Anthony slept until 5:50 — getting much better! We all went for a walk toward the temples, but it started to rain lightly not long after leaving, so we cut the trip short. One of the temples has a huge wooden gate. A neighboring temple is known for its cherry-blossom viewing, but that season has passed (although Fumie and I visited it a few years ago). Still, it offers a lot to someone like Anthony — he loves the birds.

Fumie needed to go to the bank to take care of a number of things, so we all went together and dropped her off, and then the three of us (Mom, Anthony, and I) continued on to a recently-opened Jusco mall on Gojou street, in the Saiin area of Kyoto. Half of the ground floor of this mall is a supermarket / department store, and while walking through the supermarket, I was awe struck. I've never seen a larger, cleaner, brighter, well stocked supermarket in my life. The coolers of cartons of milk and juice and teas were packed 20 deep, and all in perfect alignment. They must have staff on hand to immediately swoop in and replace a product that a customer has bought. It was the most amazing display of the bounty of a free, capitalist society that I've ever seen.

The rest of the place (a total of three floors) continued along the same line. Every store was super neat and clean and well presented. In the food area, things were displayed in a very inviting way. one juice/smoothy type shop had display of a dozen or so different blenders, each filled with a different colored smoothy. Very inviting. I should have taken a picture of it, but I was too in awe of the whole place, and also, under somewhat of a time constraint, since we had only 45 min in the whole place before we had to leave to return home in time for the air conditioners to be installed. We bought some veggies from a grocery (again, everything displayed in perfect neatness and order), and some lunch from a bento shop. The first two hours of parking were free, so that was cool.

We made it back right at noon (the start of the delivery window), but it turns out that they didn't arrive for a while. When the guy came, I showed him the locations – we had four units, in three different sizes, going into four locations. Each unit is made up of two parts – a wall-mount heater/blower, and an outside-mounted compressor. While showing where the dining-room unit would go, I commented (incorrectly, it turns out) that this is where the larger one would go.

He installed the wall part of the living room unit. This involved hooking up four hoses (probably a coolant in and out, a drain, and one that I don't know what it's for), a high-voltage electric line, and a low-voltage electric line. All of these run as a bundle through a hole in the wall, out to the compressor. He got all that installed (so that they at least got outside), then moved to install the wall unit for the dining room. While in the process of trying to get the mounting bracket to fit on the inconveniently-sized pre-installed mounting bolts (the wall where this one is to be installed is concrete with wallpaper over it), I was absent-mindedly leafing through the work-order papers when I came across a map of the apartment that showed that the larger unit would go in the living room, not the dining room as I'd said. He'd already installed the middle size there, so oops, my mistake. Still, he was kind enough to fix my mistake (added 30 minutes or so to his work). Fumie would have killed me if I'd had them installed in the wrong spot. Thankfully, she was out with Mom and Anthony (Anthony got fussy as soon as the workman arrived, since he wanted to be in on all the action, but was being held back).

Eventually, they came home, and Anthony enjoyed watching the workman. He was here for quite some time — he left at 7ish or so, having gotten a bit more than half way done. We did have two working units (living room and dining room), but had no need for them this evening.

Continued here...

Anthony slept until 5:20 — getting better. It started out as a lazy day, with Fumie getting up at 7:00 and taking Anthony out for a stroll while I unintentionally collapsed into a restless sleep until 11:30. Fumie then took a nap while I watched Anthony.

In the afternoon, I called my friend Katsunori Shimada, who lives not all that far away. It turns out that there's a Yamada-denki (electronics shop) store at the end of the subway line that runs by the apartment (the “Higashiyama” subway station is about a five-minute walk away). So, Anthony and I spent 260 yen ($2.50) and took the subway 16 minutes to its eastern-most station. While on the subway, I composed a short test email to Fumie, on my phone. While on her walk that morning, during a time when Anthony was taking a nap, she sat on a park bench and figured out how to set her phone's email address.

I also took a picture of Anthony and included it with the mail. Unfortunately, the phone had no network connectivity in the subway, perhaps by design – they may have jammers installed, since they don't want people using their cell phones on trains and such – it “causes trouble” for others to have people talking. Makes no sense to me, since it's no different from talking to the person next to you, except you're taking up only one seat instead of two. Anyway, once we got off the subway and up to street level, I sent it.

