Shopping & Paperwork

Monday was my first day of "work". Not that I'm doing any real work yet. We met the HR girl who's in charge of taking care of us OAPs. She seems to have her act together, but she doesn't speak any English, so it's going to be hard to get anything done with her. Luckily, the other 2 guys' teachers where there (I haven't met mine yet). We spent a few hours filling out work papers that I couldn't read. I'm much better now at writing my name in katakana. It's actually legible.

Next we went apartment shopping. I was braced for the worst. I expected tiny little, one room shoe boxes underneath the train tracks. It's a little different here. For one thing, they only rent through real estate agents, so you have someone find places for you and take you around to them. Second, their name for a condo is "mansion". So I got a mansion. It's in a great location, about 0.7 km from the train station, overlooking a park. I'm on the top floor (5th) on the end, so 2 sides of the place are floor to ceiling windows. It's 1 bedroom, living room/dining room, kitchen, bathroom. The bedroom and living room are only separated by a set of 3 sliding doors, so you can open it up to be 1 big room or close it up and only heat or cool a small area. Here's a picture looking from the bedroom into the living room. That's the realtor (R) and the teacher translating for us (L) in the living room, and I'm behind the big, load-bearing post.



I thought the place would be tiny. They gave us packets with floor plans and locations for each apartment. The spot where it says the area, though, wasn't in any units I understood. I just used it as a relative judgement, so I knew one was bigger than the other. The one I picked was 17.2 somethings. Turns out the unit was 2 tatami mats, those straw floor mats you see in japan. 1 tatami is 90 cm by 180 cm, so 2 is 180 X 180, or about 17.5 square feet, so my place is about 600 square feet, huge for a 1 bedroom in Japan. More about the gizmos in there some other time.

Yesterday, I did city, state, and federal paperwork. I applied for my alien registration card and and multiple re-entry permit. I also got (from work) my inkon. It's a little stamp that's used in Japan instead of signing things. Mine just says "Daniel" in katakana. We also had to register that as my signature with the city.

After what amounts to the Japanese BMV, we went to the car lot to pick out cars. It was awesome. The told us to keep it under 2,000, 000 yen and set us loose. Car shopping is so much fun when you aren't really concerned with the cost. Even if I spent the limit, my payment, with insurance and maintenance, would be around $100/month. I checked how I fit in just about every kind of car they had. I really wanted to get something that I can't get in the US, so that cut out about half of them. Streets are narrow and gas is around $7/gal, so I wanted something small. I turned down the Fit, the Mobilio, the Spike, the Zest, the Beat, and the That's (only car named with a contraction). I finally found a sweet black almost new Turbo Life. It's about the smallest car Honda makes: 660 cc's, 3 cylinders of turbo charged fury in a cartoon car. I had to get the turbo, since it bumps it all the way up to 65 hp. Here's my hot new whip, check out the optional 14's I'm rolling on, the base model had 12's.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Life (before you ask, no, it's not the Diva Turbo, it's just a Turbo)

Since the sticker was only 998,000 yen, plus 40,000 for insurance, I started adding some options. They threw in snow tires, which I was told I'll never need. They also added an aftermarket, English speaking navi system, and the backup camera, since it's tough to back something this huge in. They told me it will take 3 weeks to negotiate with HGT and to install all my options, so I scheduled delivery as a birthday present to myself.

Well, I've got to finish watching the Browns game (don't tell me who won). Then I've got to go to bed, since tomorrow I actually go to work. Sorry for the long post, but I've been too busy to make frequent short ones. Happy Halloween.