Arrival in Japan

We arrived late Tuesday and checked in Wed. to Takezono House which is the apartments that Tsukuba University rents to foreign researchers. We are gradually figuring out all of the Japanese appliances. Everything is very piecemeal. For example, there are three separate heating/cooling units in the different rooms which have to be turned off when you’re not there, and each sink has a separate hot water heater that has to be turned on before you can get any hot water. This also means that the bathroom and hallway between the rooms has no heat at all. But at least my bathtub isn’t out in a shed attached to the house like it was in Taro! And we have a flush toilet—with a heated seat and bidet no less. (I haven’t gotten brave enough yet to try the bidet, but I suppose I will sometime before we leave). Tomorrow I will have to get out my kanji (Chinese character) dictionary and try to figure out the washing machine. The rooms are nice and spacious (huge by Tokyo standards) with lots of sunlight.

The next adventure was to go out and explore the neighborhood. We’re very centrally located with three supermarkets within a block of us and lots of shops and restaurants. It’s about a 10 minute walk to the town center where we can catch the train to Tokyo—leaves several times an hour and takes 45-60 minutes depending on the train. So it will be easy to access Tokyo for both my research and sightseeing. There are also several parks nearby including one just behind our building. Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day in the 40s, perfect for exploring. Today we woke up to snow, most of which had melted by about 10 am. So for those of you who were wondering whether Ibaraki Prefecture gets snow, the answer is yes!

Today we went and registered as alien residents and opened a bank account, so we’re getting all settled in and organized. The apartment is minimally furnished with linens and dishes, but we will probably buy a number of other items as times goes by to get more comfortable. Yesterday for dinner, we went to the supermarket and picked up $7 worth of fresh sushi to go. This is the life! I’ve also noticed another big change in Japan which is that I could use a credit card to buy groceries. That would have been impossible 20 years ago or even 10. We’ll have to see what else has changed!