Millyenaires in Japan

Note: this was supposed to be a negative post, but I have decided not to put that one up. You will instead get a double-dose of negativity after this.

I have recently spent an afternoon with one of my co-workers and his month-old child Ayana. This reminds me of another thing that Japan has going for them. Alli and I have a secret, burning desire to steal a Japanese child.

Look at them! They’re just built differently or something! They’re always happy and cheerful, they never really seem to get pouty and whiny in public, and they’re just well… so friggin’ cute. Alli’s theory is that for whatever reason (thinner diapers or earlier potty training), they don’t get the “diaper waddle” that American babies have. Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean… it’s the same walk that a 40-something year old guy who can’t see his toes does after an especially filling meal.

Alli says they look like miniature adults, which I agree with. I can’t put my finger on the difference (not as much baby fat, maybe?), but it is certainly there.

The kids’ amazing behavior thing is another one we have talked about. I have never heard a parent in Japan count to three, use a kid’s full name, or threaten bodily harm if the child doesn’t listen (though I’m sure Japanese moms could impose bodily harm after seeing them beat futons on their balconies).

I’m sure kids here act like brats, but in an entire year, we’ve never really caught them at it in public. Instead, Allison once witnessed about 200 schoolboys in Osaka sitting in an orderly 0.5km-long line. Meanwhile, in the US, I challenge you to spend one hour in a Wal-Mart without hearing some kid whine, or some parent ask a child if he/she wants to “go to the car.”

We theorize that the reasons are on both sides of the coin here. Parents here, we have noticed, take a much more laid-back approach to going out with their kids. If the kid wants to climb around on walls or hang from handrails like a monkey, the parents usually just sort of stand around and wait for them to finish screwing around. So long as the kids aren’t doing anything destructive or hurtful, they just wait it out. The kids will join the rest of society eventually. The parents lead by example, and wait for the child to do the right thing. This requires a lot more patience than most Americans have, I suspect.

And as for the kids… Kids here are rigorously scheduled for things – school, extracurriculars, cram school, et cetera. They don’t have an opportunity for troublemaking. So long as they are kept busy playing and studying, they won’t have time for throwing rocks at cars.

A third big difference between the US and Japan is the Japanese community. At this very moment, I count 12 kids down playing in the park outside our window and I can see only one adult. These are small kids, many of them – probably around five or six. But children are perfectly safe in Japan, so there is no perceived need for any/all of the parents to hover nearby. In the US we have these paranoia-inducing stories of child abduction and such that keep parents awake at night wondering if their kid will be snatched from the bus stop in the morning. This leads to the overprotective “helicopter parent” model that we see a lot in the US. I think this keeps young US kids (4-8ish) from spending free time solely with their peers outside of school – a time that I think is important for kids’ development.

Today I will begin a new sort of feature here at Millyenaires, highlighting my love-hate relationship with Japan – all the things I love about Japan, as well as the things I think are completely ridiculous.

In this way, you will see what my image of a perfect world would look like. The voting for Supreme Dictator of Earth will open following these posts. You may nominate me (but ONLY me!) for this post at that time.

Today’s topic is actually a bit of a grey one. It’s something I love over here, but probably wouldn’t want back home. Our water system that we have here in our apartment. Strangely enough, during our first month here, a kid in Nara asked us if we liked the water here. I thought he was just a little rusty on his English, but maybe there was more to it?

As you may or may not know, water heaters in Japan are usually tankless, which means they supply hot water on demand only, rather than from a hot water reservoir. The advantage to tankless systems is that you don’t waste energy keeping a giant tank of water hot all the time. The drawback, however, is that at operating time, it requires more energy (almost 3x, from a quick internet search) to heat the water on demand.

The reason I love this system is because it enables us to take 30-minute showers if we so desire – I do a lot of my best thinking in the shower, so I often just stand in the hot water and chase my thoughts around. Running out of hot water always irritates me because I have to mentally bookmark whatever I was thinking, get out and finish getting ready, and then come back to whatever it was later. And I am not so good at returning to mental bookmarks, so often it is completely abandoned.