I also called Shimada-san again, who then came by motorcycle to find me looking at printers in Yamada-denki. While waiting for him, I'd bought a larger memory card for the phone. It uses a “Mini SD” memory card, which is smaller than most postage stamps, and only slightly thicker (it's 3/4" × 7/8" × 1mm thick). I wanted to replace the tiny 16-meg card that came with the phone with a slightly larger one — 128 meg. I also got a USB reader, so I could download the pictures. here's a sample picture, of a beautiful flower arrangement that Mom sent us for the apartment. Here's another of Anthony “driving” at the mall yesterday. One problem with the phone is that it has a very slow shutter, so any movement in the frame (or shaking by the photographer) is readily apparent. This is probably due the extremely small lens (about 1/8" ), which doesn't let much light in. Oh well.

I looked at printers and computers with Shimada-san. He is extremely knowledgeable about any and everything which humans have ever endeavored to explore. This includes printers and computers. Unfortunately, Anthony is not, and became more and more fussy, so we grabbed some pamphlets and left. Outside the store (in the “mall” open area, still under the roof), there was a square of benches with a small tree in the middle. There was plenty of room within the square for Anthony to play while we talked, and so he did. At one point, a young (4 years old?) girl came running up at full speed, stopping as she slapped her hands on the bench in front of Anthony. She then ran away. Anthony found this incredibly amusing, and laughed and laughed when she did it several times. By the fourth or so time, he was so beside himself with excited anticipation that he was stomping his feet and putting both hands in his mouth and doing other kinds of crazy things. It was very nice, except the girl's mom was not amused and wanted to get going, so Anthony's new girlfriend disappeared as soon as she appeared.

Anthony and I took the 6:06 train to the back toward home, but went two extra stops to the city-hall stop, which left us a two-minute walk to the local catholic church (where Fumie and I got married). We arrived just as the 6:30 mass was starting. Anthony was challengingly fussy, but we made it through. We walked home, stopped by a convenience store for some groceries (at which point I noticed that Anthony had fallen asleep).

Continued here...

Anthony slept all the way until 5am, which is a big step toward him getting over his jet lag. Fumie's mom had slept overnight, though, so we were reticent to let him run around, but eventually we all got up. With all the deliveries and shopping we'd been doing, the place was a mess, so I tidied up and took the garbage out. That's a luxury that most Japanese don't have, as each part of town has its own garbage days. I don't know what specific arrangements the complex has made for garbage, but there's a spot we can bring it to 24/7, which is very nice.

I spent a few minutes looking at the manual for the washer/dryer, and Fumie did the same for the fridge manual. All the stuff we're getting are quite new to us, with features and options that were not available in America, nor in Japan when we last lived here, so there's a lot to learn. For example, once you load the clothes into the washer and start it, it putzes around for 20 seconds or so then tells you how much detergent too put in. That's sort of neat, I suppose, but we generally wash things with a minimum amount of detergent anyway. I threw in a bunch of my clothes and gave it a whirl. I need 0.8 scoops of detergent, and it said it'd be done with the washing and drying after two hours 58 minutes.

Fumie, who didn't bring many clothes from America, was feeling the lack of them, so wanted to go clothes shopping. Best to leave me out of that, so Mom, Anthony, and I headed off toward Kuzuha to pick up a table and some stuff, dropping her off at Takashimaya at Shijo/Kawaramachi. Anthony, who had been getting more and more fussy, mercifully slept pretty much the way.

We stopped at a home center (Japanese version of a Home Depot combined with a simple department store), and I had to work hard not to succumb to impulse buying. I got some stuff to add to the apartment's built-in shelving, a pretty nice tool kit (for the super bargain price of $20), and a few other little things. We'll definitely have to go back — it's an hour's drive from the apartment, but well worth it for all the little stuff we'll need to get the apartment into shape.

At Kuzuha, we picked up a kitchen table that Mom didn't need — we'll use it for a while until Fumie makes up her mind about our interior decoration. While sitting in the kitchen eating lunch before returning, Anthony was actually able to climb up to one of the dining-table chairs. He then sat down like a cute little adult. Mom and I clapped and praise him, especially for sitting down properly. After a bit, he stood up and tried to climb up onto the table, and I made an exaggerated sad face/sound. He sat back down, and I then went back to clapping and praising him. He stood up again and got the sad treatment, and then the game was on — he stood up and sat down a number of times, each time cherishing the expected response. It was cute.

