I woke up at 6:30am because of noise. It sounded like people were
knocking on the wall and that it was raining outside, but it wasn’t. I went
back to sleep and got up at 7:40am. Then I got ready and was packed by 9:25. I
spent my time looking at hotels for a trip to Tokyo I may take next weekend. I
tried using the Japanese Rakuten Travel site, but it was hard to use, so I used
the English language Agoda website instead.
I got a phone call from F-sensei at 9:50am. The room’s phone rang, and
the man at the front desk told me there was a call from the outside. I waited
on the line until F-sensei talked. He told me that his payment to the real
estate agent had been accepted and was being forwarded to the apartment’s
owner. We would meet at 11:15 am in the hotel lobby, then go to a restaurant
near the real estate office to eat lunch and wait for a call from O-san.
Five minutes later, I received an email from F-sensei asking me to
ready the money to return to him. I was short, so I decided to go to Family
Mart to withdraw the remaining amount. I checked out of my room and left my
luggage with the staff. I went to Family Mart, bought a bottle of water and
withdrew money from the ATM (which was annoying because it has an English
option, but it doesn’t work with my Japanese bank card, so I had to start
over), and then went back to the hotel to wait. As I organized my payment, an
old Japanese woman came out of the elevator and sat down in one of the waiting
area’s chairs. She got up to get coffee from the machine next to her, but
nothing came out. She said to herself but meant to be overheard, “Excuse me,
the water’s not coming out, is it?” But the woman at the front desk next to her
didn’t hear her. So the old woman repeated it louder. This time the employee
heard, and she went and got the more experience employee to come check the
machine. The water level was found to be a bit low, and the bean had clumped up
and blocked the water flow. She fixed the machine. The old woman got herself
some coffee.
I was feeling low on energy since I hadn’t eaten anything, so I decided
to have coffee too. (which may have been the cause of my aching stomach later
in the day, now that I think about it) I went up to the machine, took a cup,
then bent over to read the Japanese written on a fat pink paper arrow pointing
to a button. “Push the button,” the old woman told me. So I did, and voila!
Coffee streamed into my cup.
I sat down with my coffee and idled my time. The old woman left, and an
old couple came out of the elevator. They milled about for some reason. The old
woman kept looking at me. Then they left. Another man, in his late 20s/early
30s, came dashing out of the elevator, hurriedly gave his key to the front
desk, and ran outside to the intersection.
Finally, F-sensei came and helped pull my smaller suitcase to the car.
It took 5 or so minutes to put my luggage in the car, since it had to fit
around the furniture and items he had brought with him.
We first drove to a hotel called KKR, which is a hotel from government
members (although I may have misunderstood). F-sensei impressed on me the fact
that in Japanese society, unfair as it seems, you can achieve better things by
using connections to go in the side, rather than directly through the front. So
the example would be if I used his membership with the hotel to get a cheaper
price for my stay. But to me, using this side way seems the same as any
society; Japanese society just (“secretly”) accepts it as one standard way to
do things.
We ate lunch at the hotel. A group on the far side of the restaurant
started smoking. F-sensei noticed before me, and told me to let him know if the
smoke started bothering me. During the meal, F-sensei received several calls,
from a friend and one from the O-san in charge of my apartment contract. After
we received the call from O-san, we went to his real estate office. It was
small. The company president was there, and F-sensei seemed familiar with him,
although shocked by the revelation that he had not two, but three children, who
had gone or were going to college in the US. We were served glasses of apple
vinegar, which was a greenish yellow color. It tasted a bit like apple juice or
some slightly artificial fruit juice blend, with the flavor of vinegar
underneath. I drank half, since they said it was okay if I didn’t finish it
since it’s too sour. We briefly discussed some stuff, and then O-san gave me an
envelope with 2 keys and a couple informational papers in it. Then we rushed
off to move my stuff into the apartment. We needed to be back at the office by
2:30pm.
At the apartment, we parked in the small parking lot in the back. I
went, at F-sensei’s instruction, to go test the key. I unlocked the security
door, went up the elevator, and opened the room with no problem. Then I
realized I hadn’t really understood his instructions on what was happening
next. It turned out that he brought my stuff and the things he was lending me
to the security door, and I came down and brought them in, up the elevator, and
into my room. The elevator tended to be impatient, so I had a little trouble,
especially with maneuvering the small desk with all the bedding piled on top of
it. The wheels tried to stick themselves in the elevator, and the bedding was
too wide, so the whole thing all managed to get stuck in the elevator door. But
finally, all my stuff was in the room.
