Here, there's no need for roosters.

They have all been replaced my mechanical ones that shout advertisements at you first thing in the morning.



Heads up, this isn't my video.  I can never get myself dressed fast enough to fly down 4 flights of stairs so that I can catch one of these suckers before they get out of my keitai's microphone range.  Though who am I kidding, that mic hears only me anyway.

So why first thing in the morning?  Why do this to you at the crack of dawn?

Because it's a garbage truck.  Naturally.

Remember, sorting and disposal of trash here in Tokyo is a big deal.  We have people coming nearly every day of the week to pick up something.
Mondays - burnables.
Wednesdays - paper and プラ(recyclable plastics (almost everything here is プラ)).
Thursday - burnables again.
Friday - non burnables, like batteries, metal, glass, porcelain shards.
Saturday - cans, glass and pet bottles.
You'd tend to think that means that you'd have everything covered.  However, disposal of anything that's larger than a breadbox requires someone to come and pick it up.  That's where these guys come in.

Every morning, somebody in the neighborhood needs to have a truck come out to take their oversized garbage away.  The city doesn't provide you with the service either.  Sure, they'll hook you up with somebody, but it's an independent group who charges you for their labor.  Since it's a business with some competition, you start seeing each contractor trying to reach out to the people in the neighborhood.
By waking them up with a loudspeaker mounted to a truck that stalks at 10 kilometers an hour down your road.  All throughout the day, every day, without fail.

However, like with birds, you learn to tune them out too.

Their HMV records store has free live music.

For the most part, you can't take pictures in stores, let alone take videos.  However, in a crowd as dense as this one was, we got away with it.





We've also passed by some street musicians in Shinjuku, but I found out that there's been a push to bring street performers into public stage houses.  When we touring Akihabara, we came across this place:

Dear Stage is a venue where up-and-coming singers perform before they become professional.  It affords people an opportunity to hear new talent, take pictures and autographs with them, and have a few drinks while you're at it.  I'm not suggesting this is an uncommon idea.  We have these everywhere in the states, but the ones I've seen have always been for bands and fringe groups.  This is for young female j-pop idols.  Or at least wannabe idols.  Now there's a niche that was wisely filed.

ILLNESS STRIKES

So I've been a bit under the weather lately.  A sinus cold, nothing serious.  But as a result of that, my drive to post has been under a luke warm tap.  No longer though!  I'm burning brightly with the desire to type.

Except we're dead smack in the middle of our first round of essays and tests at school.

I'll be posting some updates soon, once I get the deluge of work siphoned away.  Please look forward to it.

The best part of waking up is...

The morning light comes shining in.  

Can't quite remember where you've been.

Get your slippers slipped on

and inspect the damage done.

Then an idea starts to brew.

One that will see this long day through

That strong aroma hits you,

and you can bid your fears "adieu"!

The best part of waking up -

- NERV coffee in your cup!

NERV brand coffee is specially blended for a full rich taste and bold aroma that helps you put aside your feelings of guilt and despair at your company's hands in the end of mankind as we all know it.  The "mountain grown" label on the box will assuage your nervousness at the rising water level, and deliver a taste you'll come to depend upon to greet the day.  Nothing helps you work under Commander Ikari like NERV official brand coffee, and that's a promise backed by Kozo Fuyutsuki himself.

Now it's off to work with you.

Prepared for "Pattern: Blood Type Blue"

Unleashing monsters you grew.

Say いってきま〜す！ 

The best part of waking up -

- NERV coffee in your cup!

Talk shows here are mindblowing.

The television that they gave us is pathetic.  Those are my glasses next to it, for comparison.  This sad, 11" Sharp TV must have been made 20 years ago.  It can only receive about a dozen channels.  We've mucked with it as much as we could, and it's true.  It caps at 12 remembered channels at a time.  Two are repeats.  On top of that, the channel is always present in the top left corner in 90's neon green.  It does, however, have a remote control.

I wasn't kidding, you can only have 12 channels.  No, you can't make combinations by pushing two buttons, either simultaneously or in sequence.  This means we're stuck with only a few channels when we're bored at night, so we take what we can get.


Getting used to what comes on at night here took no time at all.  It's all pretty much the same thing.  Baseball.  Detective dramas.  Ancient anime reruns.  Awkward news programs with the most rigid newscasters in the world.  "Fun news" shows that round up a gaggle of this month's big entertainment personalities, show them clips found from Reddit's humor subsection, and showing us their reactions.  Doesn't that sound like the pinnacle of broadcast entertainment?


It should!  It is!  At no point, when the television is on, are we not glued to the action.  It's even better because I have only the faintest grasp as to what's going on.  For instance, one of the first nights we popped it on, we came across a talk show that featured the girl group Perfume.  Not even a few minutes in, the show goes from a little strange to outright bizarre.  I luckily found the episode in question.  Have a taste of Japanese television.  It gets crazy around 4:13. 





There's a part of me that really wants to buy a new TV.  Honestly, anything would be an improvement.  I've seen TVs that blow this one away for $50 back in the states.  That's how low the bar has been set.  How can I be expected to properly enjoy shows like this on a set that we can barely hear?





