The kitchen

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The kitchen is a nice big size. It has a huge sink, a nice size table, and standard range, refrigerator, and microwave. There were a lot of dishes and pots provided, and there is also a lot of cupboard space, although it is quite high. There's even a cool cellar in the floor... but I haven't quite figured out what I want to put down there, if anything. Maybe just emergency supplies of water or something!
There are only two drawbacks: the floor and ceiling are rather ugly; and the kitchen is used by the English school every week, so I have to keep it clean. That will be a good challenge for me, though. So far, I've managed by not eating at home very much. There's a really cheap rice-bowl fast food place down the street that I've gone to a few times.

My bathroom

From what you'd consider a typical bathroom in the US, mine is split into three rooms. One room is only the toilet; I haven't bothered to take a picture of that. For the English school, my boss has it decked out in Winnie the Pooh. Next is a room with a sink and vanity, my washing machine, and some shelves. Finally, there is a bath/shower room. That is huge, and has a rather high, peaked ceiling. All the rooms have windows. The shower room has a very deep, Japanese style tub: I can fit in it up to my neck, but I can't stretch out much. The tub is reheatable, although I suspect that the way water is reheated is just to start pumping more hot water into what's already there. The room is tile and plaster, the tub is metal.

Upstairs

There are only two rooms upstairs, my bedroom and sort of an office/living room. The latter has carpet covering the wood floor, the bedroom does not, but I have a rug I'll put down in the winter. It seems I've neglected to take a picture of my upstairs living room, and I can't do it right now because it's a mess. I can always update later, right? It's very nice, and came with a small sofa and a large bookcase and a small desk. That is also the way out to my balcony for hanging laundry. That I do have a picture of, as seen from the bedroom window.

My bedroom

 
I have an actual bed! That's good, because I don't have the soft, comfortable tatami in my bedroom, but a hardwood floor. It's pretty simple right now, just the bed, my dresser, and lots of closet space. There are windows on both sides, so it gets lots of good light.
 

March 20th 2007 -- I moved!!

 
On Tuesday, March 20th I moved into my new house in Niitsu. When I say new, of course I mean new to me. It’s a somewhat old, Japanese style house. It’s an eleven minute walk from the train station, where I can also get a bus into Shirone.

The day I moved was quite busy. My new employer and her husband filled their cars with my boxes, I filled the car I had been driving, and we moved most of my things over in one trip. Pastor W and his wife also helped load the cars and take care of garbage from my apartment. Laura returned from a trip to Tokyo that day, and after I picked her up from the train station, she and I spent all afternoon and evening cleaning. It was a lot of hard work, and we finished quite late, but we still had a great time doing it. 

Driver's license renewal

March 27, 2007 (back dated b/c I couldn't post on the day it happened)

Today I had the first-time experience of renewing my driver’s license in Japan. When I first received it, it was good for two years. I don’t think that’s typical for a new driver, but I’m not sure. Anyway, today it was renewed for three years.

The first license you get is green, which means you’re a beginner. But my new license is blue. It’s not the whole license, just one stripe on it. I had to go to the same driving center where I got it two years ago. I drove the “company car” for the first time and went on my own. Each step was fairly easy to understand, and they were very efficient. Although, I nearly didn’t get my address changed. The first lady and I didn’t understand each other: I was trying to tell her my address had changed, she only thought the change was from Shirone city to Niigata city. So I had to explain it to another man later, and then it was okay. They checked my eyesight, took my picture, and eventually sent me to a room to wait. After twenty minutes, a two hour refresher class began. There were about twenty other people in the classroom. An instructor gave a power point lecture that was mostly about automobile collision statistics. He detailed the top causes for death by automobile collision, and showed us a couple of video clips of crash test dummies comparing use of seatbelt or not. I was a little sad that some of the people in the room had their heads down or were falling asleep. I could only understand about half of the words he was using, but I felt that I understood about 70 percent of the meaning, and I took notes on what seemed most important, or words I wanted to look up. After 55 minutes, we took a ten minute break. Then we watched a video that was about the most common bad habits of drivers, and the worst-case scenario collisions that occur because of it. The video was about 30 minutes long. Then our instructor spoke in a bit more detail about the importance of having safe driving habits. After that, we received our renewed driver’s licenses.

It took all morning, but it was worth it. If you go for long enough without any accidents, you get a gold color license. I don’t know how long I will live in Japan, but if I live here for a long time, I hope I can earn a gold license!