Jan. 5, 2012 - Apartment move-in day!

By 9:00 a.m. the four of us and ALL of our luggage were downstairs to meet the real estate agent.  We loaded ALL of the luggage (reminder: we had 6 suitcases, 5 duffle bags, 4 backpacks, and a partridge in a pear tree) into two taxi minivans and headed to the new apartment.

We love it!  Drew did a good job picking it when he was here on business.  Though the "love" does have a caveat as there is a disagreement between the children over who gets which room.  Before we arrived, they both wanted the room with the cool sliding bookcase.  Now that we're here, they see that room is much smaller than the other one.  Drew took pictures when he found the place to email to us.  Here's one of the coolest room (tatami room) in our apartment and one of our backyard:

Meeting us at the apartment was the TGA representative (that's the company that Exxon hires to help their people relocate) and two representatives from the apartment management company.  The apartment management people, one of whom spoke no English, were there to go over the apartment inspection with us, give us guidance on house appliances and rules, and hand over the MANY keys.  We have two sets of keys to front door of the apartment building, to two different locks on the front door, to the garden gate, to the back door, to the mailbox, to the windows, to the trunk room, as well as two garage "shutters."  The TGA person was there to go over insurance with us, to give us some settling-in information, and to start work on our Alien Registration application forms.  We also had a person from the gas company, a person from Assist Solutions to set up internet/wireless network, and two people from the security company.  After they got the security system set up, they went over it with us, but we've already pretty much forgotten it.  Three times we've left the house since then and tried to set the alarm; failed each time.  I guess it would have helped if the explanation had been in English.  Oh, wait, it was.

The TGA person helped us order lunch from Domino's (her concern was for the kids; I think if it had just been me and Drew, we would have been expected to forge on).  Then we headed to the Shibuya (Shibuya is the name of our area of Tokyo) ward office to do our Alien Registration.  All foreigners staying in Japan for more than 90 days must register at their ward office, including the children.  We got lucky and were the first in line when we arrived, so the whole process took only about an hour.  Drew and I now each have a temporary registration form that we must carry around with us.  The actual card takes about two weeks; we'll go back then to the ward office to pick it up.  I'll be back again in three months when Lucy arrives to register her at the pet office.

We have to do Alien Registration first before we can do things like open a bank account or get cell phones because we have to show proof of registration before we do those things.  So after the visit to the ward office, it was time to go to the bank.  There we opened our Japanese bank account as well as cashed some of our traveler's checks.  After the bank we had to go pay the premium for our insurance.  Then because we were running short on time (we had two different people coming to the apartment between 5 and 7 - gas guy to replace a sensor and key guy to bring the kids their keys to the front door), we took a taxi to the subway station near our house.  There the TGA person was able to show us the grocery store and walk with us back to the apartment so we could hopefully remember the way.

Through it all, the kids were very good.  This must be rough with younger kids.  It helped that Greer had her book and Cooper had his book and electronics. :)

Our original plan had been to head back to the subway station after the two different service people came.  We were going to find a place to have dinner and do a little grocery shopping.  However, by that time, we (meaning the kids and I) had no interest in going out in the cold, the dark, and the unknown.  After all, we weren't too sure we'd be able to find our way to the subway station, and doing it at night would definitely up the challenge.  So we decided on Domino's again. :)  It's been a long time since I've ordered from Domino's in the U.S., so I don't know if they have options other than pizza, but here they have pasta, salad, soup, and a few other items.  Here was one of our key learnings of the day:

When we ordered ice tea out at restaurants, it had not been sweet.  When we tried that at Domino's for lunch, we got sweet tea (though not nearly as sweet as when you order it at a restaurant in the U.S.).  For dinner, we ordered the oolong tea and were much happier.

Thanks to Aunt Jen for solving the rest of Greer's book problem!  Aunt Jen is a teacher and couldn't bear the thought of Greer heading off to her first day of school without having read the first six chapters of her book.  She was one of the two people who found the first couple chapters online for us, and now for the rest of the six chapters, she's going to scan them and send them.  Yay!

Japanese word of the day:  Shibuya  (click to hear pronunciation) is the name of our ward in Tokyo