Hello New Apartment!

Moving day! This morning I woke up at 7:00am, had the lovely hotel breakfast again, then packed and waited for my helper to come pick me up. My apartment had the gas contract people coming early, so instead of heading to the city hall like everyone else, I headed straight to my apartment. We got there a little later than the arranged 9:00am but the staff had already started getting the gas set up, and we just had to sign a few papers, set it up so that my gas bill would be automatically paid from my bank account, and pay the deposit too! Once that was done, we got down to setting up the apartment wifi, which included having to call the English helpline (super grateful that they have one!) to find out where to select the wifi plans and everything! It’s a pretty neat system where you pay every month for wifi, and I chose to use the convenience store paying method so that I wouldn't have to use my credit card so much (overseas fees!).

We then went to get my SIM card at BIC Camera! Turns out it's the IIJmio SIM that everyone has been getting. It’s a really nice deal because it uses Docomo’s network (which has the widest coverage across Japan) and it only costs ¥2800 ish a month for 3GB data and unlimited phone calls as long as they’re under 10 minutes. Super great deal so I was happy with that – plus they were doing a special campaign where for the next year you get upgraded to 5GB per month! It was also a good thing that I did my SIM card stuff today because it was a lot faster – I only had to wait 15 minutes for my SIM to be made whereas the other ALTs yesterday had to wait 45 minutes to an hour!

We then went quickly to the City Hall to get my bank book and hand in my work contract (I almost forgot about it until the other ALTs reminded me last night!) and then it was time for lunch! We met up with the other ALT-volunteer pair we had lunch with yesterday, and had lunch at Royal Host, a family restaurant chain. I had 唐揚げ丼 – fried chicken because I cannot resist fried chicken! After lunch it was just shopping shopping shopping. We first went to Cainz to buy a bicycle so that I’d be able to get around, and then bought lots of home essentials like shampoo, conditioner, body wash, laundry liquid, detergent, cleaning stuff, a metal rod so I can hang my washing out, tissue, toilet paper, and this cool thing that you hang on your windows/doors outside to repel insects! It was already getting to 17:00 by this time so we made one more stop at 7-11 to pay my Wifi bill, and then the post office to register my address. Back home we unloaded everything, finally got the Wifi set up and working (yay!!! It’s so good) and then I had to say goodbye to my lovely helper. We took some commemorative photos and I gave her some souvenirs from NZ. She’s honestly so nice! She has already invited me to a BBQ at her house next weekend, and she just made the whole set up process so easy and smooth. They really do try their best to take good care of you on JET.

I unpacked a bit while waiting for my friend who was coming to drop off stuff I had bought from another ALT friend (who had already left). He very kindly dropped off everything and then took me out to dinner at an awesome 回転寿司 place!!! The previous sushi places I had been to had always been the more traditional 回転寿司 and never the ones that whizz out your order directly to your table – so this was my first time at one that did that! It was so cool. Plus this place does this awesome drink called シャリコーラ which is like a fizzy rice drink? But it is so nice and refreshing! And so far the friend has not found it sold anywhere else in Japan, so I will definitely be visiting this chain of 回転寿司 many times. My favourite sushi of the night was the みかんサーモン which was a salmon nigiri but the salmon seemed to have been soaked in mandarin juice? Or mandarin syrup? It was just very refreshing to eat, especially in the summer heat!

After dinner it was just back home to finally sort and try to organise everything. Although I intended to sleep early I still ended up going to bed at midnight. There was just too many things to sort out and despite being tired, I didn’t want to wake up to a messy house! Probably the biggest challenge whilst unpacking/sorting was the whole different rubbish types thing they do in Japan. It was really making my head spin! Especially because some types of plastics are burnable in Japan (so weird I can’t get my head around burning plastic) and some are recyclable (like bottles) and some aren’t (hard plastic?? Not exactly sure what that category is) and I still need to buy rubbish bags to actually put my rubbish in, so tomorrow will be another busy shopping day!