Another thing I really like is that the washer runs only on cold water. We don’t have to expend energy heating the water to wash our clothes, and I can take a shower and do laundry at the same time. I realize a lot of people say this doesn’t get the laundry as clean and such, but during a year here, I haven’t noticed much of anything, except that the Japanese washer is perhaps a little harder on clothing than the ones back home. This change is pretty much impossible in the US – we purchased a washer in 2007 that my wife refers to as Her Preciousss and I’m too cheap to lay out more cash for a new one anyway.

Next, many toilets here have a feature I love. After you flush, the water used to refill the tank is pumped to a small sink on top of the toilet tank. This way, you can wash your hands using the water that will be flushed next time. And you don’t need to install a sink/plumbing for one in the bathroom! Freakin’ brilliant water conservation idea that I have never seen in the US.

Sorry, I’ve meandered off-track. Back to the main point. I don’t think I will be installing a tankless system at home anytime soon, for several reasons.

1) If you have several people taking showers (e.g. a family of three or four, which doesn’t seem farfetched in the long haul), the energy savings is nearly negligible (depends mostly on the efficiency of your tank heater).

2) The changeover from standard water heaters to tankless types is expensive – you have make complete infrastructure changes for the venting (tankless heaters burn hotter, so they have to be specially vented). This is for gas units, which is what I assume our new home will be (typical for the Midwest).

3) A gas tankless water heater works by pumping cold water through a maze of piping that runs around a central heating chamber (think of the water running along a spiral staircase around the outside of a hot, hot silo) and then out to the source where it is needed. This piping system is called a heat exchanger, because it heats the fluid (water), using something else (gas-supplied heat), that is transmitted via the surface of a third thing (the metal piping walls). Radiators, refrigerators, and air conditioners (to name a few) use this principle as well.

If power outages during cold weather are a possibility (wouldn’t rule it out in northern KY), depending on the length of your vent, cold air can creep down the vent over the course of several hours and crack the heat exchanger inside the water heater, which as I understand, basically bricks the entire unit until you get it repaired. This problem is not a big deal for traditional hot water heaters because they retain some heat and keep a pressure difference in the vent, which keeps the cold air at bay (the hot water is on one end of the vent for a tank, vs. the heating chamber for a tankless).

4) Typically, for comparable systems, the tankless heater has lower pressure & flowrate (because the water has to be heated on demand). I like hot showers with high water pressure. This is one luxury I don’t mind indulging. A house with poor water pressure will not do. At some point I would like one of those giant overhead rain showerheads, which will require a pretty good water flowrate. Of course, you can buy tankless units with higher pressures and flowrates, but they cost more and use more energy, further negating the advantage.

Right. I’m sure that is way more than you ever wanted to know about water heaters. Yes, I actually enjoy reading and writing about this stuff.

The actual point of the post is this: yes, Japanese water systems are nice. They conserve energy and they are great for apartment buildings and places where you will only use hot water a few times a day. However, I don’t think this one is coming back with us.

Well, I had a good start to my productivity binge, and it all sort of fell apart immediately after that. I decided to stop running until my legs felt fresh again. Which took three days. So today I will start running again. And posting.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld was once asked how he writes comedy. His response was “everyday”.

The way his two-step method works is this.

Step 1: Get a big wall calendar and the first day you do whatever it is (write comedy, run, post, etc), get a big red marker and put an X on that day. After a few days, you will have a string of X’s
Step 2: Don’t break the chain.

That’s it. That’s how to become good at something. Start a chain, and keep it going.

D-Day (the 7.4km run in 47 minutes) is 19 days away. I’m supposed to have put up five posts by now. This makes three. But I have written a few others today, so I have a bit of a stock ready in the event of my eventual extreme laziness (an incredibly likely event), or the ridiculous number of upcoming parties/obligations (today, Wed, Thu, Fri, next Sun).

Anyway, the chains are officially restarted.

I can still hear me saying I would never break the chain…

This was one of the things about moving to Japan that made me most nervous.

