Apartment procedures underway!

Woke up at 7:15am, got ready, bought breakfast from Lawson on the way, and drove to school. Weather forecast shows rain all this week (though thankfully clearing up for the weekend), I guess the monsoon season is slowly starting! The music teacher randomly came up to me in the morning and gave me some Okinawan sea grapes! I’d mentioned before that I have not yet been to Okinawa, and that I wanted to try the sea grapes, and she saw some while she was in Tokyo this weekend, so she bought them for me to try! So nice. Managed to reserve tickets for Joe Hisaishi’s Ghibli Concert in August!!! Had the first period free so I had time to do so. I just have to go bank transfer the money to pay after school today. First lesson of the day with 2-2 in period 2. The first half of the lesson was actually really great! They were listening a lot more today, and they loved the counting + action game (have to do certain actions on certain numbers). We also practiced counting from 11-20 a lot more today, since they were struggling with that. We counted along in rhythm to the beat, and they loved it, and counted really well. The second half was a bit average though, cause they couldn't really do the interview game properly. I could hear a few kids trying and asking “How old are you?” and answering properly with “I am ___ years old”. 2-1 in period 3, and it was the same. 1st game was good, 2nd game not so good. They were also very restless today so it took them forever to settle down after the 1st game ended. That left us with only 5 minutes to do the interview game properly, but while we were practicing for it, their homeroom teacher made each row say “How old are you?” by themselves, so that we could check if they could really say it properly. 2-3’s teacher did the same thing, I’m glad we had the meeting on Friday and discussed things properly. 2-3 did a bit better in the interview game – more kids were able to grasp the concept of asking each others’ age in English.

Lunch today was rice mixed with vegetables, some side dish of stewed beans and veggies, and soup. Ate with 4-2 today and it was a lot of fun! The 2 kids who were sitting in front of me were literally nonstop chatting, they were so cute. We talked about what pets they have, what pets their friends have (some of them sound like they’re running mini zoos!), favourite Ghibli films, favourite Disney characters and films, everything! Other kids would gather round from time to time and join in the conversation. 4-2’s kids are all a lot of fun. Spent the rest of the spare afternoon reading and doing lesson prep. Went to the bank after work to pay for the Ghibli concert tickets (I CAN’T WAIT) and then went home. Went out again at 16:45, and cycled downtown to see the real estate agency that’s in charge of the apartment I want to move in to. Moving houses in a foreign country is so hard! In Japan, you typically need a guarantor, which is a person (there are also guarantor companies that you can pay for this service) who will pay your rent if you fail to pay it. This is probably the biggest/hardest part of the rental process here, otherwise it’s all relatively straightforward. The problem for me is that I need to check whether I can end my current apartment lease early, before my first working year is up (which ends in August). I also got a bit confused with the “emergency contact” and the “guarantor” bits. I’ll go see the BOE tomorrow though to see if they can help explain some terms, and also whether it’ll be possible for me to cut the current apartment lease early, and whether that’ll have any costs involved. The real estate agent gave me an estimate of ¥94,000 for the initial payment, which includes the first months rent, the real estate agency fee, insurance stuff, parking space, and the cost of the safety company checking my guarantor. The only other stuff I really need to prepare is the residence certificate (住民票), and that’s kind of it for now! After I finished with the real estate agent, I cycled over to a nearby Thai restaurant for dinner with some ALT friends. Had the papaya salad (my favourite!) and the prawn fried rice, which actually came with a small side of Tom Yum Goong, so I was happy about that!