First Impressions

I've been in Japan for 3 days now (I think, my days are a bit muddled) and so far things are good. We are in a little town call Toyohama, which is not where we expected to be, but it won't be for long. Our apartment was not ready, so we are staying in a part of Mark's boss's family house. Its an old farmhouse that has been added onto for many years. We are in the part that was converted to GEM School when she first started her business. The location has moved, but it is still used as emergency housing for her teachers. There is a bedroom, a kitchen unit, laundry, bathroom, and toilet, just not all in the same section. To get to the toilet or the bathroom - which is literally a bathing room - you have to go through the old school room. The kitchen is just outside our bedroom.

One thing I'm really liking is how all the houses have landscaping. They don't have lawns. Instead, they have trees, flowers and statuary. This is one yard that we pass on the way to the grocery store:

This is a little Buddhist temple that is also on our way. (Its also the weekly garbage drop off.)


Yes, those are little Buddha's wearing capes. This seems to be a common practice.

We are also really close to the sea. I don't think there are any beaches but there is a port. We should still be close when we get to our apartment. I like the idea of being able to walk to the sea every day if I want.

MLS up

Here it is. The condo is officially on the market. Now all we need is a buyer.

Whoops!

Life at library land has been interesting for the past 5 months or so. We've been doing a cross training of sorts between smaller branch libraries and the main downtown library. Basically, once a week we trade places. One person from the main library trades places with a branch library. Of course we don't do this all on the same day. There's a group of 5 of us that trade a different day, each day of the week. I've been given Tuesdays.

For quite some time my branch partner and I have been unable to switch, either due to after work activities, during work activities, vacations, voting, or what have you. This week there was no email or notices saying not to go, so I went off to the branch this morning instead of downtown. Everyone was surprised to see me, but I chalked that up to not being there for many weeks.

Imagine my surprise when my partner walked in 5 minutes later.

Yep. She had forgotten.

And when I made it back to downtown, I discovered that the desk scheduler had forgotten too, because it was my name on the schedule and not hers.

From home to hotel

We are going to attempt to sell the condo. To do this we have found ourselves a Real Estate Agent. She came over with a person called a 'stager' last week to tell us how we need to present our home in order to attract the most people.

Basically, we need to erase our presence. Anything that is personal or shows our personalities, has to go. The walls need to empty. Our red wall has to be repainted to Irish Cream. The track lightning needs to be replaced with a more traditional light. Colored bathroom towels are a no-no. The kitchen counters all have to be empty.

While some of these changes are expected, others are not. For some reason, my frog painting can stay on the wall, but the wallpaper trim in the bedroom can't. But we also have more time to make all the changes. We thought the listing would go live on the 14th, but our agent is giving us until the 20th. So until the 20th, I can still think of it as my home. After that, it'll be like living in a hotel.

Let the selling begin

Since the new year Mark and I have been discussing and planning how we're going to get to Japan. We have a lot of stuff to do and organize. Our contract has been signed and sent in, along with documents to start our visa processing.



We recently decided to try to sell our condo instead of just renting it. Renting it hasn't been taken off the table, but we both agreed that we do not want to come back to Texas, and keeping the condo will make that possibility more likely. So we're going to sell as much as can, including the cars and our home.



With that idea in mind, we started talking to Real Estate Agents. Oh. My. Gosh. We have so much to do. Not only do we have to de-clutter, which we are already in the process of doing, we have to move furniture around and re-decorate and re-paint our walls and clean. And not just minor cleaning, but super-duper, deep down, power cleaning. Everything has to sparkle, especially the bathrooms and kitchen. And it has to stay that way for weeks, so that whenever a potential buyer comes around, its ready.

So with all that in mind, we're thinking of having a cleaning/packing party. You come over to help us pack and clean; we'll provide some pizza and drinks, and as a bonus, you get to take a knickknack, or a book, or some other memento of us with you. How's that for a deal?

Japan confirmed

We finally have a date for Japan. Mark's soon-to-be-employer wants him in Japan on April 1st. That leaves us with approximately 10 weeks to get everything ready and move. Eep!

The Week Ahead

I've been staring at this screen for an hour trying to think of something positive to say. Last week was long and hard. Coming back from the holidays with a 6 day work week is never easy and by Thursday I was a mess. I'm hoping this week will not be so bad.



Some of the things I'm looking forward to this week are:

• a new RPG campaign that I am not GMing. Mark has got me into table-top role-playing games and I tried my hand at being the Game Master for a couple of months. But that campaign is now over and someone else in our group is running the next one. I'm looking forward to just being a player again and not worrying about plot lines and monster statistics.
• The next childbirth class. Mark and I signed up for a childbirth class designed for first time parents. We're learning more about anatomy and medical terminology and it is such a relief to get this information in English instead of Japanese. Although Mark is working on translating a lot of the terminology into Japanese so we can communicate better the doctors there.
• Picking out new title for the kitchen. I redid the kitchen floor with stick-on tiles a couple of years ago, but I didn't get them under the over, dishwasher or refrigerator. I just had no way of moving them. So the tiles have slowly been separating and sliding under the appliances. But we're going to re-tile the floor on MLK day and are looking at patterns this week.
• This could be the highlight of the week. I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday and we may be able to find out the sex of the baby. I think its a boy. Mark thinks it'll be a girl, but mostly just to contrary. We could find out who's right.