Anthony and I drove back to the apartment, and while unloading the car, two more of the six boxes we'd sent via the postal system arrived. (Two had arrived the previous day, but we missed them, so they were dropped off earlier today, so now we had four of the six). The one we want the most, though, is one with a bunch of big fat plastic coat hangers, which we could really use to get ourselves organized.

I spent some time trying to make the best of the shelving stuff I'd bought at the home center, but nothing fit properly. I hacked things up a bit to get it to work, but I feel very limited not being able to make holes in the wall and do what I want. I could make the place much more useful/convenient, but no matter how nice it becomes, it has to be returned to the original state when we leave. Sigh.

In the evening, we went out to the best approximation of a mall that I've seen in Japan. A rather large four or five story building with a large atrium in the center and shops of various types (clothing, music, books, etc.) ringing the atrium on most levels. The bottom level has a huge grocery store. While Fumie got some clothes, Anthony and I played in the little “Kids Corner” they had set up. It didn't have much, but was a safe area to run around in. It was his first interaction with Japanese kids. He didn't interact much, but it was a start.

At a bookstore, I bought a couple of maps of Kyoto, and then we got some groceries to fill the fridge. Anthony got fussy along the way, so we left early, but it was a fun outing. He went to be pretty soon after we got home. Fumie and I had a bath, then ate dinner.

Continued here...

We got a lot done today. It didn't start off well, as I mentioned before, with Anthony up at 1am for two hours, then up for the day at 5:30am. The block of ice we'd gotten the previous evening was still going strong, though, so there were no worries about Anthony's milk supply.

It didn't go well for Fumie, either. While still in Cupertino, she'd order online and had delivered a futon for herself, but it turned out to be too firm, and she was quite uncomfortable. She commandeered my futon (the one I was borrowing from Kuzuha) when we were up for Anthony at 2am.

Eventually we were all up and ready to go, and at 8:30 the three of us went out for our first morning stroll in our new town. Our building is on a one-way street, which doesn't apply to pedestrians, of course, but I wanted to scope out streets that lead back toward the station, lest I ever need to go pick up someone in the car. There are a lot of small one-way streets, and knowing a route ahead of time would be smart.

Right outside the entrance to the apartment are the steps leading up to a famous shrine (Shorenin). They must be a bazillion years old, and are themselves famous enough to be written on some maps. There are some huge trees on either side (rare to find in Japan), and so the steps combined with the trees and sun/shadows makes for a different character during different times of days. We both whipped out our cell phones and took pictures (here's one), as I'm sure we will many times to come. Once I have the time to figure out how to download the pics from my phone (and have the time to do it), I'll start adding lots of pictures.

It's a bit odd trying to get used to always having a camera with you, or, at least, to get used to thinking to take advantage of it. For example, at one point while running around, I passed a sign advertising a store's opening. Like many signs, they used a large splash of English to be cool, and garner attention. And like many such signs, there was a slight mistake: the store's opening was proclaimed as a “GLAND OPENING” in large letters. Anyway, these types of mistakes are not rare, but nevertheless, I snapped a picture of it. Will have to figure out how to download from the phone. (it's here)

Back to our stroll, at 8:30, there was almost no one out and about. Most parts of town were probably already well into their day's hustle-and-bustle, but this immediate area, with all its famous temples, is more a tourist area, so gets started later, I guess. But five minutes out, we turned down a street and saw huge throngs of women coming towards us, in waves. It turns out that between them and us was a women's community college (along with a women's high school, and girl's middle school). The thought of a women's college close by brings a smile to an old man's heart 🙂, but unfortunately, this college apparently doesn't have particularly high standards, as the throngs of women we passed didn't seem to be, uh, cut from the highest standard of cloth. I wouldn't know how to describe it in Japanese, but in English I'd say that overally they seemed quite trailertrash-ish. But the area was beautiful, at least.

At one point we stopped by a small park to let Anthony run around. The park was small, but there was a slide and other play things. Of course, he makes a B-line right for the exit every time we put him down. It turned out to be across the street from a government-run daycare we'd heard about, so Fumie went in to check it out. She was gone for quite a while, and I passed the time chatting with the middle-aged lady who was tidying up the park, and an old lady walking her old but miniscule dog, “Andy”. They professed amazement at my Japanese skills, as most people seem to kindly do, and fawned over Anthony, as most people can't help but to do 🙂.

One issue that's been facing us is where to buy a bicycle. Everyone has them, but apparently they materialize them out of thin air, because we haven't been able to find any place close by that sells them. I asked the ladies if there was a bike shop nearby, and they pointed me at one not too far away, although to get there I'd have to double back toward the train station (the back-way path to which I'd found and confirmed earlier in the walk).

