Saturday, March 26, 2011

Sunday Recap

Here we are: another Sunday in Iwakuni! Thankfully, this will be our last day in the TLF. We got the keys to our new place on Friday and walked into a beautiful new house with no washer, dryer, refrigerator, dishwasher, convection oven, or master bedroom heater.

On Friday afternoon, we had our express shipment delivered and the delivery men were so surprisingly polite and gracious. They took their shoes off before stepping inside every time, unwrapped everything, and even put things away in appropriate places, like the silverware in the drawer and the pots and pans in the cupboard. When everything was done, I tried to tell them how much I appreciated their hard work and the manager asked me to sign a paper saying that nothing was scuffed or damaged during the move. I jokingly said, "Well, there are a few pieces of dust, but that doesn't bother me. Ha, ha." He took my comment very seriously and said something sternly in Japanese to his crew. At that moment, they all got down on all fours and started picking up pieces of lint by hand. I was totally shocked and told the manager everything was fine and that I was very happy with their work, but he insisted that the crew kept picking up dust by hand, even though they had just unpacked the broom in my shipment. So, another lesson in cultural sensitivity: don't make jokes about incompetence.

On Saturday, Joe got to leave work for a few hours (yes, he works on weekends too) to help me rent a manual transmission truck so we could take all of our luggage to the new place. The MINI is fun and perfect for driving on tiny roads, but does not excel in carrying luggage. So, we took our things over and there were crews in the house installing the appliances we bargained for in our rental contract. We now have a heater/dehumidifier/AC unit for our downstairs area (living room, kitchen, dining room), our guest bedroom/office, and the master bedroom. It was very cold when we first arrived since the weather has been hovering around 45 degrees.

After we unpacked, Joe needed lunch before going to work, so I convinced him to go to Sushi 105. It's around the corner from where we live, so it wasn't too big of a deal. The cool part was that each dish you order at Sushi 105 is only 105 yen, which is about $1.30 in US dollars. I tried seaweed soup, shrimp sushi, fried tuna sushi, crab, and we shared a few others. I joked with Joe that Japanese people must be lazier than Americans, because at least we leave our seats to get a second helping at buffets. Here, the food literally comes to you.
Sushi chef using a blow torch to cook shrimp.
We needed to go shopping for rugs and curtains for the new place and headed to YouMe Town, a shopping mall, here in Iwakuni. Shopping in Japan is amazing because they use a lot of English letters on their merchandise but only 0-10% makes any sense at all. I do a lot of giggling at English descriptions. For example, we went through the kitchen department and I remembered that our stovetop only works with magnetized pots and pans. I could go on about how upsetting this is, but I won't. Anyway, we need to buy new ones to use here and this red pan caught my eye. The description on the bottom of the pan is even better:
Weird! It did make me wonderful and rich feelings!
I was in fits already from the funny descriptions on everything in the kitchen department when we passed by the baby department. These amazing pacifiers were on the end cap of the aisle:
At least this could prevent kidnappings.

I can't decide which one is scarier.
So after our laughs in the mall, we headed over to a store called "Wants" where they sell wants and needs. In our case, we needed to buy toilet paper for our  new house. We ended up going with the store brand because this one didn't make me feel completely comfortable:
Please don't touch me like that.
At night, we went out with the incumbent communications officer and his wife. He had just returned from Korea a few hours before, so he built up an appetite for tasty Indian food. We went to Ganesh in downtown Iwakuni and the place definitely lived up to its hype!  We had a mixed plate of tandoori chicken, lamb and spinach curry, shrimp curry, garlic naan, coconut naan, a side salad, and a mango lassi to drink. It was a ton of food, and they were nice enough to pack the leftovers for us. I can see this being a regular stop! Thanks for taking us, Jimmy and Jesse!

Today I'll spend getting our paperwork in order and getting ready to leave the TLF for good. Tomorrow will be busy since we'll be getting our government loaner furniture delivered. We get to borrow it until our household goods (HHG) shipment is delivered. Hopefully it isn't too bad!

1 comment:

  1. Glad to hear that you are getting out into the"economy" and maintaining your sense of humor!!

    ReplyDelete