Well, that, and the whole can’t-read-much-of-anything-around-you thing.

Anyway, I went to AAA a couple days before we took off for Japan to procure my “International Driving Permit”. Know what you have to do to get one of those? Hold out a $20 dollar bill and sign your name once or twice. And I think you have to have a valid US driver’s license.

So, needless to say, I wasn’t really prepared when Uno-san (who I highly recommend if you have to lease a vehicle near Nagoya, contact me for his info) dropped the ist-o in my parking spot and showed me approximately how to work the navi.

Over the course of the next day or so, I crept out and around the roads of Nisshin, white-knuckled death grip on the poor handoru (as they call it over here - not wheel, handle). I woke up at some ridiculously early hour on the first day of work - the stupid sun comes up over here around 4:30 am. However, this meant that I had plenty of time to make the drive. So around 6:15 or so, I tenatively rolled off in the direction Eri-chan (my navigation’s voice) told me to go.

Here’s the dirt. It will take about two weeks of driving everyday, give or take, for driving on the wrong side of the road to no longer stress you out. Another week or so beyond that, you won’t even really think about it. But those first couple of weeks will be incredibly stressful. Here are ten reasons why:

1) You have to keep the car at a position that feels extraordinarily left-of-center to the average American. I found that by focusing on the car I was following (you will always be following someone, don’t worry), I could key off of the right half of the license plate and just continually drive toward that. That helped me re-train my brain.

2) The bloody turn signal is not the windshield wipers, and vice versa. I still do this when I am operating on instinct, or concentrating very hard on where I am going (if it is a tight entrance, etc)

3) There are too many tight spaces in Japan. I have been on two-lane roads that two HORSES couldn’t pass on, let along two cars. But we still manage it somehow. I don’t recommend getting a large car. And to give you some sense of perspective here, Rav4’s look huge on the road in Japan. Move down appropriately from that.

4) There are too many pedestrians and cyclists in Japan. You REALLY have to watch out for these guys. Always look both ways before pulling out or turning. On both the road and sidewalks. Stay close to the corner when turning so that bicycles know you are turning. If you swing it wide, they will think you are going straight, and blast right in front of you. Also take special care when backing/pulling out. Nearly hit an idiot girl wearing all black on a rainy night who flew in front of me as I pulled out of the gas station. Nearly had to clean out my underwear after that one.

5) A great piece of advice I got from a previous ex-pat - At first, just follow the car in front of you and do whatever they do. If this causes you to run a red light or two, don’t worry about it - the guy behind you will most likely blow through it too. This will at least get you going through the motions.

6) Which reminds me. Traffic laws are really just suggestions around here. You will routinely see people blow through red lights, turn ahead of a line of traffic, jump green lights by a mile (one guy was nearly to the next light by the time the light actually turned green - the lights were close together, but it was still pretty amazing). Also be aware that Japanese drivers are born with heavier feet than Americans. The usual method is to stomp on the accelerator and brake pretty much indiscriminately. There’s not usually much of an intermediate pressure.

7) Don’t count on parking. Anywhere. You will not be able to. Unless you enjoy paying parking fees that can run up to $30-40 USD for a night pretty easily (in busy areas, $2 or so per 20 minutes is pretty common). Make sure your hotel has parking if you are traveling. Always have somewhere to park.

Unless you are just running inside for a minute. Then please don’t hesitate to toss on the blinkers and park in the passing lane or anywhere else that might be convenient to you. This move is much better if you slow down inexplicably first so the guy behind you gets right up on you before turning on the hazards. I believe one night when one such denizen of Nagoya was “parked” in the turning lane I was trying to turn from I said some pretty unseemly things. “He better-fucking-be dead,” I believe, was the exact phrase. I know, I’m not real smooth.

9) Don’t take the highway unless you have to. Holy crap that too can get expensive. Always take people with you and make them chip in for tolls. A simple drive on the highway to Tokyo from Nagoya will run you about $75 US each way. It’s about a 3.5 hour trip. Invest in an ETC card if you can get one. They run deals and you get quite a bit of cost knocked off for various reasons (time of day, time of year, etc). For example, right now, you can go anywhere for 1000 yen if you drive on the weekends with an ETC card.

