Jan. 7, 2012 - Target!

Yep, we found Target.  Well, eventually we found Target.  It's not exactly Target, but it'll do.  It's missing some of Target's stuff and some of Target's selection, but it has a lot of stuff Target doesn't have.  When we had been with the TGA person on apartment move-in day, she pointed out a store called Tokyu Hands.  From her description, it sounded like a good store to know.  Here's a link to the floor guide of the Shibuya Tokyu Hands so you can see what I mean.

But before we headed out to the store, today was the day our air shipment came!  It was almost like Christmas!  We didn't remember what we had packed in those four boxes, but there were definitely some things we were hoping for.  Maybe we'd put shower curtains in there?  Maybe more hangers?  Maybe Drew's bolster (that he puts under his legs when sleeping to help his back)?  What other useful items might we have put in there?.......  Turns out not much.  I don't think we did a particularly good job packing for this move.  Might have something to do with the short amount of time we did it in.

Headed out after lunch (where we ate our noodle soup bowls from Softbank, using our chopsticks from Softbank - definitely made it seem like we got the cell phones at a discount :) ) to find Tokyu Hands.  A picture of Greer and Cooper eating their lunch, practicing with their chopsticks:

Shibuya, besides being the name of our ward, is also the name of the shopping district around Shibuya Station.  We didn't know exactly where Tokyu Hands was located, just that it was in the Shibuya shopping district.  We took the subway to Shibuya station and then Drew whipped out his new iPhone to try out the GPS.  Seemed like a good idea, but the iPhone did not want us to go in the direction I wanted us to head.  Now, I'm somewhat directionally challenged and I'm not much of a shopper, so Drew had no reason to go in my direction.  But I think I really wanted to find this store.  After using the GPS for quite awhile, going pretty far from Shibuya station, going in some circles, finally deciding the pin we were searching for was probably some office for Tokyu Hands, we went in the direction I wanted to go.  And we found it!  I have to tease Drew a little here since it's not very often my sense of direction is better than his.  But of course, he wasn't really using his sense of direction.  He was using his iPhone.  Remember, it's just a tool. :)   (And I won't mention the first time we went to the grocery store, when Drew had us going the wrong way and I got us back on track.)

We didn't find everything we were looking for, but we found a lot of it, like a shower curtain, more hangers, and a bolster for Drew (you know, those items we were hoping were in the air shipment :) ).  We managed to spend a lot of yen.  Definitely a handy store to which I will return.  Again, the kids were real troupers.  No complaining while we searched and searched for the store.  And while we were in the store, investigating several, though not all, of its departments, only mild complaining.  And we didn't even end up buying anything specifically for them - but Greer does have her eye on a number of items.

Japanese word of the day:  mise  (click to hear pronunciation) means "shop/store"

Jan. 6, 2012 - Are we sure we really want cell phones?

Two language barrier issues from the previous days:  On Wednesday, when we were at Joypolis, the first activity/ride Cooper picked was virtual reality hang-gliding.  As we got close to the front of the line, one of the operators checked if we needed the English instructions.  We read those and were ready to go.  However, when Cooper and Greer got on, the ride operator, who was talking just to them and was the one who had given us the English sheet, went through her whole regular spiel in Japanese, asking "okay?" at the end.  The ride operator for me and Drew just showed us where the emergency stop button was and then asked "okay?"  The second instance was all about avoiding the barrier.  You may have wondered how we managed to order from Domino's the previous night.  Online ordering!

We have a lot of shopping ahead of us today.  There's the grocery store, cell phones, and what I think might be the Japanese Target (that would be a KEY discovery).  Since I'm writing this at the end of the day, here's a spoiler alert: that was too long of a list.  Who knew?

First we were delayed by the light bulb guy.  We had no idea he was coming this morning.  When we did the apartment inspection yesterday, we pointed out a few light bulbs that needed changing (seemed reasonable to have all working light bulbs at move-in time).  When he came this morning, we had a few others to point out to him that we had since noticed.  Unfortunately, he and Drew were unable to communicate.  He didn't speak any English, and Drew's list of Japanese words is smaller, I think, than the list of our words of the day to this point.  They ended up calling the apartment management company to interpret.  By the time we were ready to head out, it was lunchtime, yet another delay.  If we only didn't have to eat.

