That’s Japanese for troublesome. Apparently there are difficulties reaching agreement for my apartment contract between the lessor and the lessee. No, I have no control over my own rental contract. I am hoping it can get resolved. Unfortunately, this is a holiday week in Japan, so any resolution may prove to be difficult. I am afraid I will miss my planned date for taking “ownership” of the apartment, which ripples in to Tomo’s visit and the delivery of all my recent purchases. Uh oh. Additionally, it means that I may have to go looking all over again and start the negotiation process all over again. I’m pretty frustrated. The housing situation is not so easy in Nagoya at the moment. I’m seeing what I can do.

In the meantime, here’s a slightly fuzzy picture of me modeling the outfit that Ben recommended I buy. I’m not so sure that it works on me. I love the pants, but I can’t really pull them off (so to speak).

For anyone who has traveled to Japan, this headline should make sense. For those that have never been, well, it takes some explaining. I’m back in the States, of the land of cold toilets. In Japan, toilets vary. In a public restroom you are just as likely to have a squat toilet as a sit down toilet. Some public restrooms have both, I assume so you can pick your style. But at home, the variety is much more extravagant. Many toilets have heated seats, and the complexity of the heating is a product of what you paid. Many also have heated water sprays that, with a little self positioning, hit you in all the right places. The hotel certainly has this more deluxe toilet and I think my apartment does too.

Wow, I was going to write more but I suddenly got overwhelmed by sleepiness. I’ll write tomorrow about shopping and the fabo outfit I was recommended to buy.

I left work early today to take the train back to Nagoya station, dump some stuff in my room, pick up my Furniture Dome receipt, and hop on another train. I really didn’t leave work early, it was a nine and a half hour day (excluding lunch) but to everyone there I guess I left early. Oh well. I made it to the dome by 7:30 pm and successfully removed the chairs from my order, changed the delivery date by one day, and paid! Yes, I paid! My Visa card actually worked. Yeah! So now I will try Tokyu Hands tomorrow. That will be the next test.

Not so earth shattering news, I know, but I figured I’d update all y’all.

No, I don’t think I’m Dickens, writing serials for a newspaper. I just have a lot to say apparently. I wish I had some pictures to spice things up. Alas, I’ve not been much of a shutterbug.

As for my shopping frenzy, the saga is almost over. I’m losing enthusiasm for writing it, so you must be growing weary of reading. For my life here in Nagoya, it seems a home office is important. As a matter of fact, that is why I insisted on a 3 bedroom place – so I could have a separate office and guest room. When I started adding up all the space I thought I needed it was getting rather big. I have my MacPro, my photo printer, a monitor, speakers, my work laptop, my laptop, and space for a guest. No air-conditioning in the office right now. With all the computing power, that may change! I bought several desk / table type things, a file cabinet, a bookshelf, and two office chairs. They are nothing fancy, but seem functional. A step up from Target. Barely. Of course I had credit card problems there too, so now I owe my complete balance. I may just pay cash for that provided I can get enough cash out.

That’s it! That’s all the shopping so far!

Oh, after shopping I went to dinner and my work Citibank card didn’t work. So by the end of the day my ATM and three credit cards were dead!

Last night I spent over an hour on the phone after midnight with the three credit card companies. I didn’t display the restraint I should have. Anytime someone said, “I understand” I would reply, “No, I don’t think you understand.” Not very gracious on my part and getting angry wasn’t going to get me anymore service. So I’m not proud.

Now Furniture Dome informs me that I need to come to their store and pay. The problem is, they are on the other side of the bay from work. That means I have to go all the way up to Nagoya Station (30 minutes), get on another train (30 minutes), and go to the store for one iffy credit card swipe. All before 8:00 pm. That is not easy to do. Basically, I’ll need to leave work at 6:00 pm which is crazy early it seems. Actually I’ll take the 6:17 pm train I guess.

I’ve searched the web for my goods. Furniture Dome is not really web based. But here’s a picture of my couch style (without all the accessories) and the fabric.

My dining room chairs (in brown, not black).

Here’s my washer and dryer.

My refrigerator, kind of cute size.

And my TV.

I had plans of continuing my interesting saga but then I fell in to the post-dinner work email trap trying to make sure things get kicked off in the US so they have the day to work and my inbox can be full of surprises in the morning.

