Car and Ginza

Well, today was eventful.

We met the guy to check out the car nearby at 9am.  He showed up with another car as well, a 2001 Honda Odyssey (here the Odyssey is still the older 4 door version).  It had 40,000km and was a one owner car.  It's also got all the options and was very well taken care of.  After driving that and the other vehicle, and then looking at the other cars in the lemon lot, we decided the Odyssey would be the car for us.  It's a lot smaller than the US version, but still pretty big by Japanese standards.  It'll be very useful for hauling stuff that we need to buy for our new house, and for when we have visitors.  It was $5000.

Then we headed for Ginza (just a few stops before Akihabara in Tokyo), to church.  We made it down fine, found the church, then wandered around til 3pm when it started.  The worship and sermon were in Japanese, but the sermon was translated.  It was fine, but not a realistic church for us to attend given how far and expensive it would be to go there every sunday.  We'll try another next week closer to home.

Here's a picture of Kerri and Rowan in Ginza:

Little differences

As is often the case when first arriving in a new country, you are most impressed by little differences.  As time goes by, these little differences seem less and less impressive until you almost forget about them, only to be reminded by a visitor when they exclaim at them once again.

I wanted to start a list of "little differences" from our first impressions of Japan so that I don't forget about them all.

Kitchen and bathroom faucets - mind you, these are just in our hotel room so far, but these are the type with the single, slightly upwardly curved, faucet handle.  In every other part of the world, you would push these up to turn them on, and down to turn the off.  Here, it's the opposite.  Frequently we will accidentally turn the faucet strength all the way up in our effort to turn it off...

Bath faucet - this is best illustrated with a picture:

Neat, huh?  The big white dial is a preset for the water amount you wish to fill the tub with (I think, I've not used it yet).  The knob below turns on the bath water (turn right) or the shower (turn left), increasing the strength depending on how far you keep turning it.  The temperature you ask?  That's the knob to the right with the numbers on it.  What does this all add up to?  Precise temperature every time, no need to fiddle.  Just twist the bottom knob in either shower or tub direction and presto...water comes out at exactly the temperature you want it.  Pretty nifty actually.

Toilet seats - I've only had the privilege once so far of truly putting one of these to use.  We don't have a fancy one in our hotel.  The accuracy of the automatic spray is truly astonishing...wouldn't be surprised if there are little tracking devices under there to pinpoint the stream of water that shoots out at the touch of a button.   Another knob to the side controls the strength of the spray, and you hit the first knob to stop it.  Of course, the seats are heated.  And I'm pretty sure I was using a base model, as the (wireless) controls on the toilet in Tully's Coffee were truly something to behold.  I think I could get used to this...

Toilet flushers - In Germany there were usually 2 settings to flush the toilet, one for a full flush, one for partial.  The same here, except instead of pressing one of 2 buttons, it's usually a twisted knob that you twist one way or the other depending on the flush.

Free water - Truly one of the most irritating things about Germany was the lack of (ungrudging) free water available.  If you wish to purchase a minuscule bottle of water brought from some glacier in the alps, you can spend the 3-5 euro it costs.  If you wish to opt out, you might be refused outright, but if not, you are certainly considered a cheapskate and/or weird for wishing to drink "leitungswasser" (i.e. pipe-water).  This is not something Germans would dream of considering.  Here we are often brought glasses of water without even asking (!) and sometimes a pitcher of water is conveniently already placed at the table.  The relief we feel at not having to deal with this issue is almost physical.

That's all for now...maybe we'll do another one of these once we are in our house for the little odd things we'll find there.

Saturday Report

Yesterday (Saturday), we looked again at the Kubiri house much more carefully to determine if it is really the one for us.  Well...it was.  We had the agent fill in the appropriate information on the form, and we will be dropping it off at the Housing Office on Monday morning.  The longer we looked at the house the more impressed we were with its layout, construction and feel.  There are some issues, such as the fact that none of the toilet rooms have any sink in the same room, which can be a convenience issue.  However, these became minor in light of the overall feeling we got from the place.