10) Motorcycles and scooters - These guys are insane. Do not be alarmed when they come whizzing up the berm and/or along the dotted line between two lanes. They will park in the crosswalk and they will always jump the light. One particularly impressive move was a guy who came up to the light, turned right and rode the crosswalk, got off, turned left and walked his scooter to the next crosswalk, jumped on, and pulled out, turning left into traffic as THAT line of traffic picked up the right-turn light, which he caught, so that he could turn right to continue on straight ahead of me while I watched, slack-jawed. I mean, I caught back up to the guy at the next light about 30 seconds later, but you’ve got to admire a guy willing to work that hard to hurry up and wait.

General Rule of Thumb: Estimate 2 minutes per kilometer for trips. My work is 12km (about 8 miles) from my apartment. I have made it in 19 minutes one time. Usually it is 25-30 minutes. If I wait until rush hour, it can easily be an hour. And up. If you are on the highways, you can do a bit better than this, but with stops and traffic jams, it’s still a pretty good estimate.

That will get you started with making the switch from driving in the USA to fumbling around on the tiny roads in Japan.

Bonus) Once you have gotten comfortable driving, please feel free to do ANYTHING AT ALL in your car during your morning commute. I’m not talking about boring stuff like reading the newspaper headlines… I have seen a woman putting in contacts, many guys shaving (with electric razors, of course), hundreds of people watching TV on their navi (they come installed so that the TV won’t work while the car is on, but all you have to do is ground some wire to some other bit of metal on your vehicle), a woman feeding (or doing something - couldn’t quite tell) her infant child in a sling around her neck (eat your heart out, Britney), and the crown jewel… a girl texting, putting on mascara, and driving SIMULTANEOUSLY. No wonder they outlawed talking on cell phones while driving here… not that I’ve ever seen it stop anyone from answering. Some stupid gaijin I have heard about flips through kanji flashcards at stoplights.

Hope someone will find this helpful or at least somewhere shy of mind-numbingly boring.

My wife is gone, along with half my stuff. This is what my apartment looks like.

Fortunately, the locks weren’t changed and I don’t have to sleep on the couch. I am, however, going to be paying quite a lot of Alli-money (heh).

No, my lovely wife has instead returned to the U.S. to secure a brand-new life for us. Following the stint in Japan, my employer has seen fit to transfer us back to the Cincinnati area (where we would love to be indefinitely). However, this means there are several details to be attended to – buying a car or two, selling our current home, and buying a new one.

My wonderful wife agreed to be deported from Japan one month early to go and get a headstart on these things, along with beginning her own stressful job search. This will take a lot of the stress out of the move overall, because it will be stretched over a longer period, but will have the basic effect of pushing more of the cumulative stress off on her.

So, I am quite grateful for that, even if it means that we will be hemorrhaging money for the next couple of months. We have been saving pretty determinedly for several months in anticipation of this possibility, so everything is all set.

However, this leaves me in an odd position. I had to abandon my wife at the airport Saturday and come home to this lonely apartment. Other than the usual 40-hour week that always seems to be more like 55, I have almost nothing to occupy my free time, and I don’t want to sit around and mourn the departure of my wife every day (as I did for most of yesterday).

To that end, I have decided that I will embark upon a month-long campaign (or three weeks and change, anyway) of self-improvement. Between now and when I leave Japan, I have the following goals:

1: Survival – this entails finding my apartment everyday and procuring food without having a beautiful wife to cook it.
1a: Survival – this entails reading the email and reviewing the images that said beautiful wife posts on the internet so that I don’t suffer an untimely and violent death.
2: Physical fitness – 6x per week - I will go running or do some other physically taxing activity (maybe indoor rock climbing? Do they even do that stuff around here?).
3: Japanese – 5x per week - I will read 5 pages of my Japanese book. This also includes jotting down the words I don’t know and think that I should.
4. Millyenaires – 5x per week – I will write five posts per week until I leave. I have a huge backlog of stuff to post about; need to clean it all up before the end of June.
5. Career – 2x per week – Recently I made a list of all the skills/topics at work that a fully-functional badass engineer would have at his/her disposal. I was quite disappointed to realize that after three years full-time and five co-ops before that… I still have an awful lot to learn. So my resolution here is to read some supplemental learning material twice a week. This should amount to 30-60 minutes of study, twice a week.

