How To Move House In Japan

If you can't see the video above, click here.

It can be very hard to find an apartment in Japan. There are many agents about but assuming you can negotiate the Japanese language you still have to find somewhere suitable. Then you probably need a guarantor, someone who will vouch for you as a responsible person and pay for you should any money problems arise. You'll also need lots of money for the deposits, key (gift) money and the movers fee. You could be looking at well over 5 months rent in total!

All that we may cover later on, but this blog is all about the actual move. What do you need to do? Read on.

• Say goodbye! - You probably made lots of friends where you live and your work will hold parties for you even if you didn't get on that well. So enjoy some goodbye parties with friends and coworkers. At work, be prepared to make a little speech about how much you liked it there, even if you didn't. It'll be appreciated. If you are a teacher like me, you have the extra chore of saying goodbye to students. Most won't mind too much (what good is English anyway?) but some will be genuinely sad and may come to you crying. Then, of course, there are a few presents you can expect from each party. Work customarily gives money. Students may give sweets. Friends might give... anything! They are your friends, not mine. How should I know what they will get you?

• Visit city hall!  - Within two weeks of moving, you will need to go to city hall or your local ward office to fill in a form telling them that you are moving. They usually have an English guide but its basically just your name and address and the address you are moving to. You show that at the desk and they make up an official document for you which you must deliver in person to the city hall or ward office closest to your new address. So, yes, you even have to do this if you are staying in the same city but changing ward. While you are waiting for the document, they will tell you to inform the health insurance department too. So go do that... if you want health insurance, of course.

• Packing! - Well, first you have to find a moving company, unless you are lucky enough to have your own large car, a friend with a truck or no belongings. Movers are tricky devils. There are certain periods like holidays where everyone moves. If you want to move then, they will charge you an extortionate amount. Be flexible, suggest many dates, ask which is cheaper. Most of all, do not accept their first offer. We had one company try to charge us 650,000 yen for a move (about 6,300 USD). Another company, who we chose, offered a price of 192,000 but we ummed and ahhed them down to 90,000 yen. Anyway, they will give you boxes for your stuff but they will come and take your furniture as it is. They do all of the work, so don't worry about heavy lifting.  Get to work packing those boxes. Each one should be completely sealed and clearly labelled with both addresses.

• Clean up! - It's a strong tradition in Japan not to return deposits anyway, they tend to use them for cleaning and replacing tatami, but if you want to stand any chance of getting it you need to clean like crazy. Everything of yours should be packed or thrown away. You will have a lot of garbage, and the normal collections probably won't take it, so you should check your city hall's website for the phone number of the environmental services, and you need to ask them to take away your big pile of trash. You may be charged for this. You can also get furniture and appliances taken away for a cost. If you need to replace any papou can also get furniture and appliances taken away for a cost. Then you just need to sweep the floors, mop and wipe surfaces. The whole place should be sparkling! Time to return your keys to the owner or letting agency and say goodbye.

It's clean....

• Move yourself! - You should be left with just yourself and the few valuables you will carry with you to your new destination. Time to go! Jump in that car, grab that train, stop that cat-bus or whatever it is you'll be doing to get to your new home.

• Unpacking! - The movers will bring everything into the apartment. They'll even place things where you ask them. So all you have to do is to unpack the boxes. Sounds easy, but its the longest job really.

• Shopping! - The Japanese have a strange tradition of taking ceiling lights with them when they move. So you may have to go and buy some from the local home centre as soon as you can. You may have to buy other things too. Anything large you can get from the home centre. Anything small you can get from a 100 yen store. See our other blog entry here for more information. Don't forget, you'll also need to buy some food to stock your cupboards. That calls for a trip to the local supermarket.

• Check your services! - You'll have a leaflet, and perhaps a friendly landlord, which will tell you about things like how to sort your garbage and when to leave it out for collection. They might also enquire about contributions to a community newsletter or cleaning bills in more expensive places. This is also a good time to take your change of address document to the ward office. 

• Enjoy! -  I'm sure you have plenty of things to do, but don't forget to take time out to enjoy your new place. Look around, enjoy the view, explore the local area. You did it! You moved house in Japan, and hopefully you'll never have to do it again. Am I right?

Have you moved house recently or are planning to move? Have any questions or tips? Leave a comment below.

Import Shop

If you can't see the video, please go here: http://youtu.be/BqPjVhszfNo 

When you've been in Japan for a while, or if you spend a lot of time cooking, you may find yourself craving some of the ingredients from back home, some of those things that Japan just doesn't have. You'll be very surprised at a Japanese person's reaction to beans on toast, for example. Don't despair at the differences though. There is an answer, and no, it's not smuggling canned goods back into the country or having your mum post you suspicious looking packages of baking flour. Go to the import shop!