Fumie eventually came out (with good news — despite being government run, it seemed to be a very good place, and although generally booked up, she was able to schedule a half day next week — time we'll need to get stuff done, or, more likely, to catch up on sleep). We then set out for the bike shop, but it turned out to be a bike rental shop. We walked around some more, stopped for tea at a specialty shop, and eventually headed back home to where Mom had just arrived from Kuzuha.

In order to sign up for my Alien Registration Card (something I must do within 90 days of arriving — they look like this), I needed two passport-type photos. So, while Fumie went back to the apartment, I headed back toward the train station to see whether I could find a place to get them taken. I also wanted to see whether I could find a bike shop. At the train station, I asked at the info booth, and got directions to a place to get the photos, and a suggestion about a department store that sold bikes, but generally, they didn't know where a bike shop was, either. I paid my 700 yen ($7) and sat in the booth and got my pictures in short order. The department store bikes were lacking, so I passed on them and walked all over the Kawaramachi/Teramachi/Oike area in search of a bike shop, but for naught. I headed back home to be there by 2pm, for the 2-4pm delivery window of the fridge, washer/dryer, and microwave.

When the delivery people arrived, I was surprised to find that the elevator was being worked on, and was out of order. We're on the 2nd floor, and so pretty much needed the elevator. Luckily, they were able to put it back to working order quickly, just so we could use it.

The fridge posed the biggest problem. It turns out that it could fit through the elevator doors (with only the thinnest margin to spare), but the side wall of the elevator had a hand rail that stuck out, blocking its path. I borrowed a screwdriver from the one of the delivery guys and soon the fridge was on the 2nd floor. Getting it in the house was a larger ordeal, involving the temporary removal of a few parts of doors, but in the end, everything was installed just fine. It would take a couple of hours for the fridge to be usable, but just having it there felt so much better.

At about 4pm, Fumie and I then headed out for the ward office (like a city hall, but for the local ward, of which Kyoto has six). I registered for my Alien Registration Card, and Fumie registered our family with the city government. The ward office was unlike any government office I'd seen anywhere. Throughout our time there doing various things, no one treated us in the impersonal way government drones normally treat people — everyone was very nice, helpful, and attentive. To add to the pleasure, they weren't wearing uniforms, either — they looked just like normal, nice people. The lady that helped with my registration was wearing a big sweatshirt and baggy running sweats.

At one point, it came up that I had to write my family members' names, and I had some amount of dyslexia about what to write. While in America, we use “Fumie Friedl” and “Anthony Friedl”, and we have documents and such to back up those names (Fumie's green card and driver's license; Anthony's birth certificate and US passport). But in Japan, both use Matsunaka as their family name, and are registered as such with the Japanese government. Both their Japanese passports, however, note that “Friedl” is an associated name — their surname is listed as “MATSUNAKA(FRIEDL)”. This is different from a “Smith-Miller” type of name in The States — their surname is officially “MATSUNAKA”, but “(FRIEDL)” is there as an FYI point.

Anyway, amid my dyslexia, I joked with the big-sweatshirt lady that it'd be much more convenient if I could just use Matsunaka as my surname, and to my surprise she said that I could. After some discussion with her and Fumie, it turns out that if I filled out such-and-such a form, then they'd add something to my Alien Registration Card under my name (which is written in English, and as we know, FRIEDL is not necessarily readable by Americans, much less Japanese). Under my English name they'd write, in Japanese, “JEFFREY MATSUNAKA” (with “MATSUNAKA” being in Chinese Characters, as is normal for Japanese, and “JEFFREY” being in the phonetic katakana script, which makes it sound like JE FU LEE). (You can see the resulting card on this post)

The sum of it is that I can now legally use “Jeffrey Matsunaka” as my name in Japan. My name hasn't changed — I can use “Jeffrey Friedl” as I like, but Matsunaka is much more convenient. Also, I like the idea of sharing a family name with my family. It just happens to toggle between Friedl and Matsunaka, depending on what country we're in.

We got a chance to use it a few minutes later when we moved to the next window over to sign up for the compulsory national health insurance. As head of household, it had to be in my name, and using Matsunaka made it easier. Now every time we use it, we don't have to get into a long discussion of how the insurance is in the name FRIEDL, but the user (Fumie or Anthony) has a name of MATSUNAKA. As convenient as it is, Fumie had to chuckle when she wrote “Jeffrey Matsunaka”, as it looks pretty strange when you're used to Jeffrey Friedl.