Oh yeah, credit card problems. My bill from Furniture Dome added up to a non-trivial amount. I figured since they accepted credit cards I’d use my credit union credit card, get some points, and save the cash for other stores that might not take credit cards. And you know what happened next. REJECTED. Sigh. Fortunately, I always have a backup credit card in case something stupid happens. REJECTED. Darn. Of course, both of these credit cards know that I am living in Japan. I felt pretty stupid. I called my credit union credit card and they informed me that my card is marked for living in Japan, but such a big purchase at a furniture store will always raise a flag. So what’s the point of having a credit card? Oh, I was on hold for 20 minutes. They authorized a transaction and the store did the old school imprint of the card. I found out today that they cannot process an American Visa card, so I have to figure something out. I don’t believe them of course., especially since my credit card balance shows a lack of balance with a lack of charges which means a lot of authorizations. I paid part of the balance in cash – now I just have to figure out how to get the rest to them before delivery.

Next, I had found a very nice store called BoConcept in Tokyo, and they have a store in Nagoya as well. It turns out they have a store in LA too! I had planned the couch to be a big purchase. The joy and the trouble is the couch is custom made. We had to choose the size, the arm style, the leg style, and then the fabric. I didn’t have much problem with the size, the arm style, and the leg style. But the fabric – that is a different story. There are 5 grades of fabric and of course I stumbled on to fabric from the most expensive grade. I really like the couch and anticipate that I will ship it back to the US when I leave Japan. BoConcept also had some nice leather covered chairs that I really liked. I wanted to buy one as just a side chair in the living room. However, Tomo did some quick calculations and came to the conclusion that it would be almost the same price to buy 4 of these chairs instead of the icky ones we saw at Furniture Dome for the dining room table. There was some rounding and justification, but in the end I saw what he meant. So I bought 4 of the chairs I liked! I can put two in the living room and two in the dining room or variations as I see fit. I’m very excited about that. Unfortunately, I had not paid. In spite of the fact that I had cleared another credit card, it didn’t work. I gave BoConcept the remainder of my cash and a promise to pay the balance later (somehow).

Next on the shopping list was electronics. No problem with work Mastercard there. Only later. I got a washer, dryer, refrigerator (kind of small), microwave, and television. The TV is nice. We had shopped around other stores and had price differences, so we were able to do some negotiating.

I still have one more store to go to … but I’m tired. Time to call three credit card companies now.

Wow. I guess I never really understood “shop till you drop” until today. We left the hotel at around 10:00 am, had some breakfast and then headed to shopping. It is now 9:48 pm and we just returned after dinner. During that entire time, we were shopping for apartment stuff. The day was somewhat soured by Visa issues, but I’ll talk about that later.

We first headed down to the port of Nagoya to a place called “Furniture Dome.” We had been there two weeks prior and had an idea what to look for. I have no idea why it is called “Furniture Dome”, but it is. We honed in on a table we had seen before and kind of committed to the first purchase of the day – the dining room table and chairs. Neither of us really liked the chairs – they are faux cream leather on brown wood. However, we couldn’t really find another reasonably priced set of chairs that we liked. Tomo asked if we could remove the order later if we found other chairs. We could. So the dining room was relatively easy.

Next, it was time to choose a bed. My bedroom is really small, only 6 jo, 9.2 sq m, or 99 square feet. It is basically 9 ft x 10.4 ft (don’t do the math because it doesn’t added up to 99 square feet so I guess it is even smaller). That doesn’t leave a lot of room. On a previous trip to Furniture Dome, we had sort of narrowed down the beds too. So we went back to what we liked before and it was fine. A little low, compared to American beds but that’s OK. It is Japan after all. After that it got really complicated.

What SIZE is the right size for me? Wide, double wide? Regular? Long? The difference between wide and double wide came pretty quickly. A wide was just too small. A double wide is a little smaller than a queen. But then what about long versus regular? I’m taller than the average Japanese, so we though long would be more appropriate. A typical Japanese double wide mattress is 152 x 195 cm (60 x 77 in). But then we started thinking a long at 210 cm (83 in) would be more appropriate. As we started looking for sheets and mattress pads, etc, we quickly discovered that a long bed would be troublesome. A typical US queen bed is 60 in x 80 in. Unfortunately, I just discovered that. In the end I chose a regular mattress instead of a long. I think that will be OK … although I may end up with my feet just hanging over the end. In general though, I think I will be able to use queen sheets from the States without a lot of problem.