So!  Big sigh of relief, we have selected our house!  I've been pulling out about $2000 a day in yen (about Y150,000) for the past several days, so by Monday we should have all Y831,000 ($10,8000!!) necessary to move in.  Needless to say, moving around frequently is not going to be an option here.  We'll probably arrange contract signing for Thursday, and possibly be able to move in by next weekend.

We are so grateful to God that He has guided us in selecting such a great place so quickly after arriving (it was the 2nd house we looked at!), and confirming that choice as we continued to look at other houses.

After being dropped off near the base entrance, Kerri and Rowan headed back to our hotel while I took the train to Akihabara.  I had been given a good tip earlier by one of my bosses that I should stop by the ITT (Information, Tours and Ticketing) office near the NEX/Commissary.  They had a filing cabinet with lots of drawers, each dedicated to different destinations around Japan.  Each one had a hand-out describing how to get to and back from each destination by train from different locations.  Very handy, so I had one with me when I started my trip.

I decided to start from Shioiri station, which is probably the one I'll get on/off at for work.  The paper said to start from Yokosuka-chuo station, which is one stop down.  I figured either would work, but I was wrong!  Apparently Shioiri is a minor station and the express lines (green/red) to Shinagawa do not stop at Shioiri.  So I took a local (white/black/grey) line up one stop to Chuo and changed platforms to wait for the next express.

Did I mention how cold it's been?  Friday it felt like gale-force winds as I pedaled around base, and I swear there were some ice pellets mixed in with the rain.  It snowed in some places a bit north (Yokohama) and was bitterly cold.  Saturday was still quite chilly, minus the rain and the wind.  Anyway, standing on cold train platforms for quite a while as I sorted out the above situation was getting me pretty chilled.

Finally the correct train came by and I hopped on, standing at first, then sitting when I realized how long it would be.  Yokohama seemed to come up pretty fast (maybe about 20 minutes) and it wasn't much farther to Shinagawa station.  From there it was a quick transfer to a JR line that 7 stops later dropped me off at Akihabara.  All of this was rendered extremely simple by the use of a PASMO card which was already loaded up with about Y10,000 from the other day.  Swipe on entry to the first train station, swipe again at the transfer stiles, swipe once more at the last station on exit.  Fares are automatically deducted correctly.  I have never used an easier system.

Here's the route I took:


View Larger Map

So Akihabara...quite the place!  I didn't even begin exploring, but I did make the rounds outside, looking for cell phone shops, avoiding the maid cafe hawkers (girls dressed in maid outfits trying to get you to come inside).  I checked at 3 different places.  The first said maybe I could buy a cheap cellphone/sim combo with a data plan, then cut the sim to work in my iphone.  The second said no, it was impossible (official Softbank of course).  At the third I met Hobart (his english name), a chinese gentleman who immediately whipped out his own Softbank microsim from his phone, popped it in mine, verified it worked perfectly, and then told me to come back when my ID situation is all sorted out and he'll hook me up.  Yay!  Mission accomplished.  Thank you Hobart!

I then set my sights on lunch, and turning a corner was shocked to see a donner kebab stand!  Now, I may not have mentioned before how disappointed I was in the donner kebabs in Germany.  The meat was not very flavorful and the sauce likewise anemic.  I eventually gave up trying different kebab stands as I was constantly disappointed.  The good news is that this particular donner stand was excellent!  Well spiced meat, garlicky yoghurt sauce...mmmmm boy!  It was a small little thing, so on the way back to the train station I popped in a small sushi go-round.  A few odd things, like figuring out how to use the tea powder and spigot of hot water sticking out from the bar, but otherwise straightforward.  Grab your plate of sushi, eat, smile, get more.  The pieces are a little smaller than state-side, but perfect for popping in your mouth in one bite.  So nice to eat proper sushi once again.  It's hard to describe, but if you've had good sushi, and then had "meh" sushi, you'll know what I mean.  There's something about how the Japanese do the vinegar (su) and rice (gohan) combination that is absolutely unique in terms of flavor.  It's subtle but it's definitely there.  I'm sure there are better places, but for my first real sushi in Japan, it hit the spot.  Funny thing also, when I went to pay, I noticed you could pay with thePASMO card!  Neat idea...   In total it was about $20 for a decent, quick meal.

