Friday, 9/19/2014

Today I had my individual briefing session with the Fulbright staff and executive director. Since my meeting was the first of the day, I had to walk to the office by myself. I woke up at 6am, realized my alarm was set too late, and adjusted it. Then I tried to go back to sleep, but my room was too hot. I managed to snatch a dream before I got up at 7:30am. I got ready and went down to breakfast at 8am. I had a small breakfast; my appetite has decreased a bit since my arrival in Japan. Down at breakfast, I ran into two other Fellows: one with a meeting at 10:40am, and another with a meeting at 11:20am. My meeting was at 9:10am. I left at 8:35 to give myself an extra 15 minutes in case I got lost. I made it most of the way with no problem. I was really glad I had purposefully paid more attention to the stores along the street the day before, since there were so many stores on each block that it was easy to get lost. The most memorable and visible ones were Family Mart (convenience store) and Subway, but since they appeared multiple times along the way, they were a rather treacherous landmark. Walking by myself without having to keep up or make conversation with other people made it easier to pay attention to my surroundings. However, it also made me more aware of the attention I got from Japanese people as I passed them. Having run out of easily accessible clean clothes in my carry-on, I was wearing a pale-blue collar shirt with my suit jacket and black business pants. I basically looked like a female foreign version of a male salaryman, which made me stand out. Japanese career woman clothes tend more towards blouses and flaring skirts (which would be almost too casual or at least business casual in America), as opposed to pant suits and pencil skirts that are more common in America. There is also a horrific lack of color in Japan fashion in general, especially business clothes: everything is black, gray, navy, beige, tan, brown, pink, or white. If you’re lucky, you might see a flash of red somewhere.

On the way, I passed a few young men in suits holding up signs advertising the iPhone 6. The last man I passed was near a Softbank store, which I noticed had a line of 4 or 5 people standing outside the door. I thought to myself, I guess the iPhone 6 is being released in Japan today. Later in the day, I was looking at online news, and I saw that according to the Japan Times on Thursday, September 18: “SoftBank Mobile Corp. says it will offer customers using Apple Inc.’s iPhone 6 smartphones free voice calls and Internet access in the United States starting Friday.”

I was sneezing a lot despite taking allergy medicine. Rather than a cold, I suspected it was because my nose was dry. I mentally blamed the drop in humidity that had accompanied the cooling weather as making the air too dry. Fortunately, my nose recovered as the day went on.

Anyway, I got a little lost when I was 2 or 3 blocks away. I knew I was close, but I couldn’t remember which street I was supposed to turn on, and then I turned too soon and got turned around. I followed a string of people walking down a narrow alley and found myself across the street from the Sanou Grand Building. I made it to the office with 10 minutes to spare.

At the office, I idled in the entranceway. I tried calling out “Good morning!” since I could hear voices, but no one responded. A few minutes later a young Japanese woman entered the office from the hallway and in fluent English expressed her distress that no one had come to help me. I was calm, but she didn’t seem to know who I was or why I was there. Fortunately, one of the Fulbright staff who was familiar with me walked past. I greeted her and she went back into the office to get my Fulbright adviser. The other Japanese woman, reassured that I was alright, went past me into the cubicles that made up the office. 

I waited a few minutes and then my adviser came and we had our meeting in the small conference room. She knew I had been worrying about apartments, and assured me that we would discuss it more later. She gave me some papers, including a letter from the executive director explaining the attached letter from the company that had helped sponsor my grant. Since funds from my grant came from this company, my Fulbright grant’s name was actually hyphenated to “Fulbright-xx Grant.” My adviser told me that the sponsor merely provided funds; they had no relation to my being chosen as a Fulbright recipient. However, she added on the side, they must have liked my application a lot out of the applications shown to them.

After we went over the papers, I met with her and the executive director to discuss any concerns or problems I had. The apartment problem came up, but my adviser said she would go over the apartment listing websites together with me afterwards. Another problem was that there had been trouble with the syncing between my email and my Windows 8.1 mail app. Apparently my replies to emails Fulbright had sent me hadn’t gotten through to them, causing them much worry. I decided to try to get a Fulbright-provided email, since my university email was expiring. At the end of the meeting, the executive director asked me if I was nervous about meeting people or being lonely. “No,” I said, “I want to hurry up and start making friends!” They laughed.