I have tried to allow for my laziness and/or burnout here (giving myself at least a day off from everything), while keeping an aggressive schedule. The hope is that I find a good payoff from these activities, and will be inspired to weave one or two of them into the new life my lovely wife is currently constructing.

However, I know myself as well as anyone (I hope). I need to actually write down a plan that I can stick to. Publicly declaring the first few days like this might shame me into actually following it.

This is basically the end of this post. What follows is likely to be quite boring, and is decidedly not Japan-related.

My plan for this week:

Sunday, 5/31:
2) 7.4km long-distance run/walk at the local reservoir. Baseline time was 60 minutes, estimate that I ran only 4.5-5k of it. My goal is to be able to complete at least 7km of this loop running and to get my time under 45 minutes by the end of June (that would be roughly 4 and a half 10-minute miles).
3) 2 pages of Japanese so far. Plan to continue later tonight.
4) You’re looking at it.
5) No progress today

Monday, 6/1:
2) Running before work. Target 5am start. This will be three timed laps around the local park. I estimate the park is about 700m around. Need to establish a baseline for middle-distance runs.
3) Try to leave work before 5:30. Japanese class from 5:30-7. Plan to read Japanese from 7:30-8:30p. Eat dinner also.
4) Write post before and/or after talking with Alli in the evening around 9pm. Topic: 15-year-old Roman vs. 25-year-old Roman
5) Take a Wikipedia walk about different grades of manufacturing steel, component metals and how the steels are produced (cold-rolled, hot-rolled, why choose which grades, etc). This will occur around 10:00-10:30, just before bed. Make a more focused list of things to study.

Tuesday, 6/2:
2) Running after work. Target 6:30pm. Location undecided. Target is to run/walk about 5k in 35 minutes. Shower & dinner after.
3) Drive into work early, read in the car for about 20 min. Finish reading before bed.
4) Write post before chatting with Alli. Topic: Ogenkisugi desu! (probably part 1 of multiple)
5) No plan.

Wednesday, 6/3:
2) Run before work. Four timed laps at the park.
3) Read Japanese after work (hopefully 6:30ish), over dinner.
4) Write post following Japanese reading, before talking with Alli. Topic: Things the Japanese have absolutely right.
5) Find out which gasses are used for which types of welding/cutting, and why.

Thursday, 6/4:
Day off from all activities. Plan is to drive directly to Dani & Superman’s place and hang out for a bit following work & Japanese class. Then straight to trivia in Sakae!

This will get me started into a routine of being productive, and slacking off on Thursdays, as per usual… at least, that’s the idea.

Wow, almost 2 whole months since my last blog entry. Lets say I was extremely busy spending my allowance Roman gives my every Wednesday (I find a crisp 10,000 yen bill on the counter when I wake up in the “morning”, mocking me like I did something more than my wifey duties to earn it), or organizing my iTunes music by adding lyrics to my mp3s  (Yes, I’m one of those people. I can’t help it.), or finding good random movie quotes to update my Twitter account with. Okay, now despite now having a sad glimpse into my regular, everday normal life, somehow those things and more have found a way to whittle away the hours, days, weeks and months.

There really hasn’t been a whole lot going on these past few months. Roman’s grandma visited us in April and we did a mini tour of Japan, visiting Koranke, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Himeji Castle, Kyoto and Nara.

We also had our first Japan ER visit. I’m happy to inform you that it’s pretty much like an ER in the US, down to the 5+ hour wait and young, cute doctors just like in Grey’s Anatomy. Roman’s chin is doing much better. I took out the stitches (yuck) last Sunday and it’s healing up nicely.