I made my way back home, reversing the directions, without any issues.  I am definitely feeling more confident about getting around after that experience..it was simple, and I think soon I won't need directions other than Google Maps (which has a pretty awesome public transport option).  Oh, the total price for the trip was Y1560, about $20.  Considering the speed and convenience, that's pretty good!

Today we are test driving a car in the morning and will try to go to Ginza (Tokyo) to attend a church we've heard about (Grace City Church Tokyo) in the afternoon (their service starts at 3pm).

More houses and our first train trip

Yesterday we saw 4 more houses:

Uraga Houses:  2 houses close together, similar construction/layout, neither impressed us

Obaradai House:  The nicest RV style home we've seen yet, very interesting internal layout, quite far from the nearest train station however. This is the first house we've seen after the Kubiri one that we kind of liked.

Nagasawa House:  Serious character here, originally 2 homes joined together, so there are 2 kitchens and baths (very unusual), and nice traditional styling.  Very good price.  However, it's right next to the train tracks (you can practically spit on them) and the house is quite old.  It came with lots of appliances and furniture though.  Definitely went to the top of the list in competition with Kubiri, but there are enough issues that it hasn't won out completely.

After these appointments, we took the train from Shioiri Station (close to base) down to Kubiri and walked up to the house we are interested in, just to do it once.  We had to buy "pasmo" cards from the train station electronic kiosks (English instructions are available).  Unfortunately, because we don't have phone numbers yet we had to get "blank" cards which require a Y500 deposit, and Rowan's doesn't get the child discount.  We'll get proper ones later.  You load these cards up with yen and then you swipe them at the entrance and exit turnstiles as you go through them.  This automatically deducts the correct amount from the card...couldn't be easier!

Had to ask around a bit to find the correct platform/train towards Keikyukurihama station (nearest to Kubiri) and then waited a couple of minutes for the next one to come.  The trains are really nice, clean and spacious (and fast).  A couple of stops later, one of the guys we talked to earlier told us to get off and change trains (not far, just the other side of the platform).  This we did (thanks guy!) and a few stops later were at Keikyukurihama Station.  The walk from there to the house was easy (maybe 10 minutes).  By bike probably 5 or less.

Actually, speaking of bikes on trains...it is not done here.  That is, to take a full size bike on the train.  Weird to us, coming from Portland.  Anyway, I am reassured to find out if the bike is collapsable and has a cover, it should be able to ride fine (check and check!).  Otherwise, you have to park your bike at the train station which is about $100 a month!!!!

We took our time wandering back to the train station, looking around the neighborhood.  The road outside the house is a bit busy, and parking would be tricky.  But the house is set back quite a ways, so road noise wouldn't be an issue.  However, we saw numerous school kids going home, walking in groups or alone, so safety is obviously not an issue.  There's what looks like a second-hand appliance store nearby, a liquor store (with lots of sake!), and of course one of the ubiquitous 7-11 convenience stores.  Normally this wouldn't sound like a good thing, but all of these are very nice establishments without the icky connotations they might have in the States.  The convenience stores particularly are handy because you can pay virtually all your utilities there.

