{"id":724,"date":"2004-04-19T23:00:34","date_gmt":"2004-04-19T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2004-04-19\/724"},"modified":"2004-04-19T23:00:34","modified_gmt":"2004-04-19T14:00:34","slug":"getting-settled-in-japan-air-conditioner-install","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2004-04-19\/724","title":{"rendered":"Getting Settled in Japan: Air-Conditioner Install"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<style>\np.editorialf  { width:700px }\n.editorial    { color:#AFA  }\n.editorial a  { color:#CFC  }\n<\/style>\n\n\n<div style='padding:5px 40px; background-color:#444; border: solid 1px #666; margin:10px 30px 50px 10px'>\n\n<p>The text of this post was originally written in April, 2004 as part of\nan online diary I kept before I actually started my blog. I'd forgotten\nabout it until I ran across it in February 2008. I inserted it into my blog\nthen, assigning dates appropriate to the content instead of to the time I\nactually added it. Thus, these April 2004 posts show up as my &#8220;first\nposts&#8221; in my <a nocross='1' href='\/blog\/toc\/'\nclass='quiet'>list of posts<\/a>, even though I didn't actually start a blog\nuntil a year later with my first post about <a nocross='1' class='quiet'\nhref='\/blog\/2005-04-01\/1'>buying a car in Japan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p>There's nothing here of interest to anyone but me; I insert it here so\nthat it's together with my other posts (which are also of little interest\nto anyone but me :-)) <span class='editorial'>Any comments I add while posting this to my blog in February 2008 appear like this.<\/span>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<p>This was originally written just after we moved from California to\nJapan, so our days were dominated by jet lag, and trying to set up our\nlife and newly-acquired apartment. Anthony was 18 months old.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>\n\nAnthony slept until 5:50 &mdash; getting much better! <span class='nobr'>We all went<\/span> for <span class='nobr'>a\nwalk<\/span> toward the temples, but it started to rain lightly not long after\nleaving, so we cut the trip short. <span class='nobr'>One of the<\/span> temples has <span class='nobr'>a huge<\/span> wooden\ngate. <span class='nobr'>A neighboring<\/span> temple is known for its cherry-blossom viewing, but\nthat season has passed (although Fumie and <span class='nobr'>I visited<\/span> it <span class='nobr'>a few<\/span> years ago).\nStill, it offers <span class='nobr'>a lot<\/span> to someone like Anthony &mdash; he <a\nhref=\"\/i\/pic\/2004-04-19_07:55.58__00003.jpg\">loves the\nbirds<\/a>.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nFumie needed to go to the bank to take care of <span class='nobr'>a number<\/span> of things, so we\nall went together and dropped her off, and then the three of us (Mom,\nAnthony, and I) continued on to <span class='nobr'>a recently<\/span>-opened Jusco mall on Gojou\nstreet, in the Saiin area of Kyoto. Half of the ground floor of this mall\nis <span class='nobr'>a supermarket<\/span> \/ department store, and while walking through the\nsupermarket, <span class='nobr'>I was awe<\/span> struck. I've never seen <span class='nobr'>a larger,<\/span> cleaner, brighter,\nwell stocked supermarket in my life. <span class='nobr'>The coolers<\/span> of cartons of milk and\njuice and teas were packed 20 deep, and all in perfect alignment. They must\nhave staff on hand to immediately swoop in and replace <span class='nobr'>a product<\/span> that <span class='nobr'>a\ncustomer<\/span> has bought. <span class='nobr'>It was the<\/span> most amazing display of the bounty of <span class='nobr'>a\nfree,<\/span> capitalist society that I've ever seen.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe rest of the place (a total of three floors) continued along the same\nline. Every store was super neat and clean and well presented. <span class='nobr'>In the food<\/span>\narea, things were displayed in <span class='nobr'>a very<\/span> inviting way. one juice\/smoothy type\nshop had display of <span class='nobr'>a dozen<\/span> or so different blenders, each filled with <span class='nobr'>a\ndifferent<\/span> colored smoothy. Very inviting. <span class='nobr'>I should<\/span> have taken <span class='nobr'>a picture<\/span> of\nit, but <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> too in awe of the whole place, and also, under somewhat of <span class='nobr'>a\ntime<\/span> constraint, since we had only 45 min in the whole place before we had\nto leave to return home in time for the air conditioners to be installed. <span class='nobr'>We bought<\/span> some veggies from <span class='nobr'>a grocery<\/span> (again, everything displayed in\nperfect neatness and order), and some lunch from <span class='nobr'>a bento<\/span> shop. <span class='nobr'>The first<\/span> two hours of parking were free, so that was cool.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nWe made it back right at noon (the start of the delivery window), but it\nturns out that they didn't arrive for <span class='nobr'>a while.<\/span> When the guy came, <span class='nobr'>I showed<\/span> him the locations &ndash; we had four units, in three different sizes, going\ninto four locations. Each unit is made up of two parts &ndash; <span class='nobr'>a wall<\/span>-mount\nheater\/blower, and an outside-mounted compressor. While showing where the\ndining-room unit would go, <span class='nobr'>I commented<\/span> (incorrectly, it turns out) that\nthis is where the larger one would go.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nHe installed the wall part of the living room unit. This involved hooking\nup four hoses (probably <span class='nobr'>a coolant<\/span> in and out, <span class='nobr'>a drain,<\/span> and one that <span class='nobr'>I don't<\/span>\nknow what it's for), <span class='nobr'>a high<\/span>-voltage electric line, and <span class='nobr'>a low<\/span>-voltage\nelectric line. <span class='nobr'>All of these<\/span> run as <span class='nobr'>a bundle<\/span> through <span class='nobr'>a hole<\/span> in the wall, out\nto the compressor. <span class='nobr'>He got all<\/span> that installed (so that they at least got\noutside), then moved to install the wall unit for the dining room. While in\nthe process of trying to get the mounting bracket to fit on the\ninconveniently-sized pre-installed mounting bolts (the wall where this one\nis to be installed is concrete with wallpaper over it), <span class='nobr'>I was absent<\/span>-mindedly leafing through the work-order papers when <span class='nobr'>I came<\/span> across <span class='nobr'>a\nmap<\/span> of the apartment that showed that the larger unit would go in the\nliving room, not the dining room as I'd said. <span class='nobr'>He'd already<\/span> installed the\nmiddle size there, so oops, my mistake. Still, he was kind enough to fix my\nmistake (added 30 minutes or so to his work). Fumie would have killed me if\nI'd had them installed in the wrong spot. Thankfully, she was out with Mom\nand Anthony (Anthony got fussy as soon as the workman arrived, since he\nwanted to be in on all the action, but was being held back).\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nEventually, they came home, and <a\nhref=\"\/i\/pic\/2004-04-19_17:30.29__00454.jpg\">Anthony\nenjoyed watching the workman<\/a>. <span class='nobr'>He was here<\/span> for quite some time &mdash;\nhe left at 7ish or so, having gotten <span class='nobr'>a bit<\/span> more than half way done. <span class='nobr'>We did have<\/span> two working units (living room and dining room), but had no need for\nthem this evening.<\/p>\n\n<p><i><a href='\/blog\/2004-04-20\/725'>Continued here...<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The text of this post was originally written in April, 2004 as part of an online diary I kept before I actually started my blog. I'd forgotten about it until I ran across it in February 2008. I inserted it into my blog then, assigning dates appropriate to the content instead of to the time I actually added it. Thus, these April 2004 posts show up as my \"first posts\" in my list of posts, even though I didn't actually start a blog until a year later with my first post about buying a car in Japan.<\/p> <p>There's nothing here [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}