frequency as the network and the microwave, making them a poor choice for my situation. While it is easy to find phones that avoid the interference in other countries, apparently there is no market for them in Japan. I talked to a person at Panasonic the other day about it, and she acknowledged that although their international models support other frequencies, their Japanese models do not, and they have no plans to change that.

Call it future culture shock, but it seems lately that things are way behind around here…

So you may remember that nearly three years ago I began the process of getting a driver’s license in Japan. You can read about the experiences here, here and here.

The quick summary is that it is extremely difficult to pass the test, and almost as difficult just to schedule a driving test. Each time you do that you must apply either in person or by postcard – apparently telephones and internet have not yet come to Hyogo prefecture government offices.

Since completing grad school I have more time available to schedule a driver’s test, so about a month ago I started the process again. The good news was that my paperwork was still on file so I didn’t have to go through my passport checking to ensure that I was a valid license holder. The bad news was that my previous written and visual test results were only valid for six months, and that had long since passed.

The first day I went back to the license center they told me that about the six month rule, but because it was afternoon they had closed the office that handles the written and visual tests for foreigners. That meant that my trip was wasted, and I had to go back home empty handed.

I came back a few days later and passed the visual and written test, and I was allowed to schedule a driving test for two weeks later. That took about four hours, and then I went home empty handed.

My driving test (which was actually my second time) went really well. I had a lot more confidence since I had at least some experience on the course (even though it was several years before). This time I was the first driver in the car, which was a little bit of extra pressure. Unfortunately at the only stop sign on the course the instructor asked me to wait while he got out of the car, took out a tape measure, and said that I had stopped 10 centimeters over the line. Fail! So I had to schedule another test and then go home empty handed. During the trip back it seemed like every car I saw rolled right through the stop signs. Ugh.

Which finally brings me to yesterday, the day I finally passed the driver’s test. Everything went much the same as before, except this time I had memorized the pattern well enough that I made zero mistakes. I was thrilled to finally pass, and I didn’t even mind waiting around another three hours for them to issue the license on the spot.

I’ve said before how ridiculous the process is, and how it is completely unrelated to actual driving skill. I noticed something this time after passing the test that confirmed for me a lot of the conspiracy theories rolling around in my head. The foreigners all take the test at the same time, and yesterday there were about 20 foreigners taking the test. They come from all over Hyogo – everyone taking a day off to travel from as far away as Osaka to take the test. At the end of the test six people had passed out of the original twenty, and we were led upstairs for the next step in the process.

The “a-ha!” moment is when we were led into a tiny room to turn in our paperwork and wait, and there were just SIX chairs in the room. Exactly the same amount of chairs as people that passed. I’m sure sometimes they have more people that pass, and sometimes they have fewer, but by using this room for us to wait it seems pretty pessimistic to me. I’m sure if the people that failed the test realized that that even if they passed they’d never fit in the waiting room anyway, they’d completely understand. Conspiracy! Elvis is alive! The grassy knoll!

Anyway, by 4:00 p.m., after spending eight hours in the license center, I left the building for the last time holding a shiny new IC-chip embedded Japanese driver’s license. Woo-hoo!

I met up with Kuniko in Kobe and together we went off to IKEA to buy some bookshelves and bar stools for the new place. We celebrated the new license with a simple dinner in the IKEA restaurant – lots of roast beef, meatballs and salads… yum.

Now that I have a license, I guess I should practice driving in real situations in Japan. It is nothing like the closed course at the license center, but I’m looking forward to practicing around Okubo. Also, it will help during the upcoming move.

Anyway, that long, sad chapter is finally over. Time to get busy with other things.

Definitely the biggest topic around our household lately has been the building of our new house, the preparations for moving in, and doing what we can to ensure the whole process goes smoothly. We’ve got a lot of things up in the air, and keeping all these things straight and moving in the right direction can be stressful, on top of all the other things we’re doing at work and at home.

The closer we get to completion, the more urgent the decisions become. It is not uncommon to have a message machine full of messages when you get home, and that might be the most stressful thing for us. One kind of cultural point that is a little different in Japan is the idea that if you can’t get a hold of a customer, you leave and message and call back later. If we’re gone for the evening, sometimes we have the same person leaving 5-6 messages, all saying the same thing – we’ll call back later. Usually they have a very simple message or something small to confirm, but to me calling six times is reserved for deaths in the family or winning the lottery notifications.

The latest urgent issues are finding a dining set, getting the lighting right, and getting the right color curtains and blinds. We’ll be working on these issues some this weekend, but I think Kuniko and I are both looking forward to wrapping up all this stuff and taking our mind off things. That’s why the trip to the USA is looking better and better the closer we get to it.

Last night I met up with Antoine for a guy’s night out in Kobe. It was the first time it has been just him and me for months, and so we had lots to catch up on. He is still wrapping his head around the idea of being married, but is liking his new place and new lifestyle.