Then we started setting up. We puts hooks onto the curtains he had
brought. Then I climbed on the rolling desk chair, using my big, heavy suitcase
to steady the wheels, and put the hooks onto the rings at the top of the
window. There was only one transparent curtain for the big sliding door window
that opens onto the balcony, which I discovered that night let in light from
the apartment building across. We also put up a curtain between the kitchen/shower
areas and the rest of the room. F-sensei told me that students, and Chinese
people in particular, tend to cook oily dishes that make the kitchen area
really dirty. So to keep the cleaning cost downs, curtain fixtures are provided
to separate those parts of the room from the rest.
Speaking of the bathroom, the shower/bath and the toilet are completely
separate. The toilet is entered from the entranceway, and then you have to go
through the door to the living room, then to the shower/bath for the rest of
the bathroom. Since the toilet is the kind of toilet that had water flow
through a faucet into the toilet bowl, I later put a soap dispenser there, and
hung a hand towel on the ring provided.
F-sensei had also brought some dishes, which he piled into the sink; a
rice cooker, which he put on the counter, and bedding, which he shoved into the
closet. He also gave me some bags, so that I wouldn’t need to buy any when I
got shopping.
Then we rushed back to the real estate office, where we I signed and
went over the contract. It turns out I need to have Tohoku University sign, and
then bring it back to have it signed by the owner, before it is done.
Then we rushed back to the apartment to wait for the gas man. F-sensei
had called earlier in the week to set up an appointment. He had also called the
other utilities (called “lifelines” in Japan) throughout the day, so by the
time we got to the apartment, the water and electricity were working. The gas
man eventually came, and while he spent 15 minutes setting up the gas, we
worked on filling out the papers he had given us. Then we went around the
apartment while he explained how to use the gas. The gas, which is propane,
powers the kitchen burner (only one), and the water heater. They advised me not
to take very many baths, since the cost of heating the water could become very
expensive. We also went outside to look at the meter. He showed me the reset
button, in case the gas shuts off as a safety precaution, and a lever that
turns off the gas, in case I go away for a long time.
I understood about half of what the gas man said. F-sensei did a lot of
translating for me (yet he insists that my Japanese is good!). The gas man
mostly directed his explanations towards F-sensei. He smelled of smoke. His
posture, speech style, and movements were very deferential (almost groveling),
which seemed strange because of his age (40s-50s?), the smoke smell (which
usually implies maturity), and his height (he was on the tall side).
After that, F-sensei left. I started organizing my room, and then I
went shopping for necessities at the shopping plaza three buildings down. While
I was in the dollar store (where everything actually is just 100 yen) on the
second floor, I ran into some Tohoku University exchange students from America.
They were staying in one of the international dorms (which sounded like a
pretty terrible place, from the way they were talking; and F-sensei said later
that they must be poor if they’re living there, although in my opinion that
probably has no connection). We talked a bit, mostly about me, so I didn’t get
to hear much about them. Then we split up to keep shopping.
Suddenly, F-sensei called me. He had met up with his friend, and since
he would be busy tomorrow, he was going to take me to the dinner he had
promised, today. In fact, he was at my apartment at that very moment. Shocked,
I rushed to check out and sprinted back to the apartment. He was in the narrow
entrance to the parking lot, facing the street, which meant he couldn’t have
turned around if he had wanted to. I climbed into the car, and we went to a
small, fancy hamburger place to eat. F-sensei was very enthusiastic about their
food (they only had about 2 menu items, if that). He said the hamburger steak
was delicious, delicious! But when the food arrived, I got full very quickly,
so I didn’t enjoy it as much as he did.
After dinner, he dropped me off at the shopping plaza, where I picked
up a few more items at the dollar store. I wondered if the store employee had
noticed I had returned carrying the same heavy bag I had left with an hour ago,
but he was blank-faced.
Then I spent the next 2-3 hours cleaning, organizing, and unpacking. I
discovered that the shirt I had bought at BookOff had come with a present of a
huge tote bag. I also now had a bag full of bags, both my own and from F-sensei’s
contribution.
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