At one point, we were asked what our (my) salary was last year. The government seems to ask a lot, mostly, I'm sure, to make sure that we have enough resources to support ourselves and not become a welfare case. So, I'm used to sort of rounding up, and including stock option stuff. That turned out to be a mistake this time, though, as the amount you pay for the insurance is related to how much tax you paid the previous year. Since we didn't pay anything, they could estimate what we would have paid. Oops. After some discussion, we revised the number down to include only taxable normal salary. I knew that I could cut that number by 50% and still seem plausible, and I know that they have absolutely no way of checking, but those darn scruples get in the way every time, so I had to give the right number. However, the lady who was helping us decided to round it down to the nearest $10k level, ostensibly to make a nice round number, but mostly to be kind to us.

I missed most of the discussion, but apparently she had a hard time deciding how to go about this — should she charge us based upon my US salary (the fee would end up being huge), or based upon the Japanese tax paid last year (zero, so the fee would be the minimum fee). Apparently, in the end, she decided on the latter, and calculated that we should pay $1,300, the minimum for three people, for the next year's coverage. Sweet!

We'd gotten there at about 4:15 or so, and they close at 5:00. After getting so much done, we were the last to leave at about 5:20. We felt great to knock so many big-ticket items off our to-do list!

We decided to check the yellow pages for a bike shop. I'd checked them earlier and found an add for a company that had a main shop, and half a dozen sub shops. I figured that they must be big, so we thought we'd go there. We called and got directions, and took a taxi there. The taxi we got happened to be from the “MK Taxi” company, which was lucky, since they are 10% cheaper than everyone else (who charges the maximum tarries allowed by law, as one would expect most taxi companies in the world to do). The driver was a woman, which is extremely rare. She was very talkative, but had such a nice personality that what would have been annoying with most taxi rides turned out to be a fun discussion among the three of us. I happened to ask what “MK” stood for, and as a bit of trivia, the answer is that it's the name they came up with when Minami Taxi and Katsura Taxi combined. Oh, and one more interesting thing about the taxi — there was a sign posted inside that said passengers wearing formal kimono get a 10% discount. That's a nice cultural touch. I asked, but it turns out that the “My Yahoo!” T-Shirt I was wearing didn't count. 🙂

At the bike shop, we had a number of possibly conflicting issues to resolve. We wanted to be able to transport Anthony, and they have methods that allow the baby seat to attach to the front handlebars, or above the rear wheel (behind the main seat). Having him in front leaves the rear for an adult passenger, or perhaps a large basket for carrying groceries. The negative point about having him in the front, besides the fact that it makes control of the bicycle more difficult, is that it can generally be used only up to about two years old (he's now almost one year 5 months), so we wouldn't get much use out of it.

Other things to decide included what style of seat and handlebars (straight-across bar, or old-style wrap around), how many speeds (zero-speed are the most common, but three-speed versions are available), and color. It turned out that there were many little points to decide on, including what kind of wheel locks, the kickstand, a handlebar lock (to stop the bike from flip-flopping when on the kickstand, when putting in groceries and/or babies), the kind of lights to put on, and the basic frame type. What would be called a “girls bike” in The States is popular here among both genders because there's no cross-frame tube (between the seat and the handlebars) and so the bike can be mounted without swinging your feet over the seat — a very nice feature when there's a baby sitting there.

In the end, after quite a bit of discussion, Fumie decided on what she wanted. Unfortunately, it would have to be ordered, and would be delivered in about a week. It came to about $370.

What to get for me was a bit more difficult, since I needed a larger size. The standard adult size uses a 26" wheel (and they really do use inches to measure, although they are mostly used as named sizes rather than normal units of length). This is a bit cramped for me, but larger sizes are not commonly available. They make up to a 28" wheel, but the store had none in stock. They did have a few 27" bikes, and I could try one. The 1" difference in wheel size is not really relevant, but the related difference in frame size is substantial, as everything is made larger. The 27" bike I tried seemed to fit fine, but it wasn't the three-speed that I wanted. I would have like to have gotten the same thing that Fumie got, except larger (and except not the forest green that Fumie ordered, but the sort of rich dark orange that would have matched my cell phone perfectly 🙂), but Bridgestone didn't make a larger size of that bike.