The import shop is not a building that has been carried over from another country 'Up' stylee. No, it is in fact, a shop that is full of imports, much like a paper factory isn't made of paper either. Crazy, I know.

Inside, you can find allsorts of things. A lot of them will be from your home country, but most of them will be from other countries because, as much as it may shock Americans especially to hear this, there are other countries out there. Did you think you had just wandered into Chinatown or something? Take a look at our video above to see exactly what one import shop in Sendai has for sale, but rest assured that if you want something, you can probably find it there.

It's actually a very good place for cross cultural communication. For example, when I was growing up I loved Pez. However, they stopped selling them in the UK long ago and so I wasn't able to get any for quite a while (though I did have some willing American friends who sent me a few). Now, in Japan, I can go to the import shop and get plenty of Pez, though they are usually Disney, Hello Kitty or Thomas the Tank Engine for some reason. I'm still searching for that monkey pez. Hint, super strong hint. So it allows us to get items from other countries. Great for lovers of real Indian curry, mexican food and gravy!

There are two main import chain stores in Japan. The first is Jupiter, shown in the video. They have a lot of snacks, sweets and cooking ingredients. The other chain is Kaldei Coffee, which, wouldn't you know it, have a large selection of coffee. They also do gift wrapped selections for special holidays and events, and you can have a free cup of coffee to drink as you wander around the store. I often wander around just to get the free coffee, and I don't even like coffee!

So, don't worry too much. If you are craving something in Japan, you can get it from the right place, but it might be a little more expensive. Don't buy regular Japanese stuff here!  I also still recommend that you bring as much toothpaste and deodorant from home as you can. Those are terribly weak in Japan.

The Differences between Japanese and Western Homes

If you can't see the video, go here: http://youtu.be/qWHaenUe1Vs

So, let's imagine you've just arrived in Japan, maybe to work as a teacher or for some other company, or maybe you've been lucky enough to be handed a Japanese apartment to live in for a totally different reason. No, I'm not suggesting you are accomplice to certain illegal murder/aaprtment squatting tactics.... because how the hell would you get in this country? Ok, so reasons aside, you have an aprtment in Japan. Your company has driven you to the door, shown you how the lock on the front door works (because you are foreign, maybe you don't have keys in your country) but then they have dumped you inside and left you to your own devices. This is it. Your life in Japan starts now. This is a very real situation and one I experienced myself. Though my boss was kind enough to set up my internet, but then his company tried to rape me of 20% of my wages. Evil!

You might be a bit confused. Yes, I used the word 'rape' in entirely the wrong context but just go with it. You might also be confused about some of the things in your apartment. It looks similar....but strange somehow. Let us help you.

Entrance!

• Genkan: or 'entrance' as it is known in less crazy countries. Looks like concrete and is the only place you can wear outside shoes. So take them off here. Might have a cupboard for shoes.
  

Kitchen!

• Mini-boiler: floats mysteriously over your kitchen sink and provides undrinkable torrent of adjustably hot water through a bendy tap. Cold, drinkable water comes from a tap, but I'd recommend a tap fitting water filter anyway. Good for cleaning pots and washing hair.

• NO oven! Japanese just don't roast and bake very much! They make toast and the occasional batch of cookies. On the bright side, no hulking monstrosity taking up lots of room in your tiny kitchen.

• NO flat surface for cutting and preparing vegetables ever! Even if you buy one it will disappear! A folding table to fit into the space beside the washing machine is good though, if you cna avoid losing it.
  
  

  
  

  

  This is my house

  
  

Bathroom(s)

• Toilet: It might sing, it might dance (and open the lid for you), it might spray your bum, but highly unlikely unless you are working for a rich company. Probably it will be normal, but asian ones are just troughs that you squat over. Gives users strong legs and humility. Has psycologically sickening unusable tap on top and two options for flushing; 大　big and 小 small. Also, should have special shoes for this room only unless you like guests laughing at you.

• Bath: thin and tall, no leg room, has a pathetic shower on the side that dribbles hot water and gushes ice cold water like you might actually want it (which you don't in winter); clean yourself sat under the shower on a plastic stool, then soak in the steaming bath

• No bathroom sink: except that atrocious one on top of the toilet with no hot water. Get used to cleaning teeth and washing in the kitchen sink!

• No heating: ever!
  
  

  

  Totally floating in my own living room. Mirror's Edge y'all

Living Room!

• Tatami: Hard, cold, expensive and difficult to replace floor covering that only seems to exist to make measuring rooms easier (1 tatami, 2 tatami... 8 tatami room, etc.). Take care of it by padding any furnitures' bases or buying a rug! Nice for pets in summer, but give me a hard wood floor any day.

