Life in Takasaki Begins!

An intensely packed and mentally tiring day today!

Today was the day we really started to get down and do all the set up work necessary to start truly living in Takasaki! It was an insane ride. The day’s schedule consisted of collecting our futon from Cainz, signing our apartment contracts and paying the deposit money, going to our apartments for the first time (woo!) and setting up home internet and mobile phone contracts.

The day started off with me waking up earlier than my 7:00am alarm, so I talked with my mum a bit on messenger call before waking up properly and getting ready! A very nice surprise this morning was the hotel breakfast – it’s just a small little business hotel for salarymen but the breakfast is so nice!!! I think it’s because in the past the breakfast I got at hotels were always bread and maybe a little bit of salad, so this breakfast in comparison was super nice (it even beats the buffet breakfast at Tokyo Orientation!). The dining room had a little area set out with so much food – I think it’s the home-cooked-ness of it all that made it taste so good. There was rice, miso soup, mashed potato salad, sausages, fried chicken, chicken drumsticks, vegetables, and coffee and tea! Talk about a deluxe breakfast! Totally did not expect this from a business hotel!

After that very delicious breakfast we had a little bit more rest in our rooms cause we all woke up so early. We then set off to the city hall at and got there early also before 9:00am! There we sat down at our assigned desks (No. 3 woo!) and met our lovely volunteer helpers for the day, who drove us to all the different destinations, helped us out with understanding all the Japanese, and really just helped us set everything up! My lovely helper was actually from Maebashi, not Takasaki, so we had a fun little time getting a bit lost around the city and backtracking a lot. But it was all good because I got to finally speak in Japanese all day! That was great Japanese practice and getting my fluency back up to scratch, but by afternoon my brain was so tired and I could literally hear my Japanese getting more and more basic and being tempted to fall back onto speaking English. That was an interesting experience :P

We first went to Cainz, a homeware store, to pick up our futon that had been pre-ordered by the Takasaki BOE! The set was pretty cool and included a lot more things than I expected! I thought they would only give you the futon and blankets, but it had sheets and pillows and everything really! We also bumped into another group and exchanged contact details with them so that we could have lunch together later on in the day. After that it was on to the Leopalace office to get my apartment contract, pay the deposit, and get my keys! The paperwork wasn’t too bad because it was just writing the date and writing your name. The upfront payment was just your first and second month’s rent combined – it definitely felt weird paying such a huge amount of money all in cash, since in NZ that’s never the case, but here in Japan it’s totally normal! The apartment key is super cool too, because it literally looks like those army metal necklace tags! I’m thinking of buying a chain and just keeping my keys on the chain there so that I never lose it. After the staff explained to us a bit more about the rubbish locations, setting up the wifi (Leopalace apartments come with wifi!!! The best!!! No complicated contracts and waiting hours for it to all work!) we set off.

As we drove closer and closer, I began to really like the neighborhood and what I was seeing! Especially because right outside my little neighborhood cluster is a really lush green paddy field, that was filled with herons flying around! And spotted a couple of dragonflies whizzing around too, plus a neighborhood cat! I am starting to love my new home already.

We finally found the apartment after a little difficulty (the streets here are always so narrow and tiny!) and entered my new home! It’s really neat – small and tidy, my bed is super cool (elevated a bit off the floor with storage space underneath!) and the electricity and water was all working and everything so that was one less thing to worry about! The best thing about Leopalace places are that they are all furnished too, as in they come with curtains, a fridge, washing machine, and microwave! The only main “big” thing you need to buy is the futon. We tried setting up the wifi as well but it turns out we had to wait 3 hours because I literally had just paid and started up the apartment contract moments ago, so we decided to do it all tomorrow after the gas contract stuff.

We then drove back to Takasaki station and met up with the previous Cainz group for lunch! They were at an electronics store setting up mobile phone contracts and home internet and the like. We grouped together and got ramen for lunch! I decided to get 冷やしラーメン though which is cold ramen noodles with toppings – it is the best thing to eat in summer. After lunch we headed back down the floors to the electronics store, where a whole lot of new ALTs were gathering – everyone converged there to set up contracts so it was fun greeting people and seeing how their day had gone. Everyone definitely looked a bit frazzled as there was a lot of information coming at you today, and it definitely helps to be able to speak Japanese as you have more of an idea of what’s going on around you! Since I opted to apply for a SIM-only contract online (using what I had used during exchange before) we left early back to the hotel, where I said goodbye to my lovely helper and made arrangements to meet early in the morning at 8:30am for tomorrow!

Back in the hotel room I packed a bit so that tomorrow morning wouldn't be a mad rush, paid the hotel bill with the money provided by the BOE, and tried applying for the U Mobile SIM card. But bad news alert! The application process had to come to a disappointing halt because they didn’t accept my NZ credit card! I was extremely disappointed at first just because it had been so easy to apply for during my exchange, but I think new rules stating Japanese credit cards only can be used have been initiated. The main thing that was starting to tire me out mentally was figuring out if I could get a Japanese credit card (which are notoriously hard to get for foreigners in Japan for some strange reason) and just not having a phone number ready to give to my colleagues when I meet them on Tuesday next week. But after talking to the other ALTs who were slowly starting to come back to the hotel, I found out Docomo now seems to do SIM only plans which don’t sound too expensive too! I think I will look into that tomorrow and hopefully be able to get a phone number and data plan set up!

For dinner tonight we all went out as a big group to have 飲み放題, all you can drink! Everyone was very tired and having brain explosions with all the information coming at you so they wanted to drink it away. We found a nice place that did the 飲み放題 for ¥1290 and ordered some food on the side! Their fried gyoza was super delicious. After that I called it a night and went back to the hotel a bit early – tomorrow is going to be another massive day as we are finally moving into our apartments!