Catch up: August 26th

Riding the train from Minamiosawa Station in Hachioji to Iibadashi in Tokyo for more training at the Interac offices. Still no cell phone or internet. We're supposed to get the rest of our belongings today- we had shipped them from the hotel to our new apartment. Wow, I think people are avoiding sitting next to me- because I'm a foreigner? Orrr I'm just being paranoid....

Anyways, we've been trying to figure out what furniture is strictly necessary until I start getting paychecks. The problem is that the most necessary things seem to be the most expensive: mattress, cell phones, computer parts, etc.

Just looked around the train- nearly every seat is full, even the priority seats (for old or pregnant people) except for the 4 seats next to me. Maybe not so paranoid after all....

I havent had a day to relax since we got to Japan- its been all go-go-go. So I'm beginning to suspect that I'll get hit by a wave of homesickness as soon as I get my first real day off... but not yet!
Today is Wednesday and I'll be busy all day. Then Thursday I think Kris and I are going to try to make it to IKEA. We REALLY need a mattress. So far all we have is a thin futon for one person on hardwood floor.... NOT cutting it.

OMG the train is going so fast right now!

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Later that night:

We've been in Japan now for about a week. Some things are hard and there are days where I feel like this country is just rejecting me. Today was another one of those days. Ugh, so was yesterday.

Yesterday we made the move from the hotel in Tokyo to our apartment in Hachioji. We missed our train because we were entirely confused by the Shinjuku train station, which is monstrous. This made us nearly 30 minutes late, which feels horrible in Japan. The lady meeting us in Hachioji was very nice but I felt terrible about it. We needed to go to City Hall, the post office/bank, the real estate office and such, but this lady had no car so we had to drag two full suitcases, two backpacks, umbrellas and jackets and 2 other bags of junk all around town with us while it was raining.

Everywhere we went we ended up waiting for hours and hours. Before I knew it we had gone from 10am to 3pm and had only done city hall and the post/bank. We were late to the real estate office because the post/bank called us and asked me to run back over to sign yet another form. Then at the real estate office they were not informed that Kris would be living in the apartment so they had to call everyone in the communication chain to figure out who left out this information, then they had to rewrite the lease agreement to include him. By the time we got to the apartment, around 6:30pm, after 3 hours at the real estate office, the movers were waiting to bring in the furniture Interac had rented for us- fridge, washer, stove, lights, etc. Then, by 7:30 we did our walk-through of the apartment and headed out for the 20 minute walk (uphill) to the nearest shopping center to get toilet paper and hand soap.

There was no time to get cell phones. I was extremely disappointed by this.

So today when I went back to the Interac office someone tried to help us get internet in our apartment but that's going to take at least another week. We cant do it ourselves because the company has no English helpline. This wouldn't be such a problem if we had phones. But no one can help us get phones. We really need frickin phones. For internet. And GPS. And translation...

So far today I've only had two things go right: one of my friends had an extra SUICA (rail pass) card that he gave to me, so that saved me another half hour figuring out pay passes in Shinjuku. The other is that it looks like when we finally do get internet it'll be fiber optic cable, which is very fast but cheap.

Alright, feeling a bit kicked around, but still going.

K+K