First Night in Fujimi

I'm in the new apartment and a bit sore after my first night of sleep here; I don't know if it's because of the harder floor, the moving, or the kendo last night. It was a very long day.

I ended up waking up around 8 yesterday morning, after about 5 hours of sleep. I spent all morning packing and cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning. My Japanese teacher, an older woman, very kindly said she'd help me move, since everyone else ditched me. I was skeptical about our ability to put everything in her car, but somehow it worked out with two trips.

Her car is a LOT larger than it looks! On the first trip, we managed to fit in not only my half-sized fridge, but also my washing machine, my dresser, and a ton of boxes. The second trip had more boxes, my clothes, futon, and a kitchen stand. All told, it took us about five hours to make those two trips, and most of that time was spent on the road since it's around 40-50 minutes from my old apartment to the new -- and that's with little to no traffic.

We got it done, though, and then she dropped me off at my old apartment. I gave her the flowers I'd gotten for various graduation, some Girl Scout cookies, and then I snuck some cash into the cookie box to cover her gas. We said good-bye, since I'll be too far away to continue lessons with her.

After she left, I started cleaning some more -- my kitchen counter and stove were a mess and there was dust all over the place. Since I wanted to finish downloading stuff I could watch/read during my 11 days without internet, I had left my computers for the very end. It turned out that the downloads didn't finish before kendo started, so I left for kendo.

Kendo was pretty uneventful except for one thing. We had practice fights, one-on-one, and I finally beat my rival, a first-year junior high kid. He's beaten me dozens upon dozens of times, and this was the first time I've beaten him. I was absolutely thrilled, and I have no idea how I did it, because between my head cold, lack of sleep, and tiredness from moving, I felt like crap.

One of my friends from kendo said he'd help me move the last bit of stuff: my suitcase, comforter, computers, and bicycle. We just barely managed to fit everything into the back of his Forester, then we went to eat some ramen -- my treat since he was helping me. I asked him to pick a place since it was my treat; he picked a Chinese restaurant in the nearby mall. I'd never been there before. When we got there, he somehow convinced me to order the super-size ramen with an extra helping of bean sprouts and I wish I'd taken a picture, because I ended up getting more bean sprouts than he had noodles. I had so many bean sprouts that my bowl looked smaller than his.

It was delicious, though -- I wish the place weren't so far away from my new apartment, though. Everything in general is far away; I'll have to find a new ramen shop in the area.

After we ate, we drove up the mountain to my new apartment, unloaded his car, and talked about kendo for a bit before he left. I checked my e-mail and tweeted a bit from my phone before starting to unpack. I got my dresser moved into the closet, stowed away my clothes, tossed all of my bathroom junk where it belongs, and moved the rest of the boxes to the rooms where I need to unpack them.

More importantly, I set up my metal shelves for the laptop, hard drive, and router, so I could get my network going again. One of my rooms has tatami (the tatami room), which is easily damaged/bruised, so I don't want to put any furniture in there -- the metal rack and my low table both went into the room with the hard floor (the living room). I'll sleep in the tatami room since tatami is softer.

Just one problem.

The tatami room has a large glass double-door that opens onto the "balcony" where I hang my laundry. Since I live on the ground floor, the door is essentially a large window facing the parking lot... and me without curtains. I'm comfortable with my own body, but the idea of people looking in on me while I sleep is a bit much for me. I opted to sleep in the living room because the window there is higher and frosted glass.

While trying to set up my second set of metal shelves, I found that I was missing a pole... a quick e-mail to my Japanese teacher, two episodes of Firefly, and I was asleep.

My teacher responded the next morning and the vibrations from my cell phone woke me from an uneasy slumber -- the floor really WAS hard, plus all of the windows were letting in a tremendous amount of painful light. I rubbed the sand out of my eyes and read the e-mail; she said she would come up in two hours, so I tossed and turned for one before taking a shower.

She arrived a bit late due to rain and traffic, but brought the rod. Luckily for me, she offered to take me on some errands because the combination of my bike, my remote location on a mountainside, and the rain made her worry. We went down the mountain to the home center to get some curtains, paper towels, and some other stuff -- though I completely forgot to get sponges and dish soap. After that, we went to the grocery store, where I bought some rice, a lot of instant curry, some bento, and a lot of dried noodles. Since I don't have a stove here, I'm a bit limited in what I can make; all I have are a microwave/oven, a hot pot, and a rice cooker. Oh, and a yakiniku hot plate, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on meat.

On the way back, we also went to the post office so I could mail my old keys back to the company, for the next person. They're getting a really nice deal on that place... leftover dust notwithstanding. I left behind all of the alcohol I bought for guests (Nikolai, Maker's Mark, and some shochu), a coat rack, my very nice and very expensive light-blocking curtains that don't fit the windows of my new apartment, a nice light fixture with a remote control, a sofa, and a bunch of random boxes.

Speaking of light fixtures, the two here have hanging pull strings, which I hate. I always bump into them. And speaking of bumping into things, this apartment must have been built for someone 5 1/2 feet tall! My head brushes the top of every doorframe and I'm 5'10" at best. The showerhead is just lower than the top of my head, AND it faces down. I'll have to see about replacing it with a different model that faces out a bit, since it's annoying to keep crouching under it when showers are supposed to be the most relaxing part of my day.

I suppose I would be able to relax a bit easier if I unpacked and didn't have all these boxes sitting around. I actually did a lot this morning, unpacking three of the large boxes and getting my coats hung up. I unpacked a couple of small boxes too, then used them to organize some books and notebooks. I hung up the curtains in the tatami room and they fit perfectly; the curtains I bought for the living room were another matter, though... I screwed up and bought long ones when I needed short ones. I'll have to return those curtains at some point and get the right size, but I'm not as worried about the living room, since the bedroom, the tatami room, is where I really want to block light.
Since I got the rod back that I was missing, I was all excited about getting that set of shelves up, but I found that I'm missing two plastic pieces, which killed my enthusiasm. They were supposed to have been in the zippered pocket of one of my bags, which I used for all of my important stuff, but they're not there... so I can't figure out if they fell out somewhere or what. I went through all of my bags a few times, but didn't see the pieces.

Hopefully they'll turn up soon.

For now, I'm going to eat lunch and watch some more Firefly. It's surprisingly good -- I'd always figured it was a bit overrated. Later, I'll move my futon to the bedroom and work on setting up my kitchen, which, by the way, is a massive disappointment compared to my old one.

That's another entry, though.