The past week or so paperwork has been taking over our lives. We found out about a month ago that we were being relocated to KY immediately upon our return from Japan, so for the past week we’ve had approximately 200 pages of paperwork to fill out and had to sign our names about 3,000 times. Okay, I exaggerate, but it’s all worth it, because we’re going to be in Kentucky!  We will be closer to our families and our friends in Cincinnati, which is something we both want. Also, it seems that some people were confused how moving to Kentucky would make us closer to our family in Ohio versus our home in Indiana right now, so here is a handy reference map, because I know you all really care.

I will be coming home next Saturday, May 30! I will spend the weekend in Ohio before I drive out to IN and get our house in shape to sell. I will then be in the NKY area looking for homes. It is our hope that Roman can just sign the papers to close on our new home when he returns in late June. So this is just a forewarning… I will be extremely busy, for real this time, and not just organizing our DVDs so they are in alphabetical order and the titles are easy to read, or trying to achieve a ranking of one star or higher for all CC levels and cups in Super Mario Kart, or spending the entire afternoon giving myself a mani and pedi.

The time for us to return to the US is approaching soon, only a few months away, and I’ve started reflecting on what I will miss about Japan. I’ve thought of many things and promptly forgot them because they seem so trivial, but here are a few things that have stuck with me.

1. The customer service. Yeah, most of the niceness is faked and forced, but you know what? It WORKS! I love it. So many people here seem to really enjoy their jobs. They’re always smiling, screaming IRRASHAIMASE!! (welcome) when you enter a store, dressed cleanly and professionally and do their shuffle walk/run to appear to be in a hurry to help you. Everyone knows it’s an act, it’s part of their customer service here, but I like it. I like going to the gas station with Roman and have 3 guys helping us at once by directing our car to the pump, washing our windows, pumping our gas, offering to throw away our trash, giving us a wet cloth to wipe down the dashboard, and then lining up in their uniforms to bow as we leave.  It makes me feel all warm and special inside. I like going to Starbucks for my Japanese lessons and being approached for complimentary ice water, coffee samples, new sandwich samples, and being asked if it is okay to throw away my trash. Even in the jobs Americans consider menial everyone puts on the irrashaimase face, smiles at you and will do their best to help you if you ask, even going so far as to get in your car to direct to an after hours ATM then run back uphill to their post at the convenience store. At jobs like these in the States, you’ll probably be dealing with a pissy teenager or people who can’t even be bothered to acknowledge your existence except to say, “Please sign,” or “Here’s your change.” In my opinion, the typical Japanese customer service can be compared to the service Americans only receive in restaurants where the dinner entree costs $25 or more.

On a side note to the customer service, since this is a cash country, there is almost always a tray on the counter or by the register to put your bills and coins in. They will wait patiently as you fumble for the correct change or try to change up to get a single 500 yen or 1000 note back. If there is no tray, you lay it on the counter. Roman had one of his “in Japan for too long moments” on our home leave back in December when he paid for something by placing the cash on the counter, not even thinking about the outstretched hand. So the pissy teenager gave him a  strange look, set his change on the counter and quickly dismissed him as he noticeably labeled him a weirdo.

2. Pride in public appearance. I know this may be a bit weird, but you’ll never see someone in public in Japan who looks like the stereotypical American WalMart shopper. No one looks like they haven’t showered (except the homeless, but come on.. exceptions people). No boxers or briefs showing under saggy pants. No bra straps or muffin tops. Everyone is exceedingly polite, which can be frustrating at times, but I don’t see people yelling at each other or parents yelling and disciplining their children in public to the point where you feel embarrassed for the child. Everyone adheres to the same general standard of public manners, hygiene, and dress.

I’m not trying to reverse the feminist movement here, but I believe there’s something to be said for a woman who takes time in her appearance, whether it be a nice hairstyle, some makeup or cute clothing choices. It’s not about looking nice for men, but looking nice for yourself. I believe American men find Japanese women so hot because they care enough to not look like a slob. All the Japanese girls over here look like Seventeen models, and the older women look like J. Crew models.

