1 week in...
Ok, so I've been in Japan with Lisa for a week, and I already have buttloads of things to talk about here. I will get to each of them as soon as I can, but for now, I'd like to share some of my first impressions.
The flight from Jacksonville was easily and best described as LONG! I flew 2.5 hours from JAX to O'Hare in Chicago. Then, at noon, I boarded a 747-700 for the 12 hour flight to Tokyo's Narita Airport. Weird thing number one: when flying east at 560 mph, the sun never sets even though you have been in the air for twelve hours. My neighbor on the plane kept her window shade down most of the way, so it was like twilight in the plane. The movies were shit, and there were four of them. The only one I wanted to see was "Pride and Prejudice," but they replaced it last minute with "American Dreamz." Arriving in Narita, I was struck by how efficient everything was. I passed quickly through immigration, and the officials were quite polite. Then I went to the baggage claim, where my luggage had been circulating on the belt for several minutes before I got there. I was very happy not to have to wait four hours for my bags like we often do in the States. It was about 4 pm when I finally got out of the terminal and met my beaming bride, who had made a "Welcome to Japan" sign for me.
We walked together (after a long hello kiss) to the train station beneath Narita airport. The train arrived promptly at 5:20pm and a recorded female voice announced the name and destination of the train in Japanese. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the prevalence of the Japanese language everywhere (DUH!). I know that sounds stupid, but it really does strike you that you have no earthly idea what is written on the signs that jump out at you everywhere.
We rode the train from Narita to a station in a town called Ofuna (remember these directions if you plan on visiting us!) I was really being hit hard with exhaustion by the time we arrived in Ofuna, and my bags were not helping me to wake up (did I mention that I had a total of 150 pounds of luggage?) I kept falling asleep and slumping over in my seat, nearly injuring the tiny Japanese girl next to me. Interesting thing about Japanese life--In Japan, cell phones are really expensive, and yet people still have them. Instead of wasting minutes talking, they use them almost exclusively for text messaging, so the trains are full of people typing away on cell phones.
We dragged the luggage off the train and switched to the Tokkaido line train bound for the town of Atami. Once we arrived in Atami, we dragged the luggage out onto the platform and switched into an Ito line train which brought us to our new home city, Ito-Shi, Shizuoka Ken (Ito City, Shizuoka Prefecture). We finally arrived in Ito after 4 hours on the train, and Lisa's JET colleague, Kristin, picked us up at the station. We drove (ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD!) to a restaurant called Johnathan's, which is reminiscent of a Howard Johnson's. They have breakfast anytime, and paper hats for the servers. I ordered a curry noodle dish that was quite good, and Kristin introduced me to Fanta melon-flavored cola. Incidentally, adults in Japan drink either water, beer, or usually tea. Soft drinks are for children, and it shows, because many of them come out of the fountain looking like syrup, and can range in flavors from sweet to REALLY sweet. While I was at Johnathan's I sampled a drink that reminded me of a liquid Jolly Rancher--not so great for quenching the thirst, but wow, what flavor!
I fell quickly to sleep after we got to the apartment at 11 pm. Thank GOD the bed fits me. My feet don't hang over at all!
The apartment is small, but adequate. We have 3 rooms with tatami mats (meaning that we could put a futon down and be comfortable) and a kitchen, a shower, and a toilet room. Here's a diagram:
The bedroom and living room each have sliding doors to a closet space. They also have sliding glass doors out onto a porch where we hang our laundry. The kitchen has a gas range, a sink, a microwave, and a washing/spinning machine. There is no oven, and the water heater hangs on the wall in front of the sink. Incidentally, if you are looking for a new water heater, consider going with a Rennai tankless model. They can be outfitted for gas or electric, but what's really great is that they pump out hot water the minute you turn it on, and they never run out of hot water, because they work based upon coiled tubing wrapped around a heating element. The countercurent exchanges heat quite nicely, so the water actually heats as it passes through the coil of tubing, meaning there's no tank to break or pay to heat all day long. The water pressure in our shower is perfect, making shower time a fine experience, even though you have to stand on a wooden palett next to the tub. there are quite a few interesting bugs here, which I will discuss in another post, but since I have been here, we have seen fewer of them in the house, because we have puttied the opennings to the outside and put down chemicals to kill the little bastards (currently, we are in our third bug free day).
Jet lag has only been a small problem. the first two days I was waking up at the crack of dawn (which is about 4:45 am--that's when the sun begins to show light) Sunset here is around 5:30 pm, and from what I hear, it will get to be dark around 4:30 pm in the winter time. If you're interested in it, we are on the same latitude with North Carolina, so we should get a mild set of actual seasons.
That about wraps it up for this entry. Coming soon: Tours in Shizuoka, Beachin' it in Atami, and Jogasaki coast.
Sayonara!
