Suzaka

Suzaka posted September 4, 2006 Apparently my apartment has been secured + I`m being moved in tonight.
There`s no furniture/ dishes/ appliances or anything of that nature just yet. The electric and water are purported to be working as of now, + the
gas should come on sometime tomorrow. I have to start work tomorrow morning, but it`s just one day - then I have Saturday + Sunday + a bit of
help from the guy (who`s floor I`ve been sleeping on) to get things arranged.
The water at his house is the color of weak tea.
I hope I don`t wind up with that problem.
I`ve only seen one side of the building I`ll be moving into + that one side was pretty trashy, but the neighborhood is nice.
My “Green Card” expired while I was away + I can`t get any telephone service established until that`s ready. I think that takes a couple of weeks though…
———————————
Days later: It`d be nice if I had a phone, but I still don`t have a new foreigner`s card. To get a Foreigner`s card I have to go to the right counter at city
hall - before city hall closes - at 5:15. I left work at 5 on Friday + didn`t have a bike + didn`t know the way there, so I got there at around 6. I asked the guy watering the garden outside + he said it`s closed on weekends.
When I do eventually manage to get myself + all necessary documentation at the right counter of city hall before the city shuts down for the evening, it will most likely still take a few weeks to actually get the card back. Pain in the Ass.
I`m at my manager`s house again, using his computer, then his girlfriend is gonna take me to see the fireworks with her friends, then I`m going to go to his bar in Nagano city for an arm wrestling competition. I had to buy a bike, and a whole bunch of other crap today: dishes, forks, knives, spoons, a spatula, tupperware containers, an oven range, a futon, sheets, sponges, chopsticks…
I hate shopping.The water is okay/ drinkable, but the shower has an odd smell. I like to tell myself it`s from the way it`s heated, rather than consider the possibility of something small and unfortunate having died in a pipe somewhere. Honestly, I know nothing about heating – except that standing too close to a heater on a cold day can result in pain and scarring….
I don`t have a garbage can yet, so I have to hang a garbage bag from a nail in the wall. In this city/town you have to buy special bags – made by the city/ town, AND you have to go to city hall to get certificate stickers made out in your name to stick to the bags before putting them out for collection. (There`s still the matter of city hall closing 15 minutes after I leave work…)
———————————————————————————————————————-
Also:

I didn`t get your message until just after I bought a bunch of furniture. I forgot about Sayonara sales. I also forgot how cheap it is to get a bike at a home center - I just bought one for 30,000, + they have all tricked up /cooler looking ones there for 9,000.
I went yesterday to get a: garbage can, broom, pots, and pans. I put all the pots and pans in the garbage can, + carried it back with one hand on my bike. It was hot. There were uphills, downhills, bumps, overpasses… After a few miles, my arm got tired. I`d spent the morning carrying a washer and dryer upstairs to my apartment… I didn`t enjoy that overmuch either.
I also went to an electronics shop to get one of those fairly cheap/ easy internet cards, but wound up having a long difficult conversation with some girl who wants to sell me some sort of connection that needs to be installed by NTT. I don`t have a phone, so NTT can`t call to schedule a time for it, + so far as I know there is no time when I am not working that they are. They were going to give me a cell phone real cheap so that NTT could call me, but then they realized that they couldn`t give me one until I get a new foreigner`s card. I had told them that before, …but they think they know everything because they`re Japanese + it`s their country. It should work that way. While the girl at the store was trying to explain their internet options to me, an old woman “Passed by” and talked to me for a half hour/ 40 minutes or so. She seemed nice enough, but between her, the internet lady, + then later a supervisor of some sort, I came to feel I was trapped in an ever circling conversation of hopelessness, that I didn`t understand very well anyway.
They gave me a bunch of weird promotional crap: A grass pillow with the NTT logo on it, a mini thermos (that I can keep my insulin in until I get a fridge),… They asked me to come back next Friday.
I got to work today + one of the regular teachers managed to guess my predecessor`s password on the 1st go. It wasn`t: funkyMama, OhBoyIve, GotAnItch, or qwerty, …I tried all of those… Seeing that I seem to be able to use the internet here during free periods/ after class – I probably don`t need it at home.
Last year I asked the only good looking girl in the town I used to live in if she`d like to go out sometime + she said yes. I asked her for her number + she said something to the effect of: never in a million years. There was one other girl who was pretty chubby + she was too busy for me too. Circumstances have improved considerably.
I thought I would have trouble getting to work today. I`m surprised I remembered to set my alarm clock. I don`t have a refrigerator, or food to put in it – which I could – cook, so I stopped at a little place a block away that had a Tempura flag out. I had dinner then a fairly good looking girl came and sat down next to me. A friendly old guy behind the counter gave us both a bit of watermelon, then some spicy cucumbers, then some fried watermelon, then he gave me a big bag of cucumbers from his own garden. That was all free, so I thought it prudent to order a drink. The girl next to me was amiable/ really cool/ a clothing designer/ she looked 23ish – but is turning 31. She did indeed encourage me to have several more drinks after the 1st. I wound up talking to her for nearly 3 hours – In which time she had 3 or 4 HUGE beers – the size of her head. I can`t stand beer + I`m out of practice, so I most likely wound up drunker, but still not as drunk as I like to be, but there was work today.
I was practicing the night before – drinking I mean. I was at my manager`s house where I slept for the 1st week. He helped me buy + carry stuff for my apartment + took me back to his place afterwards. His girlfriend brought me out with a pair of her friends + we went to go see fireworks. They drove around for an hour and a half or so, but never found a good spot to park, so we all just gave up and went and had dinner. Me + 3 girls! I love that! I think they all had boyfriends, but I like to be surrounded by funky sex mammas – whenever the opportunity provides.
Some of them were concerned with how I would manage to meet my manager/ the one girl`s boyfriend at his bar later that night; I only have a bike, I don`t know the area, + when I do drink – it`s mostly to see how drunk I can get – or to forget about my problems…
They decided to come to the bar with me. It was a good bar. There was another girl sitting by herself + I went up and talked to her. That probably wouldn`t mean anything to most people – it`s just that I`ve never actually done it before. Some other girls I`d met the night I got in were trying to get me to dance – as I had done at the karaoke box. The girls that brought me wanted to see my nipples – but wouldn`t show me theirs – It`s funny how that isn`t the 1st time I`ve encountered that same exact situation.
As my luck has taken a wild turn for the better - It`s a shame I don`t have a phone or a phone number to give out. This place is a whooooole lot better than Chichibu.