Somewhere along the line of trying to figure out exactly what to order, one of the shop clerks noticed a three-speed 27" bike off in the corner somewhere, and it turned out to be what I wanted (except was a boring silver color). I added a baby seat behind the main seat, a red LED flashing light in the rear (that goes on automatically when it's dark and movement is detected), a cable lock and a beefer wheel lock, and a little electric speedometer / trip meter. It all came to about $270. They installed it all for us, and by the time we got out of there at 7:40, the shop had been closed for 40 minutes.

Fumie took a taxi home, while I rode home what turned out to be 5km. It took about 20 minutes (an average of 9mph). I stopped by the local Lawsons to get stuff to fill the fridge up with, but still made it home before Fumie (who also stopped by one of the convenience stores). Anthony was, as seems to be usual, sleeping in the stroller by the front door, after having fallen asleep on a stroll with Mom. I moved him to his futon, had a shower, ate dinner, wrote a bit of this diary, and went to bed.

Continued here...

Anthony got up again at 5:15. While he played, I had a chance to look at my new cell phone (a Casio A5403CA — links: 1 - 2) a bit. It's so far advanced to anything I've seen in The States that it's hard to believe the US can be so archaic in its technology. It's got a 2.2" diagonal display with an incredible 180 dpi pitch. It has another, smaller (1.1" diagonal) display on the outside. It can take pictures at up to 1600x1200. I'll write more about it later.

Today was going to be our moving day; tonight we'd stay at the apartment for the first time. We gathered up most of our stuff into the car, adding a few futons we'll borrow from Kuzuha until we have time to get our own. The car was so packed that there was no room for anyone but the driver, so it was decided that I'd drive the car (an hour or so trip), while Fumie, Mom, and Anthony would take the train (combined with walking to/from the stations, an hour or so trip).

I arrived and unloaded everything. They'd stopped for lunch, and arrived a bit later. We spent most of the afternoon arranging things. At one point, Fumie and Anthony and I made the rounds to the nearby neighbors (above, below, to the side) to introduce ourself. Fumie had brought little boxes of Godiva chocolate from The States, which we presented. It never hurts to be nice. The lady next to us (we have only one side neighbor, as we have the edge apartment) was particularly nice — I hope we'll get to be good friends.

We still have no fridge, so how to deal with Anthony's milk during the night was an issue. (Fumie received her first call on her cell phone, informing us that the fridge, washer/dryer, and microwave would be delivered tomorrow between 2 and 4pm.) We'd borrowed a cooler from Kuzuha, and so Fumie and I went to a convenience store (there are two within a five-minutes' walk) to get a block of ice, and dinner/breakfast stuff. At the time, Anthony was sleeping in the stroller, having just gotten back from a stroll with Mom.

Mom went home, and since Anthony was still sleeping, Fumie and I had dinner (I had noodles from the convenience store; she had a fish bento) and a bath. Dealing with the bath was somewhat of an issue, as the whole bath, including the adding of water, is controlled by a computer with two remotes (one on the wall near the bath, and one in the kitchen). You can have the bath fill and be kept warm at the touch of a button, and things like water level and temperature can be adjusted the same way. The manual is substantial, full of a surprising amount of Japanese that I could not understand. I understood enough to get it going, but Fumie will have to read it for all the details.

Anthony was still sleeping in the stroller, so I brought him to the futon we'd set up for him. In what's supposed to be the master bedroom (it has a tiny walk-in closet) we'd layed out three futons all next to each other. Anthony was up against the wall, then me, then Fumie. He didn't wake up, so continued sleeping. He'd started to sleep from 5:30, so jet lag is still an issue. (It turns out that he woke up at 1am, going back to sleep at 3am for another two and a half hours before getting up for good at 5:30am.)

It was getting late for us (8:15pm) so we were ready to wind down. While still in Kuzuha, I'd downloaded a copy of the latest Survivor and The Apprentice episodes that a friend had kindly prepared for us. Each, at almost a gigabyte, took and hour and a half to download. But it was nice to be able to sit in our empty apartment with the computer on a stool, getting our Survivor fix. It was sad to see Lex go, but he deserved it for actually trusting Rob. What a dummy. And the look on his face when he wasn't gifted the immunity... it was so miserable as to be funny — Fumie and I couldn't stop laughing, and felt horrible (not really) for it.

We left The Apprentice for another time, and headed off to sleep in our new place for the first time.

Continued here...