The same goes for the guys also. The guys in Japan appear as if they took the effort, whether it be the punk grunge look or the enough-hair-product-to-deplete-ozone-layer look. In America, most men don’t make any effort other than to sniff their armpits or their smell their shirts to see if its acceptable to wear again. Why? I don’t know… There’s nothing wrong with dressing in fashion, styling your hair, cleaning the dirt from beneath your fingernails or splashing on a little cologne. No woman (or gay man) will be turned off by it. It’s definitely adds points to your favor and maybe even a little sexy as long as the cologne isn’t crappy Old Spice. I have dropped many cologne hints to my metro-clueless husband, from subtle: I was shopping the other day for perfume and smelled this cologne I really liked.. to not so subtle: Hey, I picked you up a sample of that cologne I liked… to hit him over the head with a 2×4: That cologne smells really sexy on you and it turns me on. Yeah, it took 6.5 years and the 2×4 for him to get the message on that one… but he still hardly wears it because he’s not a “cologne guy”.

3. Quiet cellphones… everyone has them, and everyone keeps their business to themselves. I experienced some reverse culture shock when I went back home in December, with all the cellphones ringing and loud people. It’s seriously an American thing to have your cellphone on the highest volume ringer, possibly interrupt your conversation with someone, and then yell into your cellphone instead of taking your conversation somewhere private. Everyone has cellphones in Japan, but they make extensive use of the vibrate and SMS functions. When a cellphone does ring, someone immediately goes somewhere private or talks in such a tone that I could be standing next to them and have no idea what they’re saying. Sheer bliss, I tell you.

4. Video intercom. Everyone has intercom systems, and some even video intercom (like us) for their front doors. This is such a smart and safe idea! Everyone says never open the door to someone you don’t know. Talk through the door or put a chain on the door before you open it. Talk through the door? Awkward. I’m going to be yelling so you can hear me, and you’re going to be yelling so I can hear you. Most people (myself included) don’t put up with that crap and just open the door. And chains? We’ve all seen on TV and movies how easy it is to just break in the door once it’s opened on a chain, or how the person on the outside can prevent you from shutting the door again. I would like to install a video intercom system back in the States. It would certainly make me feel more comfortable, plus if we were to have kids I would feel a little safer with them answering the door.

5. Heated toilet seats. Yeah, I know, big surprise, but they’re everywhere, even in road side rest stops. I have found a website that supplies the washlet (heated seat + bidet + automatic seat flip up + automatic flush + soft lid shut (no slamming sound) + probably will give you sexual pleasure if you wanted) in the States. We might have to save up for one of those once we get our cars paid off.

Those are the few I can think of that aren’t readily available in the US. I can find Japanese food in the States like I can find American food here. Anything else I’m missing I can cook. These things are not easily replacable.

I don’t discriminate between handicapped people and health-conscious people - I make fun of both equally.

Recently, I fear that I have been becoming Japanese. I don’t get nearly as pissed off about my morning commute (that might be 20 minutes if I leave early, and 45 minutes or more if I wait until 7am or so) as I used to, and I am completely desensitized to many of the other things that I used to either laugh or cry about (See juice boxes, rigid scheduling, being stared at, etc). And I hardly think twice when there are four parking lot attendants at Frante helping people take their ticket out of the automatic machine, directing traffic, and showing people to their parking spots. Same for the guy with the ancient bundle-o’-twigs broom – I hardly see him.

So it has become a noteworthy event for me when I see things that DO in fact make me lose it. Witness these gems.

A few weeks ago on my drive to work, I was passed by a scooter. Wait, let me back that up. This is actually very common among motorcycles and scooters – they drive between the two lanes or around on the berm to the front of the line of traffic and sit in the crosswalk until the light changes. It’s fine for motorcycles, who, because of their quick acceleration, I will never see again, but the scooters typically top out around 40-50km/h and they have to be carefully passed up again thirty seconds later – I hate them.