• Sliding doors: everywhere! Fun and space saving. Don't pull too hard or your entire wall might come down. Can be rearranged easily.

• Paper doors: looks very asian but not practical in any way at all ever. Make your apartment look messy until you replace them only to break them again the next day. Like Internet Explorer these shoudl be replaced as soon as you realise you have them.

• Paper walls (practically): neighbours hear everything you do, you hear everything they do... everything! Plan accordingly, keep music and TV down, buy headphones. Useless for heavy pictures.

• Cupboards: look exactly like doors to other rooms. Be careful, it might go to the neighbour's place.

• Skirting board: massive gap behind it, great for holding up pictures, photos and greetings cards.

• Ceilings and door frames: very very low. Tall people, beware!

This blog is not meant to be any kind of guide to getting an apartment asshat could easily make up four or five blogs on its own. No, this is merely to orientate you on moving in, and I have deliberately kept it brief because there is no point repeating what is in the video. If I wrote about these topics it would be too long for you too read. I know because I wrote it and then I deleted it.

I'm sure we'll cover buying and renting property on another day. All I shall say for now is to try and look after your apartment if you want to get any of your security deposit back. In some places they will always take a chunk of it for cleaning - even if you are meticulous - because its tradition, and to question tradition is to question our existence, and if we question our existence we might find out we have no reason to exist, and in knowing we have no reason to exist, we might cease to exist, and then there would be no more chocolate covered potato chips so the non-existent world would mourn. So just accept it and look after your place to get back as much money as you possibly can.

We'll see you next time with another episode, possibly outside. I don't know yet. Depends on if it stops snowing. In the meantime, all comments or questions are welcome, including any suggestions of what topics to cover? What do you think the newbie to Japan ought to know?

How to Stay Warm in Japan's Winter: Kotatsu!

If you can't see the video, please go here: http://youtu.be/DW1mtWCF3zQ

We got our first noticable snowfall of the winter today. It has been a lot lighter this year. That's not to say it hasn't been cold this year because ooooooh boy! Even my brass monkeys think that it's brass monkeys here! That's why we decided to finally buy a kotatsu.

Now, "what is a kotatsu?" you may well ask. If you're familiar with Japan at all you probably know already. Even if you aren't you have probably seen them in anime or dramas. In short, a kotatsu is a heated Japanese table, but it is so much more than that; it's dreams, it's heaven, it's a sound night's sleep and a way to avoid frostbite.

I'll warn you now, whether you have already arrived in Japan or you are planning on coming here and living in the future, Japanese houses are rubbish for insulation. Absolutely rubbish. If houses were light party snacks, Japanese houses would be swiss cheese.... in the arctic. For serious. Let's say you are in a Japanese house and it's cold, so you decide to put the air conditioner on. Then after a while it gets toasty, so you turn it off again. If you do that your house will be arctic cold again in under half an hour. I am not exaggerating. So the Japanese have many useful devices for keeping warm. The kotatsu is one of them.

You can get many different types, just like you can any table. You could buy a coffee table kotatsu, or a study desk kotatsu, or a dining table kotatsu, the key element that makes it different is...well, the element! The heating element. Under the table top there will be some form of heating device. Cheaper kotatsus will have large clunky heaters that glow red and you will always bang your knee on the guard casing, where as the most expensive ones will have a super-thin, flat heating pad that spans the table underside from end to end. The middle of the range will be a nice compact heater that should keep you warm without too much trouble. We got the latter.

Now, "won't all this lovely heat escape?" you may also ask. After my fearful introduction I can see why you might be concerned, but worry not because kotatsu come with (or require on separate purchase) a futon (thick blanket) that forms a curtain around the table edge and keeps the heat inside. All you need do is insert your cold little legs into the warm space and experience what chocolate feels like on the tongue of a hot girl in an expensive sweet commercial. You can also buy special padded seats for sitting at the shorter kotatsu, or any seat of your choice will do. If you are worried that while your legs are warm the rest of you is cold, don't, because that warmth spreads up your body and makes you feel like you are in a dry, hot bath.

There is one more difference in your choice of price range. Cheaper kotasu will have an on/off switch, but others have a control panel attached to the electric cable. This will allow you to moderate the degree of heat required and more expensive models are fit with a timer. That allows you to safely fall asleep and not dehydrate or have your legs spontaneously combust, because there in lies the problem with the kotatsu. It's so lovely and comfortable that people fall asleep and doze, so work doesn't get done and people don't want to move at all.

I've also encountered the problem that sitting at the kotatsu for a long period of time gives me a bad back, but maybe I just need better seating.

