My Apartment: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
The Good:
-I am able to snatch the Internet from somebody in the area and ride the wireless wave so, voila, here I am able to post, email and update sooner rather then later.
-I have a couch. From talking with another Company worker it seems that having a couch in your apartment is a rare luxury. It will act as another bed, mostly, for those times when I really don’t want to be one foot off the ground.
-Free television. I don’t know what they are saying but, hey, I don’t have to give up all those wacky games shows and commercials.
-Free food. The last guy who had this place left some noodles and pasta.
-The train station is only a block or so away as is a class I can use as a back up office (though I will not be teaching at this school which I find pretty wasteful).
-The town is surrounded by beautiful hills so the scenery outside me window is very pretty
-Apparently this is a foreigner heavy town as a rival company houses a bunch of their teachers here. There is a bar where the English speakers meet. Might have to take a look-see.
-Grocery store is also close by.
-There is a center near here that offers free Japanese lessons. Yee-ha!
The Bad:
-I am back to the heating situation I had in the training dorms. One of those little air units with a remote I cannot understand and instructions that don’t correspond to its use. A small bit of good to add here: the place game with a small plug in heater. I gave up trying to figure out the fan thing when I discovered this gem in the back of my closet.
-No dresser. My clothes are currently in little plastic draws that are of the filing system variety. I had to cram my stuff in there. I did find three coat hangers for my suits.
-Doing grocery shopping here may requite an entire post to itself but the bad here is that I cannot read cooking directions and finding my way around the grocery store was a task indeed. I could not find any bread and opted for chicken. I didn’t know what bag had salt in it and what back had sugar in it so I choose sugar cubes. This should be interesting.
-I have to pay my own bills. Some teachers get off easy and get to have their bills paid for them. Not I, my friends.
-The place came with a few books. Alas, they are all in Japanese.
-I am on the first floor, which means watch out for bugs in the summer.
The Ugly:
-This is really, really ugly. My place is right next to the train tracks. Check that, my place is sitting on top of the train tracks. The train goes by every few minutes and the entire apartment shakes. This is not a silent train either. It is a loud bugger. Honestly, I could take this and get used to it. What makes matters worse is that I am right next to a auto crossing for the tracks and, thus, am also right next to one of those little “ding ding ding” things so every time a train goes by the ding ding ding rings out every second for about two minutes in an annoyingly loud high pitch. It does not appear that these trains stop any time at night either. Either I will get used to this or I will be driven bat shit insane and start killing people at random.
-I also seem to live next to some motorcycle enthusiasts who enjoy entering and exiting the parking lot every ten minutes. At least they drown out the train.
I need to try to get some sleep. More soon.
