Settling In

Sorry to anyone who's tried to contact us or has expected a blog entry over the last few days. We've been somewhat...disconnected from the outside world.

So...we got into Tsurusaki a few days ago and saw our apartment for the first time. We were pretty worried from the looks of the building. It's all shabby and pink, with loads of trash on all of the balconies...with us on the 5th floor (no elevator) But...when the door opened, everything turned out to be alright. It's a "small, but cozy" apartment (that's funny...trust me). We have two main rooms, a kitchen, a toilet room (almost big enough to sit in), and a shower room, complete with an enormously deep tub and a shower wand connected to the faucet. Yeah...you can guess how much water-pressure we get out of that thing. It's like washing yourself in a drinking fountain. But not one of those drinking fountains that almost squirts you in the face...one of those you-gotta-suck-on-the-nozzle-to-get-anything-out water fountains. But, alas...we perservere. Most of the floors in our apartment are hard-wood, with the obvious exceptions of the bathrooms...and the kitchen/main room are covered in some weird synthetic padded material with a wood grain on it. I've never seen it before, but it looks good...and it's a good rest for your feet, since shoes aren't really allowed. Oh yeah...and there's also a washer on the "veranda." It didn't work the first night, so Tori had to do the laundry by hand (thanks, Tori!), but the peeps from the water company came last night to fix it. It looks a little old, but it works just fine! Nobody in Japan has dryers, really...everybody just hangs their clothes out on the balcony to dry. it's actually kind of fun...

One drawback to living on the fifth floor...it's even hotter than the rest of the city! And that's saying something. It's only been about...um...85-90 degrees, but the air is thick enough to choke a horse (probably around 75% humidity). When we wake up we sweat...when we eat dinner we sweat...when we shower in cold water we sweat. But no worries. We made our first big purchase yesterday...Air Conditioning! The guy's coming to install it on Sunday (tomorrow!) and then we're never leaving our apartment. Right now we're holed up in Starbucks 'cause we don't want to go home to that sauna-of-an-apartment.

(look for pictures later...we're sans camera cables at the moment)

Work is good...I think. The first day, one of the English teachers, Kanao-sensei (or Nakao-sensei...I don't remember) picked me up from the Board of Education and took me to my school in Tsurusaki. During the car ride, I asked her some questions about the school and the town...and she didn't really have anything positive to say. I asked her what the town was like, to which she responded, "Actually...I don't like Tsurusaki." So, I asked her what the students were like, to which she responded, "Maybe they are naughty...and they don't like English." Great. When we got to the school, nobody had any idea what to do with me. Nobody knew where I lived...and nobody seemed to care that I was there. She gave me a brief introduction to the office staff, but I didn't get to hear anyone's names. Just a little wave and some awkward time standing around, looking goofy. Luckily, Tori's school knew where we were supposed to be living, so we made it there eventually.

Yesterday started off pretty well, though, with my supervisor, Shinkawa-sensei. He seems to be with it, more or less. There was an awkward few moments, though, when he introduced me to the principal of my school. Aparently he didn't really know what I was doing there...he hadn't been briefed. And just before I introduced myself, I guess Shinkawa-sensei asked the principal if I could have a few days off to get settled in. A less-than-friendly argument ensued. I wasn't quite ready for that. Two Japanese men arguing over the top of me...none of which I could understand. A few minutes into the argument, the principal asked me to leave the room...and they continued to argue for probably 30 minutes while I waited in the teachers' lounge. Hours later, we went back to his office, he apologized profusely, gave me a presentation about the school, and the two of them kissed and made up (not literally).

After we took care of a million little details around town yesterday, my supervisor at work, Shinkawa-sensei invited us over to his house for a little barbecue with his extended family. When we got there his kids were out playing in the rain and we got to meet his wife and her friend. There were a bunch of others there, too, who we didn't speak to much. A few minutes after we arrived, Shinkawa-sensei told his wife to go to the store to buy some beer for himself and me. In the mantime, we chatted with his wife's friend, who had spent some time in Wisconsin. While we were eating (delicious food, by the way), Shinkawa-sensei blurted out, "By the way...it's my wife's birthday today." Sooooo...it was a birthday party...and we were crashing it. Oops. Overall, it was the most relaxing night we've had here. They were all super nice, and the kids were cute as hell. Hopefully we'll get to do it again sometime soon.