What mattress is right? Of course, like any furniture store, the mattress selection goes from super-cheap to incredibly expensive. They had a “bed lab” in the store. So we tried a bunch of different mattresses. I had settled on one and then my apple cart was upset when the mattress specialist noted that the mattress I had chosen was all urethane and didn’t breathe and may be very hot in the summer. Oh. I chose instead a pocket coil mattress that turns out to be a Simmons Beautyrest Mattress! Go figure. Well, at least I paid top dollar. My double wide regular bed frame is 151 x 200 x 87 cm. I did save $300 by being regular.

Every bed needs pillows, sheets, a duvet, and a mattress pad, right? The dollars just keep stacking up. What about a nightstand? My budget was beginning to be a little tested. I was unable to find a suitable mattress pad. I may just bring that from the States. And the sheets seemed more like sandpaper, so I’m anticipating a purchase from the States for those as well. The size is close enough to a queen that it should be OK. I had a wide range of duvet choices. Ranging from Chinese to Hungarian, to Polish. I believe I chose Hungarian in the end. I liked the duvet because it came with snaps to have a winter version and a summer version (two verses one thickness, winter / summer). I chose Hungarian … why not? Again, middle of the road. Throw in a couple of pillows and you’ve dropped some serious coinage. I needed a small nightstand as well.

While at Furniture Dome, I decided to look at TV stands, or “boards” as they are called here. I found one that was sort of modern / sophisticated. The more I can consolidate my purchases, the better. From Furniture Dome, the tally is dining room table, chairs (to be removed later), bed frame, mattress, pillows, summer/winter duvet (queen size), night stand, and a TV board.

Now let the paying pains begin. I have had problems with my credit card, so every day I was withdrawing $500 from my LA account. That is, when they allowed me to and didn’t but a block on my transactions. So far I have removed about $4500. The cash was my insurance in case I had credit card problems. What if I didn’t? I would have been stuck with $4300 cash? I didn’t worry about that. Going to shopping today, I have $4300 in cash with me. WHAT AM I THINKING? Well, this is Japan, it should be fine.

There’s so much to tell but I am so tired. I’ve got to sleep. Be patient, more will come. I have been separated from all my cash, but in a controlled manner! Stay tuned for more tomorrow I hope.

Yeah! A Saturday afternoon and I am free now. For all my whining previously (and some post posting editing) I got a very nice kudos from a senior guy over here. It actually meant a lot to me so I feel good about that. All is not lost.

I just got home from work (4:00 pm) and I’m waiting for Tomo to arrive. We were going to buy appliances and furniture today for my new apartment. But, well, he’s running about 3 hours late and there is a work dinner tonight, so I guess that will be shopping tomorrow instead. Oh well. He’s had a tough week. It is a little bit daunting, thinking of buying enough basic furniture for an entire apartment. But it is also FUN! And my apartment is 800 square feet. I’m not as picky as usual because my expectation is that I will not have this furniture for the rest of my life. In LA making a decision about any furniture is a MAJOR decision. Here it is just fun. Kind of. I still over think it.

I’m heading back to LA in a week, and I must say I am looking forward to it. I’m going back to wrap up some things on my old program and to finish getting my life away from home in order. Anyone want to by a car? 2005, good price, low mileage! It will be a quick trip full of work, but I’m looking forward to it.

I hate to say this, but I’m watching American Idol on my Slingbox tonight. Yeah, disgusting. I actually bought a Slingbox and upped my connection speed so that I could get better performance. My excuse is that I’ll use it to watch Purdue football or something like that. But now I am watching American Idol. Don’t tell anyone. I guess putting on a blog doesn’t really keep it a secret. I’m disappointed that the “Idols” have to sing Mariah Carey. How in the heck are the boys gonna sign Mariah?

I’m kind of getting in to a groove with work. Which is a little too bad because it is a groove that I don’t like primarily because of the long hours. But things are going OK, so don’t worry about me! Again, thanks for the wishes.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. It seems to have worked pretty well and people enjoyed it. Some people had difficulty with the subdomain, so you can always use www.triplefstudio.com/yokoso.