Where the area shines, however, is around the train station(s).  There's a very nice outdoor mallish area with lots of little shops (fish, vegetable, meat, and sundries), a couple of larger mall type buildings, and tons of restaurants.  There's a small "river" or canal that seems to extend up from the nearby bay.  At the port, there is a ferry that goes across to the opposite side of the Tokyo Bay (to Chiba?).  There are nearby beaches too.  There are 2 train stations for the 2 main lines that run here:  1)  JR is government run and goes up to Yokosuka and then west towards Zushi, 2)  Keikyu is private and runs all the way up past Yokosuka to Tokyo and further.  So all in all, the area is quite interesting while not feeling like a continuation of the metropolis.

We waited until 4:30pm (about the time when I would be coming home from work) and then road the train back to Yokosuka to see how crowded things looked.  I have to say, not too bad...I think I can handle it.  Feeling guilty about eating out yet again (had incredibly good Indian food for lunch), we went home and made spaghetti for the 2nd time this week (easy food!).

Today (Friday), I have some administrative stuff to do in the morning, then we have a couple more houses to look at in the afternoon.  These will be more north, towards Yokohama/Tokyo, the first time we've travelled in that direction since coming down from the airport.  We are interested to see how it feels.  We've also decided to put the Kuribi house on 24 hour hold and see it again on Saturday to solidify how we feel (or otherwise).  If we still have a good feeling about it and haven't found something else that blows our minds, then on Monday we'll put the paperwork in to make the offer.

House Madness! And the iPhone nightmare

I don't know if anyone cares about this or not, but here are more pictures of places we've been looking at. So far none has tickled our fancy like the first one (technically second) that we saw however. I have to say I'm getting tired of the shoddy construction (RV feel).

3 more schedule for tomorrow, and we'll try to get 3 more for Friday. We are thinking if we don't find any serious competition by then, we'll go with the first one.

So, on to the iPhone nightmare. In Germany a few months back, before I had any guarantee of finding a job anytime soon, I bought an iPhone 4s unlocked from Apple and had it shipped to Germany. I didn't think I'd have any trouble using it in Japan, so even though I said a couple of times I probably should wait til I got to Japan, I figured...how could it not work? It's a world phone, truly unlocked, no problem, right? Right... So in Germany, I took my iPhone to the local cell store to get a SIM so I could at least turn the darn thing on. They suggested I take the SIM from my existing phone and convert it to micro SIM. She even pulled out a device designed for the job (looks like a stapler) and with one click, my SIM was now a microSIM and once inserted it started working fine. Even used it a few times to make calls. No data or anything...that was going to wait for Japan!

There are only 2 companies in Japan that supply iPhones, much like AT&T had the monopoly in the US originally. AU and Softbank. Softbank is on the base, so I went there first and explained my situation. They said simply that they could not provide me with a SIM and data plan. At all. Unless of course I wanted to by an iPhone from them locked to them (permanently). Event though they acknowledge (grudgingly) that the SIM should *work* just fine in my phone, they won't give me one. Wow. So I went in town and asked at AU...they said the same thing.

The problem is...I don't believe them!!!! There has to be a way to make this work, so I'm not giving up just yet. I've asked around and so far found no one who has been able to make this work, but I have some hope. My first shot today was to buy a cheap phone/SIM from SoftBank. I tried cutting the SIM myself, but botched it, so I'm going to buy another one tomorrow and be more careful. At least I would have a cell phone number. Second, we might try to make our way to Akihabara in Tokyo tomorrow. This is supposed to be an electronics/anime/manga mecca where one person told me I should be able to at least ask at about a thousand different shops to see if there is some way. This is so I can get a fully functional data plan.

At any rate, this is shaping up to be quite the nightmare and is reminiscent of my experience in Kuwait trying to get high speed Internet at our apartment. We eventually gave up on that fight after getting no where after months and months of trying. The blank stares in peoples eyes when I explain what I want to do is so frustrating. It's like...what, no one in the world has tried to bring an unlocked iPhone this country?! Anyway...

Oh, btw, the food is indeed awesome. We've had ramen (the real thing) once so far, and ate at a Hawaiian restaurant today for lunch. I want to eat at every restaurant I see...but time and money are limiting. Oh well, we'll get around to it.