Next, my adviser and I went to the big conference room. There, my adviser provided me with updated contact information for a retired professor who could help me find an apartment. We also went over the information that Tohoku University had provided to me about housing. Looking together at apartment listings, she explained what the different apartment details meant, and who to contact about the apartments. She recommended I use the websites Tohoku University provided and also visit the student co-op housing office when I got to Sendai, since the people there would be more familiar with the area. She also warned me not to choose any place without looking at it in person first. She also offered to call my administrative representative at Tohoku University to ask her to find a Japanese student to come with me to look at apartments, which I welcomed. 

My adviser had to meet with another Fulbright Fellow, so I continued to look over the maps and listings on my own. Once I was satisfied, I left. However, apparently she had still wanted to talk to me, because she called me at my hotel later that afternoon. I was sitting at my desk when my phone rang. One of the front desk receptionists (there’s a lot, often 3-5 during the day, and at least 2 at night) was on the phone, and he told me in English that there was a call for me. He told me to wait on the line. I waited, and then my adviser greeted me in Japanese. After she ascertained it was me, she switched to English and told me that she hadn’t received the email I had CC’d her on earlier that day. I immediately went to my Firefox browser to resend the email directly through my service instead of through the app, and I agreed to find an alternate email provider. I’m going to try to get a Fulbright email, but if that doesn’t happen in a timely fashion, I’ll get gmail or something.

To go back in time: Walking back to the hotel from the office, I spotted a sign advertising pole dance classes. As I kept walking, I wondered why construction workers pants were so strange shaped. See http://img14.shop-pro.jp/PA01140/323/product/66067470_th.jpg?20140105130241 . Didn’t all that extra fabric drag everywhere and get even more dirty? There were construction workers and business employees everywhere looking for places to eat, since it was noon at this point. One waffling construction worker seemed to take an interest in me. Perhaps I was imagining it, but it seemed that he noticed me when I paused nearby to look at a lunch menu sign, and then he followed me (in a shy, furtive way) to the end of block. He stopped, hesitated, and turned back after I crossed the street and turned the corner. Another likely explanation is that he didn’t see any restaurants he wanted to eat at on the next block, so he went back to a previous one. 

Walking to and from the hotel was slightly scary because the streets were so narrow. One side always had a shoulder painted on it, but even so I always had to walk around vans and small trucks parked on the side of the road, watch out for bikes and cars, and not run into people walking the opposite direction.

When I got close to Hotel Asia Center, I stopped at a Family Mart to buy lunch.

Back at the hotel, I ate my food while watching TV. I’ve noticed this before, but Japanese TV has a LOT of commercials, and they cut abruptly from show to ad with no transition. One show I was watching was about a woman attempting to make pepperoncini pasta or something (and epically failing, creating a delicious-looking but noxious-tasting dish). The show was interrupted every 2 min for 2 min of commercials, leading me to suspect that on this channel, at least, there were equal amounts of shows and ads.

Later, I decided to do laundry. I had to run down to the front desk a couple times to get change for the detergent dispenser (which requires 4 10-yen coins) and later for the dryer (which only accepts 100-yen coins; 100 yen for 30min). With my underwear, socks, a pair of jeans, a sweater, and 4 shirts, it took 3 tries to get them completely dry.

Received email from F-sensei at 4:30pm, but didn’t notice until 6pm, when Fulbright adviser texted and emailed me to hurry up and write him back. (since he’s the kind of person who does things quickly) I emailed him, and he responded while I was on the train. One of the trains I rode was plastered with the same ad along the length of the whole car on both sides and hanging from the ceiling as well.

Left to meet A-chan at 6:30ish pm. Time to meet got pushed back to 7:40 from 7pm, so wandered around the station. Went to a small, crowded place to eat meat. The food was salty, but the beef was good. They were very busy, so we had to ask for everything, like when we needed water or were ready to order. A-chan helped me respond to F-sensei’s email.

Tried to find a café to eat cake. The one A-chan looked up was full and going to close in 30min, so we went to find another one, but no luck. We came back 10min later and a table was open, so we bought cake and sat down. I liked A-chan’s cake (strawberry and pineapple) better than mine (caramel).

Walking back to the hotel from Aoyama-1-chome Station, I promptly sneezed a couple times. There must be something in the air in that area that I’m allergic too. There’s a park close by and quite a few trees and shrubbery, so it’s possible…

I got back to the hotel and received another email from F-sensei, which I promptly replied to. It was 11pm, but he even said in the email that he had tried calling the university housing to see if something could be arranged for me, but (strangely) no one was there in the middle of the night. He’s clearly a man with a lot of initiative, who likes to get things done.