Yesterday, Thursday, August 12, I moved into my apartment that will be my home for the next year. Since it has housed JETs for at least the four previous years, it was already pretty furnished, but since it was full of boys, there were some things to change. I bought new curtains, hung up my decorations (a Mexican flag, my Oaxaca hanging, a poster a client gave me for my birthday…is there a pattern here?), and put up all my things. There is something comforting about opening the wardrobe and seeing my own clothes hanging there, seeing my own books on the bookshelf. I still need to buy new pots and pans and a window fan, though.
I have a new futon that I put over some of the older ones, and it is really comfortable. The only annoying part is having to hang it outside in the sun about once a week to make sure that it’s still nice and fresh.
My predecessor came over yesterday and showed me around the area. I’m only a 30- or 45-minute bike ride from both downtown Takasaki and downtown Maebashi; it takes just about as long to take the bus or drive! Near my house is a bakery, a laundromat, a convenience store, and a 3-story mall with a huge supermarket downstairs and an international food store full of tortillas, salsa, peanut butter, granola, and cheeses. The mall is about a 5-minute bike ride away: very convenient! There’s also a bus that runs from the mall to Takasaki and to Maebashi, for about $4.00 each way.
We also went to my school so I could learn the route there. (I need to do it again before I start school on Monday!) It is a nice, easy bike ride there; you cross through a park, down a tree-lined street, past a couple of rice paddy fields (they are all over the place, even right beside the mall!), and through a little neighborhood, until you get to the school. I just hope I don’t get lost on my first day!
Japan is crazy about trash here, and it makes trash removal a little difficult. Recycling is mandatory, and separated into plastic PET bottles, aluminum cans, glass bottles, and cardboard. The lids off the plastic bottles are taken off and put in another container. The other trash is separated into “burnables” and “non-burnables,” and apparently if you throw away the wrong thing, they will go through your trash to find your address and put it back on your porch! Also, there is no public trash pick-up; I have to take my burnable trash about 2 blocks down the road and put it in a big yellow metal structure, where it gets picked up later. The recycling center is about 5 blocks away, but there are recycling places at convenience stores and at the mall nearby just in case.
I’ve had interesting experiences trying to cook, too. I had picked up a bottle of what I thought was olive oil, just to later discover that it was something like rice vinegar! (Note: vinegar does not do to potatoes what olive oil does.) Last night I settled down to drink a cup of hot tea as I finished up Season One of True Blood, but realized that what I had flavored my tea with was actually salt!
In better news, I ran into the nice lady from down the street who had showed me how to get to my house the other day, and she said she wants me to help her learn more English in exchange for her teaching me Japanese. I’m going to go over there sometime this afternoon to start, and I’m excited about that.
Unfortunately, I don’t have internet at my apartment. Adam (my predecessor) said that until about two weeks ago, there was a free wireless signal floating in the air, but it disappeared. So my only chance to check email and everything is if I go to the Starbucks at the mall, and even then I can only stay for about half an hour or so until the proprietor starts shooting me dirty looks. (I wrote this blog at home and just uploaded it at Starbucks.) To be the most technologically advanced country in the world, Japan surprises me by not having free wireless all over the place. Apparently (so sayeth former JETs), even the places that advertise wireless require a password that no one at the place knows. It looks like I’ll be setting up Japan’s equivalent of Time Warner Cable sometime soon…
I think that’s all in interesting news for the day. I miss everyone back at home and hope to see you over here soon!
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