Looking for houses

Yesterday was the Housing Brief, wherein we were informed of the process to go about finding a house here. Basically we were told we should make sure we sign a "navy lease" as opposed to a normal japanese lease because with the Navy Lease we don't need a co-signer, we can give 10 days notice (if we have to), and the Navy can get involved if there are any legal problems. I think that's going to be the way to go.

As contractors, we can't get appliances from the Housing Office, but otherwise we can take advantage of their other services such as listings, translators, etc... So it's a pretty good deal for us.

I had to run to another appointment with my company right after, so Kerri began looking through binders. It was kind of like shooting in the dark, so she just picked one at what we understood was our price range and made an appointment to see it later that day.

Meanwhile, I was getting the unfortunate news that due to contract changes, the way housing expenses are paid has changed. Instead of a cap and being reimbursed, we are being paid a flat amount each month. This amount is about $1000 less than we would have had if we had used all of our cap under the old system. We are still reeling from this alteration to things...

But we made our appointment to see the house anyway as at least it would get us off base (finally!) and out seeing what things look like. The first house was a disappointment. Aside from being too expensive, it was more "western" in style with only one tatami room, and felt very small. I think that's what comes of trying to do "western" style in a small space. The japanese approach seems to make more use of the space available with the sliding walls and such. Also, the building quality of the house was oddly shabby...it felt like the same materials used in a motorhome...lots of plastic and such. The final kicker was that the house was no where near any train or bus lines, so getting to work would be difficult for me.

So our agent (having learned more about our price restrictions and desires) showed us another house more in line with our new budget. It's a kilometer from a train station, very much more traditional in style, and quite large for the price (maybe too large actually). But we really liked the place and the area, so are pretty excited about it. Trying not to do our usual thing and jump on it right away...we do have time to keep looking. I took some pictures of this place and will try to put them up with this post.

Today we'll look at more listings at the Housing Office and try to set up more appointments. I've got an HR call early in the morning, but then nothing for the rest of the day. I've been told to keep Friday flexible as there may be more things to do (work wise) there. My first "real" day of work is supposed to be Jan 30. We have pretty much the rest of this week to keep working on finding a house. Next week is a week long orientation, so I don't think we'll have much time to look around. We are supposed to find a place within 2 weeks, but I don't know if that will happen. My employer seems to think it won't happen that fast either as we've been booked here at the Navy Lodge for 30 days (instead of the more common 14).

Oh, some of you may wonder what happened to our plans to find a short-term lease in a furnished place. Well that went down the tubes pretty quickly as 1) it's very expensive and 2) would pretty much restrict us to Yokohama and a downtown lifestyle (which I'm ok with, but Kerri and Rowan are not so cool with). So we decided to give up on that and just try to find our permanent home nearer Yokosuka than we originally had hoped. This means we probably won't be able to go to the church downtown Tokyo we were hoping to try out. There are some other churches nearby, including one affiliated with Victory in the philippines (my dad's church). We'll probably try them out next Sunday. There's also a Baptist church just outside the base.

Here's a map with directions from the base entrance to the house we looked at yesterday:


View Larger Map

And here are some pictures:

2am in Yokosuka

Good morning Nippon!

Our flight over wasn't too bad, as far as flights go. Aeroflot turned out to be pretty decent, especially on the long flight from Moscow where we actually had in-flight entertainment systems which go a loooong way to making a long flight more bearable. Kerri says the last few times she's flown to the states there have been no such thing, so we were grateful. Nonetheless, it was plenty long and other than Rowan (who slept for a couple of hours) we did not sleep. We arrived at Narita and made our way to immigration.

We had been told by our in-processing manager at CSC to present our "orders" (2 letters) to immigration and we should get our SOFA stamp. (SOFA = status of forces agreement; it means that we work for the military and are therefore under a different set of rules as far as living in japan is concerned). Well we did that, but they said they couldn't do it there and gave us 90 day stamps instead. They said we could change them later.