I don’t have anything to say other than “thanks!” I’ll catch y’all up later.

Hello everyone. The first installment in my living in Nagoya, Japan journal or blog or whatever it will be. It seems the first rule of a blog is to have a clever title. I’ll think about that later. I just want to write down some things for now. For those of you who were on distribution for my 2004 Japan series, I’ll disappoint you today by not writing about doing laundry. But, fortunately, laundry will fit in to the story eventually.

Most everyone who is reading this knows that I accepted a long term assignment in Japan working for my same parent company. I’m not going to get into the details of what I am doing other than I am working alongside a Japanese company on a major production project. If you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, just email me. I don’t plan to talk that much about work but it will come out – probably mostly complaints.

So let’s start the complaining. I knew the pressure of the job was going to be intense, but I had no idea how intense it would be. I started Wednesday, April 2, and immediately dove in to 10 to 12 hour days. I worked Saturday and Sunday the first weekend I was here. I wanted to find an apartment immediately but my managers were telling me to deal with that later - there was too much work. I immediately got thrown in to making a major delivery of a product that I knew nothing about. Yikes! The work is really interesting, I am learning a ton as fast as I can, but the environment is shocking. There is a lot pressure from above, but there are some very decent people that I am working with.

As you can imagine, I don’t have too much of a report from life in Nagoya since I haven’t had much time. Besides work, I am obsessing about getting an apartment and furnishing it. On Tuesday (the 8th) I managed to break away to do an apartment search with a relocation service company. I think I found a place too. Of course, everything is a compromise. This place is rather small by US standards (a little less than 800 sq ft) and is a little bit of a cave, but is centrally located, has three bedrooms (one bedroom, one office, and a guest room!) and has a reasonable layout. I looked at places that were a lot bigger, but none of the layouts made any sense. Oh sure, the square footage was higher, but how do you realistically use a room that is shaped like a child’s crayon (thick and then comes to a point)? Or a trapezoid? Or a place with a support beam running right through the goofy living room? Here’s a layout of the place I think I am going to take:

And just to show you the kind of strange places I saw …

I chose a relocation option where I didn’t move any of my furniture or personal stuff and instead got a cash buyout to do as I deem necessary. As a result, I’ve been looking at a lot of cheapish furniture over the past few weekends as time has permitted. I am sure glad I didn’t elect to move any furniture here, because nothing would fit! However, that is one of the traps that people fall in to if they’ve never been to Japan. Since my assignment is only about 2 – 5 years (I know, pretty up in the air), I’ll settle for OK quality. The advantage of having a small place is that I don’t have a lot of room to fill it up with stuff!

Last weekend, Tomo had some time available so we figured it would be good if he could come to Nagoya on Friday night and we’d spend Friday night and Saturday together and do some furniture shopping together. He was going to Osaka as well, so it made sense. 8:00 pm didn’t seem like an unreasonable time to meet – if I caught the 7:47 train I would get back around 8:15 pm. Is 7:35 pm an unreasonable expectation to leave the office on a Friday night? Apparently so. I rolled in to Nagoya Station around 9:30 pm. Luckily, Tomo was very patient and understanding. That was very much appreciated.

Saturday I had to work, imagine that, but I bugged out early (3:00 pm?!?) to go furniture shopping with Tomo. We went to an OK place and then a super icky cheap place. I think I found a suitable dining room table and bed at “Furniture Dome.” I’ll go a little more upscale on the couch, though I’ll have to watch the dimensions.

When I was in Tokyo in the middle of March on vacation, we also went appliance shopping. Imagine walking in to Best Buy, but not understanding a single written word on all these fancy appliances. The “dancing drum” on washers. The “no soap” option. And most of the units in Japan are now combo washer / dryers. So it is space efficient but not so time efficient. It would take hours to do two loads. I promised I would talk about laundry, so there you go. My company will pay for my appliances, so I have to ask permission on these items. I’m glad I don’t have to buy them on my own, but once I buy them they are mine. So if they break it is my expense.

I think / hope Tomo will come down next weekend too, and that I’ll have a little free time to go and purchase the things I need for my apartment. Yeah! It is fun. What am I going to do with all this stuff when I leave? Oh …. that’s another issue. But I’ll think about that later.

I’m sure you are anxious to read about the appliance decisions I made. Well, stay tuned!