You can get kotatsu from many home stores and even online at Amazon if you wish (we are in no way endorsed by Amazon). Many deliver for free and require little assembly. Though please watch our video to find out how I manage to muck up putting ours together even though it has only 6 screws and 6 separate parts.

In our next blog we'll be taking a more general look at the differences you'll first notice in Japanese homes, so stick around. In the meantime, if you have any comments or there is any topic you want us to cover, please leave a comment below. Don't forget to subscribe for future episodes!

Sendai Starlight Pageant and Santa Parade

If you can't see the video, go here: http://youtu.be/YQXUKAzbmng

Christmas is here, and although we have started this project a little too late to blog about our preparations for the holiday season here in Japan that doesn't mean we can't show you the celebrations. Starting today with Sendai city's Starlight Pageant and Santa Parade!

Christmas in Japan is a strange thing. As soon as Halloween is over, the shops start filling up with christmas goodies and decorations appear on the streets. It's actually really funny because a lot of the decorations openly acknowledge that Santa is fake (sorry kids) by showing the real dark hair of the character poking out from under the beard or hat. Take a look at this Buddha dressed up as Santa for a start.

They have a lot of build up with adverts and shop promotions, present buying and well... practically everything we have in the west, bar the Christmas songs. They have them, but it's like everyone has the same CD and they only play those few songs everywhere.

However, where the differences appear is in their festivals and in the day itself. Christmas Eve is the big day here. It's seen as another Valentine's Day (but more on that tomorrow). So on Christmas day itself, nothing happens. Nothing at all. Well, maybe some people take down decorations.

Anyway, back to tonight. The illuminations are along Jozenji-dori, in Sendai, all through December, with the final flash calling in the new year. For this night, the show starts at 5.30 pm. The street is dark and people gather all along waiting for the moment when the lights flash on. It is actually incredible to behold. If you watch our video, you'll see that after the lights turn on the background looks like a green screen image, it's so unreal, but I swear it is true. Thousands of fairy lights wrap the trees and everyone cries out with a massive "oooh!" when they turn on. It's such an impressive moment that they stop the parade two times and repeat it.

For the rest of the night it feels like we are walking through a brightly lit cave. So I guess you could call it Santa's grotto. Y'know, if you were really lame or something... *ahem!* One the pavement (sidewalks), people rush to find a good position to watch the parade, but in the middle path, in the centre of the road, couples and families stroll holding hands, and occasionally pausing to take photos.

Then the road is blocked off to traffic. The performers line up. The parade begins. Christmas music blares out from the many Santa's playing instruments, while cheerleaders and dancing groups weave their way in entrancing patterns down the street. It's a lot of fun to watch. There's usually a fat old Santa giving out presents and even drivers of floats and cars have Santa, elf and yay sometimes even Rudolph hats and masks on. So we get a good laugh.

After an hour or so, after a couple of restarts, the parade stops for good. There is a break while the separate performing groups find a spot to set up. Then instead of them doing the walking (lazy smeggers), we have to walk around and look at them! But I jest. It is good fun. The groups dance and sing to separate songs. There's food stalls open selling drinks and snacks, everything from fried chicken and squid to noodles and rice. There's also a beer tent, which you can see in the video, and this year they had a mini ice rink in there too.

Lots of people come from other cities to see the event so the nearest park is filled up with buses and you can all laugh as the visitors get off and form their little tourist groups where they follow the flag. The leader always has a little flag. So one day I want to run around tourist attractions with a fake flag and see how many people I can confuse. Mwuahahaha! 

So, that's it really. After the performances have finished, people mill about a bit and enjoy the illuminations some more and then wander home. This year it was snowing heavily for the first time and so we didn't linger long. Natalie especially doesn't like the cold so we rushed home for warmth!

Hajime!

Hello, folks and welcome! This is the beginning of something big. No, I'm not talking about my morning trip to the toilet, rather its our new project. Through blog entries and mainly our new YouTube channel of the same name we'll be introducing the amazing fantasticalness of Japanese culture to you (since we live there... We have plans to visit and maybe live in China too so we'll do the same thing there, hence the panda). So that's perfect for anyone adjusting or anyone who plans to come to Japan to visit or live here. I recommend living. It's much better than dying. Though if you die here you will be cremated, everyone is cremated, so there is little chance of zombies causing much of a fuss. Did I mention I ramble? I'm a rambling man!

So yeah. Check back soon. We'll post our first introduction video and then we'll get started on the whole culture thang too. If at any point you have any questions or want us to cover a subject then just raise your hand and then I'll realize that I can't see you. Then let us know with a comment or something. We'll do our best to help you out.

Did I mention we have a cute cat?