Bright Green Gaijin Pants, Post 3-6

My first blog, titled Bright Green Gaijin Pants, was a chronicle of my time as an exchange student in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan. I’ve decided to repost its contents on this blog. For a full list of all these posts, check out the Bright Green Gaijin Pants category.

The first blog post of any real worth that I published from Japan was far larger than it had any right to be. It was actually several posts combined and posted at the same time because I didn’t have internet access when I first got to Japan. I will be reposting them separately, as they were meant to be.

Yay, I Have Stuff Now!

Originally posted on October 16, 2005.

So after that, Nei-san drove us back to my apartment. We pulled up to unload my loot and discovered that a guy had shown up to turn on the gas. We took all but the futon upstairs and let the guy in to do that. There was a lot (and I mean a lot) of dust inside the heater until it was turned on. :P After the gas guy and the girls showed me how to work the stove, heater, and water heater (You have to open and close the valves to each before using it, and the water heater works so fast that you don’t have to turn the power on until you want to use it), the gas guy left and we brought the futon upstairs. At this point, Utsuki-san and Nei-san took their leave to allow me to rest/set up the place, with my thanks for their help. ^^

This is the first time since I got to Kushiro that I had taken any pictures. I could have gotten pictures of the stores, but didn’t really want to while I was doing heavy shopping. So here’s my apartment, empty.

This ended up being the corner where I did most of my living. That box in the middle of the picture was the only heating in the apartment.

This picture was taken from the same spot as the picture above. All I did was rotate myself.

I put the curtains up before taking the pictures. As you can see, I accidentally put the one set up backwards in my desperation to get the sun out of my house and away from my migraine. The heater in the corner is gas powered and came with a Doraemon sticker on it. Seen in the kitchen is the shlack, the water heater (which also heats the water to your exactly specified celsius temperature — boilers seem so stupid now), my little gas range (no oven, but a place to broil fish), cabinets, and a sink.

Bathroom-1 — The Japanese have separate rooms for bathing and peeing in. This is the bathing room.

The bathroom has a shower and a bath, in good old-fashioned Japanese style. Well, not old-fashioned; the Japanese have really gotten to prefer the removable shower head over the bucket for rinsing off. I forgot to buy a stool to sit on when cleaning — traditional Japanese bathing involves washing your self meticulously, then rinsing off and soaking for a while in hot water. It feels quite nice, actually. But the bathroom door is very skinny, and interesting to get through.

The bathing room was in the middle of the apartment; the toilet was just inside the door to the apartment. The plumbing for both this room and the bathing room were on the shared wall.

Toilet gets its own room. You can’t see it in this picture, but it’s one of the toilets with a big and small flush.

The wall that the plumbing there is attached to is the same wall the bathing room and toilet room plumbing goes into.

A place to put a washing machine. Yay! I need one of those.

Around the right side is a shelf high on the wall, with a rack underneath it to hang stuf on. Like you’d see in a closet.

I’ll try putting my futon over here.

The box on the back of the door is a collector for mail from the mail slot. It was jam-packed with junk mail when I moved in.

And the entryway, concrete ending where the floor begins. No shoes inside the house! Hooray for living in a culture that echoes what you were raised doing.

I kept these turned off as much as possible at night during the summer. I liked my windows open, ’cause it was hot, but there were a lot of strange bugs attracted to light in Japan.

This looks like an ordinary light, but I assure you that it’s actually special. It has three “on” settings — both fluorescent bulbs on, one florescent bulb on, and one weak yellow light on. There are two of these in the apartment, one of which is also connected to a power switch near the laundry machine spot.

Shopping Loot

So there’s my apartment. Let’s evaluate the day’s loot, shall we?

Total cost: 22,150 yen. Right about $200 at the time. Most expensive single item was the futon.

Not bad for 22,150 yen. And zoom in a bit…

The saltines were mostly purchased out of sheer, “Tee-Hee! Same brand and everything!”

Featured here are a plate, a cup, a bowl, three random instant noodle packages, one random package of bread, a bread chosen after asking Utsuki-san what she likes, bananas, Nabisco saltine crackers (“America’s long seller cracker” according to the box), a random yet tasty-looking rice dish with shrimp and wasabi, some cucumber rolls (I’ve already eaten two; I was hungry), a bread knife, a straight-edged cooking knife, and a cutting board.

Taste-O-Meter!

Cucumber Rolls: 5
Just like American ones, if you buy them at a place that does decent sushi in America.

Most of the kitchen utensils were purchased at 100 yen store — the Japanese equivalent of the dollar store. Unlike Alaskan dollar stores, 99% of the stores goods were the price advertised in the store’s name. The other 1% were 300 yen. (All plus tax.)

Skillet with lid, sieve, tea kettle, saucepan, spatula, ladle, spoon with holes, whisk, 1-cup measuring cup (the only non-metric measure I found, and the only one I need).

I went with the Dove brand hair products and body wash simply because it was the only familiar brand I saw.

Towel, various cleaning sponges, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toilet paper, laundry detergent, lemon dish washing liquid.

I was rather distressed when I discovered my inability to plug my laptop into the wall, due to the absence of a hole for the grounding prong in any of the outlets. This power strip had a grounding wire sticking out of it next to the power cord

Futon set, covers for the futon pieces, an alarm clock almost identical to the one that won’t get here for two days because it’s with my baggage, and a power strip that will let me plug my laptop into the wall.

Ultimate riches, yes?

Time to put them away. Yarr!

Putting Stuff Away

The previous occupant left this rolling rack here. That and the fact that it was a corner apartment with extra windows are the two reasons I picked this over the empty apartment on the ground floor.

I should probably put some of these in the cupboards, especially since I am likely to be hanging clothes on the rack to dry from here on out, but for now, this will do. Time to put my futon together.

Japanese-style futons aren’t quite like American futons, and not just because American futons come with racks that make them function just fine as couches. The futon was originally designed to be modular — you pick it up when you get up in the morning and you can air it out or fold it up and put it away. So a futon has three parts plus covers for them (sheets, essentially, only they zip up around the whole thing). The shikibuton is the bottom part, on which you sleep. The kakebuton is the part that goes over you. It’s like a really thick comforter. Then there’s the makura, which is a pillow.

Let’s do this.

I was so glad this fit in there. I dunno how I’d have arranged the apartment if it hadn’t fit. I can only assume the place was designed with this use in mind.

Success! The shikibuton fits the alcove exactly. Time to put on its cover.

Since the futon mattress gets covered up, I didn’t need matching sheets, but I got matching ones anyway.

The futon has now been covered up. O Snap! The reason the cover seemed way too big is that it was actually for the kakebuton. Let’s try that again.

Looking back on this post as I transfer it, I’m not sure why I took so many pictures of the futon getting set up. I was jet lagged and high on travel, but that’s a poor excuse.

Much better. Now, the kakebuton…

I found out later that the Japanese generally also get foam padding (kinda like the ones they sell here for camping) to put under the futon. I would need that now, I think, but at the time this was perfect.

Almost there. Makura! I don’t know what they put inside this pillow, but it rattles on one side. Very interesting.

Japanese pillows take time to get used to, but they stay cooler than western pillows, for some reason. They’re also only as big as they need to be.

Victory is mine! … Wait… something is missing. Oh, I know what it is!

Yep… I had put my teddy bear in my carry-on, but not a spare change of clothes. I no longer make that mistake.

Ultimate victory!