It turned out that one of Antoine’s coworkers had a Japanese ex-student that was (1) a professional wrestler, and (2) wrestling in Kobe that night. Antoine’s coworker offered us free tickets, so we ended up heading over to “Dragon’s Gate”, a professional wrestling “studio” in town. Antoine and I met up with three of his coworkers, all ALTs like Antoine in Takarazuka. We joined a surprisingly long line of people waiting to get in. Surprising as well was the mix of the crowd – almost all girls.

The first culture shock was that everyone was required to take off their shoes upon entering and wear slippers. Upon entering we stood around a small wrestling/boxing ring. The room was tiny but the place was full – maybe about 100 people watching. The room was so small that the audience could only stand around two sides of the ring, but the good news was that we were very close to the action.

Things like this are a lot more fun when you have a friend participating – tonight we were rooting on a good-looking young kid named Fujita. His outfit was remarkably plain, which put him in the “good guy who gets unfairly beat up by a mean guy” category. The wrestlers had to run by us to enter the ring, so we got plenty of high-fives in, and then Fujita got to work getting his ass convincingly kicked.

He was quite good at it. Afterwards we all agreed that his best talent was making his face look dazed and barely conscious. After his defeat he limped off to the cheers of the crowd, but he managed a smile for us as he went by. The crowd itself was surprisingly quiet, and I could never really tell if they were believing it or if they were there to admire the bodies of the wrestlers. Maybe a little of both.

There were about 10 wrestlers in four matches (even a tag team match), with good guys, bad guys, mask-wearing fat guys, and even three foreigners. The foreigners were quite good at making a dramatic show, and they were pretty popular. The crowd around us had assumed that we were there to cheer on the foreign guys, but in fact we were the loudest for Fujita. Still, the foreign wrestlers were surprised to see us, and hammed it up even more for us. One of the Australian wrestlers took a slap to the chest from his opponent and fell to his knees shouting “Heavens to Betsy!” which got some big laughs from us and quizzical looks from the Japanese fans. When the British guy was in a headlock one of Antoine’s coworkers shouted “God save the Queen!” which actually made the wrestler giggle a little. We got extra high fives from the foreigners as each one left.

At the end of the show we saw Fujita working the ticket sales booth for the next event, and he seemed to have recovered fully from his injuries in the ring. He gave us a big smile and wave, and we thanked him for the free tickets. It was a really fun night – another strange but interesting experience in Japan.

This weekend we got a lot more information about the timeline for the new house, we started to put together a list of things we need to do to get ready, and we got some surprise news from an old friend.

As for the house, it looks like we’ll pick up the key to the new place the night we fly back from America. We’ll have about a week and a half overlap between the old place and the new, and that should give us plenty of time to move in at a relatively leisurely pace. However, we’ve really got to get as much as possible done before our trip – packing, organizing, and throwing out the old stuff. It’s actually only a matter of weeks before we leave, so we’re starting to feel the pressure.

So feeling this pressure we set out today to do some shopping. We’ve got a list of big ticket items that we’ve been putting off for a long time: a regular sized fridge, a new washing machine, a dining room table, not to mention some essentials like curtains and blinds, and light fixtures each room. Today we focused on the big stuff, and set out in search of a refrigerator and washing machine. We visited three places, but the last place turned out to be the best – the Yamada Denki store in Kakogawa.

There is something about that place – we bought our big screen TV there, and the clerks are always friendly, they’ll bargain a little on price, and do whatever they can to help. Today was no exception, and you could really feel the difference between the older guy helping us and the younger (and more formal) employees at the other places.

We picked out a refrigerator from Toshiba, a washing machine from Hitachi, and we set up a delivery for soon after we move in. The whole process was relatively easy, and we felt really good about the purchases afterwards.

We’ve still got plenty of shopping left to do, and it is pretty scary to be spending so much money – especially these days with the economy in the crapper. Kuniko and I are acting as two person economy stimulation squad – somebody ought to thank us for this…

In the old friend department, I got a message from Yasu yesterday asking if it would be OK to invite me (us?) to his wedding. Turns out he is going to get married to his ex-girlfriend, who somewhere along the way became his girlfriend again. It was great news, and I’m looking forward to June and his wedding in Sannomiya. We even had a chance to drop by Ito Yokado to congratulate him in person.

This week is looking to be an expensive but fun one. I’ve got a full social schedule – Tuesday night is my last class with the Mitsuboshi gang and so they want to have a farewell party. Thursday is Kuniko’s birthday, and we’ve got a lunch planned in Sannomiya, with some more furniture shopping in the afternoon. Friday I’ll be meeting Antoine for drinks in Kobe, and next Saturday will be dinner with Inoguchi sensei and his wife at Sigassiga. Busy, busy…