{"id":727,"date":"2004-04-24T23:00:16","date_gmt":"2004-04-24T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2004-04-24\/727"},"modified":"2004-04-24T23:00:16","modified_gmt":"2004-04-24T14:00:16","slug":"getting-settled-in-japan-more-furniture-shopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2004-04-24\/727","title":{"rendered":"Getting Settled in Japan: More Furniture Shopping"},"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\nIn the late morning, Fumie and <span class='nobr'>I biked<\/span> down to the street with all the\nfurniture stores &mdash; it was her first chance to see high-end furniture in\nJapan. <span class='nobr'>She was unsure<\/span> still what kind of style she wanted to go with, and\nseeing all that was out there made her more confused. She, too, was shocked\nat the prices.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nShe did like one of the desks <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> interested in from yesterday. <span class='nobr'>It's a simple<\/span> flat rectangle of <span class='nobr'>a wood<\/span> called &#8220;Surian Batu&#8221; (indigenous to Japan,\nit's also apparently known as Eastern Mahogany) with legs. <span class='nobr'>The people<\/span> in\nthe family-owned store selling were very nice (as were everyone in all the\nfurniture stores we went to, some going so far as to beg us to buy\nsomething &mdash; <span class='nobr'>I guess<\/span> the 15-year-down economy has hit them hard). This\none was &#8220;only&#8221; $650, and had <span class='nobr'>a more<\/span> refined look than the L-shaped one I'd\nalso been interested in, but lacked the L-shape and the rolling mini file\ncabinet. <span class='nobr'>It also lacked<\/span> $750 extra dollars in the price, so had <span class='nobr'>a certain<\/span>\nappeal.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nMom had been visiting, so all four of us drove to Kuzuha (she can't be away\nmore than <span class='nobr'>a day,<\/span> because Huck needs to be fed\/walked or there will be messy\n&#8220;issues&#8221; that unfed\/unwalked dogs tend to have). <span class='nobr'>It's an hour<\/span>'s drive, and\nthe three had <span class='nobr'>a good<\/span> snooze. When we arrived and they woke up saying what <span class='nobr'>a\nnice<\/span> snooze they had, <span class='nobr'>I said<\/span> &#8220;me too&#8221;. Ha, <span class='nobr'>I wish.<\/span>\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nAfter Huck was walked, <span class='nobr'>Mom watched<\/span> Anthony while Fumie and <span class='nobr'>I went<\/span> out to <span class='nobr'>a\nlocal<\/span> &#8220;furniture town&#8221; where many stores were clustered. Some where huge,\nwith many fine pieces. What they all lacked, pretty universally, were\ncustomers. <span class='nobr'>I felt bad<\/span> for them. You'd think prices would come down,\nand perhaps they have, but they're still very expensive.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nOne very small shop was one of those that must have been in the family for\n<span class='nobr'>a long<\/span> time, and it was mostly <span class='nobr'>a workshop.<\/span> The gray-haired proprietor takes\nthese <i>huge<\/i> slabs of natural wood &ndash; I'm talking vertical cuts that\nare 8 feet long by 4+ feed wide &ndash; and turns them into rustic &#8220;natural&#8221;\ntables (reminiscent of driftwood pieces common in <span class='nobr'>California 40<\/span> years ago).\nPrices seemed to start at several thousand dollars. Fumie likes that\ngeneral style, <span class='nobr'>I guess.<\/span> Gulp! We'll see.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nAt one store I found about the best relative value <span class='nobr'>I found<\/span> for what\npassed as <span class='nobr'>a bookcase.<\/span> Made of\nsome kind of semi-hollow fake wood that seemed to be <span class='nobr'>a bit<\/span> better than MDF\nor particle board, it was &#8220;only&#8221; $430 after shipping. <span class='nobr'>The guy practically<\/span>\nbegged us to buy it, but still, wouldn't let us order over the phone, if we\ndecided later to go with it. <span class='nobr'>I took his<\/span> card and would think about it.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nFumie, Anthony, and I drove back to Kyoto, arriving around 9:30 or so. <span class='nobr'>I was pretty<\/span> tired, and we all went to bed fairly quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><i><a href='\/blog\/2004-04-25\/728'>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\/727"}],"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=727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}