Fine, so then on through to baggage, where everyone else had already left and so our bags had been put onto a cart all ready for us! Easiest baggage experience evar. Outside to the pickup area where we were to be met by someone whose picture had been given to us...but there was no one there! In our near delusional state, we began to try and figure out how to make a phone call. The phone machines all accepted phone cards, which you could buy from some vending machines. So we needed Yen. Found a money changer, found the little form, waited til I got to the front and then saw that you needed your passport. So back to find Kerri with the luggage and get my passport, and back in the long line. Then I saw a sign indicating an ATM was nearby. Yay! So off to find the ATM. I had no idea what the exchange rate was, so I just pulled 50,000 yen (which I see now is $650, so not a bad first amount). Then of course, I discovered the phone machines don't take 10,000 yen bills. So bought some water (poor little stand...I didn't realize 10,000 yen about $100), but they didn't bat an eye and gave me my change. As I turned around I saw Kerri greeting a man! Yay! So we didn't have to figure out how to get to Yokosuka by ourselves.

He was very apologetic for being late, but there was terrible unusual traffic on the way (which we saw still backed up on the way back). In our stupor we made conversation for the 1 1/2 hour drive to the Yokosuka Naval Base, just south of Yokohama (which is just south of Tokyo). The fast roads are all toll roads here, and the signage is profuse. I'm sure we'll get used to it eventually, but for now I couldn't imagine navigating my way by car. Apparently though, when you rent a car for a specific route, the car rental companies give you all the pre-paid toll tickets you need to get there and back, which is convenient.

So, first impressions of Japan? Not too many since I don't feel like we've really seen Japan yet! At the airport it was a bit disconcerting how difficult it was to make a simple phone call (I was kinda hoping the phones took credit cards). But I was on my way to figuring it out. The drive back was mostly blocked by walls as they do a good job of trying to prevent road noise from seeping into the surrounding town. It was pretty much one contiguous city from the airport to just past Yokohama. At least once we started getting into the Yokosuka area proper the topography changed a bit and became really hilly with lots of trees and scrub brush. Everything is very dry...as in brown and gray. Odd, but I guess common as winters are quite dry here, so all the plant life dries up.

We were very tired, so we went straight onto the base (which is humongous!) and all the way to the other end, right at the northern tip on the water, where the Navy Lodge is located. We checked in, got our stuff upstairs and bid adieu to our friend who had driven us. After a couple of showers (it was about 4pm) we walked next door to the Chilis (I know, I know) ate dinner, walked back to our hotel and barely managed to take clothes off before falling asleep in bed at 5pm.

So now it's almost 3am after writing this post and Rowan and I are awake. Kerri's still sleeping though, so that's good. Once we are all awake I guess it's time to tackle our bags and stuff. We will be living here a maximum of 2 (possibly 3 but I hope not) weeks, so we need to kind of treat it semi-permanently. Can't have stuff lying all over the place or it wlll feel lots smaller than it is.

One big surprise to me yesterday was that apparently you have to register your bike to ride it on base. Yikes! My whole plan was to ride my bike on base (especially at first) because it is soooo huge! We'll have to try and figure that out today if possible as I have to start being places on Tuesday. Monday is a holiday though, so it might not pan out. Nonetheless, I plan on riding my bike and pleading my case if caught. There is a bus system here, but we're not sure how frequently it goes (especially on holidays).

We can leave the base and come on (passports + orders are necessary) so we might even venture out today if we feel up to it.

Tomorrow we attend the Housing brief, where we'll learn more about the process of finding a house. They give you several days up front to start the search, so that's nice. We are leaning towards finding a furnished short-term lease at first so we can have more time to find the place we really want. We'll see...

That's it so far, not much to go on yet (and no pictures!) but hopefully we'll have more for later.