Oh...with subtitles.  That's a thing here.  All the important things people say, or, in the case of shows like this, the punchlines, are written out.  What you miss is the fun sound effects and bunny's creepy voice.  Such a loss.


That's it.  Tomorrow, we go to Bic Camera and get ourselves a TV that can withstand shows of this magnitude of awesome.


PS: Enough discussion has been made about Japanese commercials on the internet that I'd rather not retread such well covered ground.  It's rather well documented, so even a cursory look online will yield something hilarious.  30 seconds on YouTube and I could find this:


 


Go check it out sometime. 

Everyday there's something new to discover right in my own neighborhood.

Like how Gusto does delivery, right to your doorstep. 

Wait a second.  

No way.

O~o

So...now we'll call it Goatse room service.  

It's, at other times, magnificently convenient.

Going hand in hand with the rough adjustment period has been periods of relief and awe.  The Japanese have a lot of things figured out.  One of them is vending machines.  It's not just what they contain, it's how many of them there are.  Let me offer you an example.

See the little floating guy?  That's where we live.  Also take note of the WEALTH of food, shopping, and entertainment that's right down the block from where we live.  All within a few minutes of walking.  Ok, so, from the 新江古田 station (bottom, big letters, has a green fan that's partially obscured by what is that cheese?), along that road with the two burger joints (they're not what you think), you will come across the following.

It's truthfully like this all over Tokyo.  And we're out on the periphery too, a good half hour away from places like Shibuya and Ikebukuro.  Our ward is a...really idillic place.  It's so clean and nice.  It has a good vibe to it.  Except near the train station where the pachinko parlors are.  There it gets seedier.

It's also a very bicycle friendly place.  If I were a kid in Japan, I would've been overjoyed by knowing that I was SUPPOSED to ride my bike on the sidewalk.  As an adult foreign pedestrian, it's a little unnerving.  It's intimidating to see a mom, with two kids, and basket full of groceries, holding a cell phone in one hand and barreling towards you with reckless abandon.  That kind of thing can startle a grown man, if caught unaware.  One does quickly acclimate.

ALTHOUGH: One of the first things that Temple University told us during orientation is that there seem to be semi-abandoned bikes everywhere in Tokyo.  They also followed that up with telling us not to touch them.  Ever.  Here, bikes are a vehicle, not at toy.  Each one has a title that must be registered at the local ward. Failure to produce proof of your ownership of a bicycle can result in 23 days of jail time, and a hefty fine.  Strange but true.  Which is crazy, because it's super tempting to take one of them for the long rides.  But, it seems like every semester, some kid decides that it'd be easier to just borrow a bike that he's seen on the street every day for the last 2 months than hoof it through the rain.  And, inevitably, through a combination of boredom and racism, the Japanese police will stop him and ask for his registration.  If he runs, they will (no joke) set up a huge net to catch him.

Yeah, Temple has a reputation apparently.

Oh, and the food here is beyond wonderful.  Those burger places?  Think more like salisbury steak.  The one closest to us is called Gusto.  While the exchange rate is at a real low of .83 cents to the yen, you can still pretty safely guess the prices by sticking a decimal point two numbers over from the right.  Not bad for some of those meals.  They fill you up right good.

So far, we've tried all the basic staples of Japanese dining.  Sashimi, takoyaki, curry and rice, ramen, gyudon, gyoza, and bento sets.  Also a steak dinner at a place called Little Maggie, pizza from Dominos (tuna and mayo), and McDonalds' local specialities, the teriyaki burger and the salt and lemon chicken burger.  Top all of these off with some Sapporo or Asahi and we've got one happy Danny.

Everything here either talks to you or makes a nice sound effect.  The 7-11 ATMs around here make me feel like I won at something.  Since we've been scolded for trying to record things in stores here (I guess that's not cool) I'm just going to link you to someone else using one.  Small note, all the ones I've used here, in Shin Egota, Azabu Juban, and Shinjuku, don't beep at you when the money is displayed.  Just the pleasant ding dong ding dong.  Well, you'll see.



Same with going through toll booths, flushing nice toilets, and using certain vending machines.  I can't wait to find this one:



Speaking of toilets, ours offers another bit of Japanese ingenuity.



OK, I can flush it with a straight face now, but after a 15 hour flight and a nightmare of a time carrying our luggage all over west Tokyo we couldn't take this seriously.  I've NEVER seen a toilet that doubled as my sink.  Needless to say, we do our morning (wo)man-scaping in the kitchen.

There's one other thing I feel is worth mentioning, because it has been genuinely the most helpful place since we've arrived.  Not Tokyu Hands, though it's a marvelous place for home goods.  Not Bic Camera, even though it's an electronics's store to beat all other electronics store (Akihabara, you're next on my list).  Not even the mighty Shibuya Ichimarokyu.  No, it's the Lawson hyaku-en store!

