Wally Nes’ Blog

While this weekend was not spent in any horribly exciting way (It’s raining, I’m staying in) I will tell you the story of my every day life.

OK, I know you already have one of those, and I can’t promise you this’ll be more exciting than yours. . . .But damnit, it’s a daily life FROM JAPAN

FROM JAPAN, man!

So, in the mornings . . . I wake up.

I wake up to this . . .
I wake up on the thing on the right. Once again, I don’t do the bed thing. Good thing too, I’d like to see them get their hands on one I can fit in. The one that was in the room when I got here was, too short AND too narrow. I’ll take the futon.

OK, so let me show you around, you’ve seen the “bed”. On the left we have my “kitchen rack”

The fridge doubles as place-of-doing-stuff. Cutting vegatables and stuff. All horribly exciting stuff so far eh.

The room comes further equiped with:
ENORMOUS CLOSET. Which, considering I have a normal sized one too, and am a guy . . . is of relative use.

Well, before I start on breakfast I do the shower thing. (there is actually another action which takes place between waking up and showering, but I leave it out to keep the story neat, short and without useless (and disgusting) sidestories. Certainly this piece would not benefit if I would just keep on saying relatively useless stuff, would it)

OK, so it’s a shower

I could show you

Which is the other shower room we have. But I mostly shower standing up, so it’s not relevant now is it.
This is actually a really nice place, and on weekends I will take my time and use these sit-showers aswell as laze about in the bath you can see in the back. There are 3 rows of the shower things . . . but they were being used at the time of the picture. There are also 2 of those baths.

Now before you get all excited. There are 6 standing showers, and 25 or so of these sitting thingies. There are 435 people currently residing here. So take this picture and fill it with naked middle-aged Japanese men . . . . THAT is what I see every morning. (Contacts go in after showering)

After the rest of the morning rituals (I’m not taking pictures of me eating cerials)
I hop on this baby

It’s short. Very short. Knee-handlebar-interaction short. But it has a really neat basket thingy for my groceries and it’s green. On this fine piece of engineering I then race towards the station. It’s all downhill, so there is indeed some racing involved Everything shoots by in a blur. I try to take care not to hit any kids, but it’s hard sometimes. There’s a bit just before the station that busses won’t take if it’s snowing a bit (the entire town’s bus system grinds to a halt with anything approaching serious weather). You can go really REALLY fast. Eh? Never mind, probably nothing.

Once arrived at the station I say hello to my “say hello人”

This is one of three people who’s entire job appears to be to welcome me to the station. Nicely trained too, “おはよう　ございます” and bows for everyone. I mean me, just for Me.

Well then, the trainride won’t interrest you . . .it’s a train. The office (you know, it’s the reason I came to Japan. Though I can understand how you would conclude I was only being a tourist here based on my other posts) . . . Well, I have this confidentiality statement that says I can’t talk about my work. And there’s a bit in it regarding photos. You see, by enhancing stuff on the background the competition could work out what we do and thereby gain an edge over us. So, I’m kinda stuck with the company issues pictures.

Right, moving on.

Nothing to see here

Oh, for the love of pete, scroll down already.

There’s work

Blahblahblah

Never mind me, I’m just filling some lines here.

Really, no reason to keep reading this

Go on down to where interresting stuff is written

See, there’s some now.

After work, there’s options. I live close to Osaka, so I could go there. But on Tuesdays there is

And then on Thursday there is the Japanese Language class. But that’s all not part of my “Daily Life” so we’ll move on.

First there is more of the not-mentioned train.
Then there’s the bike again
This time, up-hill. Not quite as much fun.

If I don’t indicate I will not be eating at the dorm I could eat here:

But as the food here sucks, I have to make a trip to the local supermarket.

That’s 4 stores which don’t have English in their name. Well, Comme ca ism could be considered a different language than English, but I’ve been told the French don’t claim it either. I believe I’ve mentioned the degree of americanism here before. Seizeriya warrents a seperate mention as it is a Japanese chain of American style Italian Restaurants (The italians in my program do NOT eat here)I just like the concept . . . not the food. Oh yes, we have a “God Mountain”. Affiliated with the Matsumoto Cafe.
On the other side of the road is a Home Centre and a Shoe Plaza. Very Japanese, everything.

But . . . they do sell food. And that’s why I go there. Food in hand (or basket) I then head to my kitchen (by way of my fridge for cuttage). My Kichten . . . tadaa:

I won’t show the inside of those cupboards . . . I just . . .won’t. Euw.

In said kitchen I will make things like:

OK, mostly I just make stir fries. The kitchen is 60 metres away through a not-heated corridor and looking after simmering chickpeas for an hour is kind of a pain. Those are Falafels btw. Pita bread is hard to find here so I used Nan. And that’s a sesami based salad dressing in that bottle. I had to go to Hiroshima for Tahini.

Anyway, that is sort of my average day. I’ll end with some random pictures of my hallways, the pink dorm and the people at work.

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Quote of the Day:

Where thou art – that – is Home.

- Emily Dickinson

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Japanese (Culture), Personal, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.