Anyway, one such scooter went flying past me while I sat at a light. When I came up on him to pass again, however, I saw a handicapped sticker on the rear fender. Yes, that handicapped sticker – blue background, white stick figure. Is that even possible? I mean, what is the benefit to that sticker? Does he get special parking privileges among other scooters? Hell, people in Japan just make up parking spaces anyway! Is it even possible or safe for a physically handicapped person to OWN a scooter and weave through traffic on it? Needless to say, I spent the next three lights laughing and staring at the scooter-driver, trying to determine how he was handicapped and what possible benefit there could be to a handicapped permit.

Next, with the weather turning gorgeous around here, I have been taking a walk during my lunch break. The typical good Japanese employee will eat lunch (in about 8-10 minutes), and then walk back to their desk, close their laptop, and either sleep on their desk or surf the internet on their cell phone for the remainder of the break. However, you do get the occasional health nuts who go out and run or do some sport during their break.

I have turned into one of these guys, apparently. My co-workers can’t believe I would rather take a walk and be outside. I mean, the thing everyone does is sleep or surf. Why would I do something other than that?

But I have gained some enjoyment out of these walks. I have witnessed the sit-ups and push-ups marathon routine that follows a lunchtime pick-up game of soccer - no particular reason that I could tell, it seemed that’s simply what everyone decided to do together for the last five minutes of their lunch break. Because what do I want to be all afternoon? You guessed it, sweaty and tired.

I am starting to recognize the same half-dozen groups of people who also take walks at lunchtime. A few days ago, I wound up following a group of these health nuts back to their office. However, when I saw them duck into the side of a building, they were actually ducking into the smoking hut. A pack of five guys, all of whom think it is a good idea to take a walk at lunchtime… also all think the best way to finish off their workout is with a nice cigarette. I suppose it’s better than push-ups.

While talking to friends and family back home, everyone is asking if the economy is affecting us. Well, overall, it hasn’t affected us dramatically, but rather has forced us to evaluate our finances and put ourselves on a budget. Now, a budget may not be a big deal for many of you, but money is something we never really had to worry about. We have been fortunate in that sense. However, I haven’t been working while here in Japan, and the husband’s working hours have been temporarily reduced, so our generally expected monthly income is lower than usual. Of course this is all just temporary, but it’s still frustrating.

Our budget has been surprisingly limiting. We don’t really eat out anymore–drinks and train fare are expensive. We also haven’t been travelling to many places because transportation fees, whether it be train or toll fares, are also expensive in Japan. So, we’ve just been relaxing at home, making a menu for the week and cooking together. It is a lower-key lifestyle than what we’ve previously led, but we’re getting by and that folks is how the economy is affecting us. Not a whole lot, but enough to make a small lifestyle change. We’re very lucky that all we can complain about is being on a budget. There are many out there that the economy has hit hard, friends and family included.

Roman and I went grocery shopping last Saturday for our upcoming meals this week. We didn’t go in search of any great deals, but we didn’t splurge with items off the list either. We were almost out the door… ALMOST, the door was just a few feet away, but then Roman saw The Sign. McDonald’s is introducing the Double Quarter Pounder in Japan. McDonald’s was right beside the exit and Roman looked at me with his pleading puppy dog eyes. We did have some money left over in our weekly budget, so what the heck? We’re not that destitute yet. Two minutes and 490 yen later, Roman and I possess The Sandwich that makes you proud to be an American. We take our booty to the car. We unwrap the sandwich and revel in its beauty. We take turns, passing the sandwich back and forth between us like we’re drug addicts getting our fix. Damn, it was good. Made even sweeter by the fact that it was an affordable splurge on our weekly budget.

With the end now in sight, I’m starting to feel a little homesick. That’s not to mean I’m not happy to be spending my time here in Japan, but the grass is always greener on the other side.

Those pictures were taken shortly after we returned from our week long home finding trip to Japan last May. I was visiting my home town that weekend. I was still experiencing some jet lag, so I went out for a drive at 4:30 in the morning. These were taken about a quarter mile from the house where I was raised. I love the road I grew up on because it was all like this: green, curvy, away from the city, and with some open space between homes. I’m really starting to feel cooped up here in Japan. I am missing home.