 Hyaku-en stores offer everything inside (almost) for only 100 yen.  105 really.  That's pretty much an honest to god dollar store, but it's packed with food.  To get a good feel for what I mean, picture your local convenience store.  Think about all the food, snacks, drinks, and then maybe add in an extra isle just for toiletries and home goods.  Now replace all of them with a wacky japanese counterpart.  Turn all the lettuce into daikons, and Elios pizzas into strange fish cuts on sticks with sauce.  Now, imagine everything is only a buck.  If you want a bunch of clothes hangers, some ramen, a carton of orange juice and one of coffee, some shampoo and conditioner, razors, a loaf of bread and jam, and some ice cream, you'd be spending about 1,000 yen.  Roughly, 12 bucks American.  Mind = blown.  Also it sells alcohol.  That's just about the only thing in there that isn't a buck.  It's 200 for most cans, 300 for big ones, and somewhere between 700 and 2,000 for sake (of varying quality).  Cigaretts are probably more too.  Hey, all I know is if I can get 3 sticks of dango for a coin, I'm not going to complain.

And would you believe that they are more than happy to break a 10,000 yen bill?  Not a single place has so much as blinked at the idea of breaking 10,000 over a 700 yen purchase.  That's trust and cooperation at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen.

It's, sometimes, a very inconvenient place.

Ok, so hi everyone.  I realize it's been a couple of weeks since I brought up making a blog about living out here.  This wasn't a result of laziness!  No sir.  I was merely waiting until your anxiety and longing had reached it's peak, you see.  Now that we've reached that crest, it's my sincere honor and privilege to unveil, finally, this blog.  Please look forward to more entries.

Part of that was a lie.

So far, life here hasn't allowed for very much free time.  We've spent the first week here adjusting.  Moving can be stressful, and this one was particularly so.  Never mind the fact that we're half the globe away from everything and everyone we've come to know.  Japan is a wacky and unpredictable city.  Doubly so when the space-phone you've relied upon for fixing all of life's problems ceases to function.  If we get lost in the city, whoops, no working Google Maps.  Or say we have a problem with our banks.  For example, what if we go to pay our first month's rent and our credit cards are declined?  What are we going to do, call them at 3 in the morning (EST) from the apartment holder's home and demand an explanation?  Being out of touch with your normal go-to's leaves a person feeling floaty and uneasy.  

The streets here aren't named.  That was a bitch.  They work on a very different system.  We, for instance, live at 2-5-8.  That means we're in Toyotama-kita's 2nd district, 5th block, building 8.  If Tokyo were built more like a modern American city, with roads and blocks in discrete grid patterns, I suppose I'd prefer a system of named roads going in numerical order.  Such is not the case here.  Tokyo is enormous.  It's a sprawling metropolis, and its roads are about as uniform as Boston's.  Some places more so than others.  This results in maps being kind of useless to the uninitiated.  We thought it might be easier to take the subway to our home.

Good lord.  We weren't even sure where were WERE on this map.  (ACTIVITY TIME: trace the dark purple line from 新宿 to 新江古田)  Instead we opted for a taxi.  Nice guy.  Very understanding of two nervous white kids in Tokyo.  He even helped us get our luggage in and out of the cab.  It's not normal here, but I tipped him for his help.  More on that later.

Our apartment is on the 4th floor.  That's an unlucky floor here in Japan.  Something about how 4 (四 shi) is pronounced the same way as in death (死 shi).  So...goody.  More practically speaking, we're on the fourth floor of a building that's in one of the most seismically active areas in the world.  That's not just paranoia talking either, we have huge cracks in our walls from floor to ceiling.  It even ripped through the washroom's tiling.  Thankfully we're no higher off the ground than that, but that building across the way seems to loom ominously.

It's Monday, today.  That means it's trash day.  One of them, at least.

Today is burnable trash.  I know the sign LIES.  I've made this mistake already.  Our door says one thing, the hand out that our guesthouse lenders gave us says another, and the Nerima-ku main ward office has something else.  Don't worry, we have the days, the time, and the location sorted out.  All we need to do is make sure we sort our trash too!

T__T

Then there's THIS culture shock.  





I did forget to come back to those two white holes on the sides, didn't I?  So, if you want a bath of hot water, you need to first fill the tub with luke-warm straight from the faucet water.  This takes about 10 minutes or so.  Once the water level rises up over both holes, you turn that plunger to the last setting.  Then the water will circulate through the heater, making for a toasty tub.  Of course, that's after you turn on the gas and spark the pilot light.  I guess this has been trouble for other residents of the guest house, so they have this handy sign tacked up by the door.

It's really not so complex once you familiarize yourself with the process.

Speaking of washing, our washing machine is adorable.




It gets ugly if you try feeding him after dark though. Like most of the the apartments around here, we don't have a dryer. We get to hang our laundry. I kid you not, the first night it didn't even register to us that we wouldn't be able to dry our laundry after the sun set. Those clothes felt like sand paper in the morning.

So, moving in here wasn't the smoothest of transitions. But things are getting more natural here by the day. And we're finding more and more things to like about the place we live in. Like getting free fans with absurd designs everywhere we go.

Yes.