Finally, the grocery store.  THIS IS GOING TO BE A CHALLENGE.  The produce section I could handle.  I knew what most of the stuff was.  Even if I didn't know what it was (and there were a lot of vegetables I didn't know - but that's true at a U.S. store for me, too), I AT LEAST knew it was a vegetable.  For the rest of the store, I didn't know what a lot of stuff was OR what I was supposed to do with it.  Greer brought me a packet of something she wanted to make.  I told her that was great, but I couldn't read the directions.  I have a little cheat sheet from TGA with the Japanese characters for some grocery shopping words, which helped some.  I needed some detergent for washing dishes and for the dishwasher.  I had the characters for "washing dishes" and "for the dishwasher," but there were lots of other characters in the string on the packaging.  So I THINK I bought the two detergents I needed, but maybe it said "this detergent is for anything BUT the dishwasher."  I know what milk I'm buying.  This is a picture of my brand:

Maybe it's the worst milk in the store, but at least I can see that I bought lowfat milk and nonfat milk.  I think Cooper's out of luck on lactose-free milk.  Maybe he's outgrown his lactose intolerance.  We're going to be testing that.  Otherwise, I guess it's soy milk for him.  If I can figure out which one the soy milk is.  I asked Whitney, the Exxon wife I met last week, what she cooked for dinner.  She said she cooked all the same stuff she cooked in the U.S.  Maybe she does a lot of shopping at the international market?  Or maybe she's better at figuring out things that are close in the grocery store?  It's not just a question of figuring out the packaging so I can buy similar stuff to what I bought in the U.S.  The similar stuff, as far as I can tell, just isn't there.  I have no idea what I'm going to cook for dinner.  I suppose it would help if I were more of a cook.  Finally, we were ready to check out.  As the cashier rang up our items, I loaded them into our backpacks and other shopping bags.  We paid her the total, 16, 202 yen, which is fewer groceries than you might think.  She was getting ready to finalize the sale when she realized she was about to overcharge us.  She was VERY apologetic as she handed us back 2 yen, which, as near as we could tell, was a rebate for using our own bags.  Hmm, 2 yen.  Several more trips to the grocery store using my own bags and I could buy....nothing. :)   Then it was time for the hike home.  Here's a picture of us in front of our apartment door:

Unloaded the groceries, and it was time to head back out, this time for cell phones.  The kids have been asking, pretty much since we arrived in Tokyo, when they were getting their cell phones.  Also, what kind of phone were they getting?  Asking non-stop, the way kids do (at least, the way my two persistent children do, ALL THE TIME).  From the time we arrived at the store to the time we left with our phones was a total of over 4 hours!  I KNEW we didn't want new cell phones. :)   First, we had to wait for an English-speaking staff person (we had gone to a branch of SoftBank that we knew had English-speaking staff people).  While we waited, Drew, Greer, and Cooper played with the iPhones on display:

I read my book and started mourning my old phone.  Greer asked if I checked to see if a museum would want it.  Then we met with the staff person and decided what phones we were getting, etc.  Greer wants me to be sure to point out that the phones are iPhone 4S's.  He said he would try to get another person to assist him, but that he would try to work very quickly and have the phones ready in an hour and a half (!).  Exactly how good were my kids capable of being?  I made sure Drew had the papers he needed and the kids and I headed out the door and down Omotesandō street.  Most of the stores on this street were not for us (Chanel, Dior, etc, though there was also a GAP), but there was a souvenir shop with its building in the shape of a pagoda that was perfect for us.  Finally, the kids were allowed to spend some money.  Cooper picked a letter opener that was a mini ninja sword and Greer picked a fan with a tiger on it.  After spending considerable time in the store, we headed back to check on Drew.  Still waiting..... So then the four of us went to dinner, and finally got an email during dessert that the phones were ready.  Headed back, but "ready" didn't mean "really ready."  It was still another 20-30 minutes before we were out the door.  After four hours shopping for cell phones, that was it for us.  Time to head home, though we did get some nice parting gifts (including four sets of chopsticks with their logo and four noodle soup bowls, which dramatically increased the number of our eating utensils and our store of food) from Softbank.

Japanese word of the day:  hashi  (click to hear pronunciation) means "chopsticks"

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

Jan. 4, 2012 - Our last day of vacation

Today is our last day before we move into our apartment, the last day before we have to rejoin the real world and really begin the business of settling in.

We decided to go to Odaiba, which is a district on a man-made island in Tokyo Bay.  This involved a trip on the monorail.  Since we were aboveground, we got to see a lot more.  I had heard that many Japanese don't have clothes dryers but instead air dry their clothes.  On the monorail trip, we saw lots of apartment balconies full of drying clothes.  We crossed Rainbow Bridge (though Cooper objected to the name - he argued it should be called the White Bridge) to get to Odaiba, and we had a great view of the Tokyo waterfront.  The bridge looks especially nice at night, and you can see Tokyo Tower (though my night shot is a little blurry).

After leaving the station, we headed to Decks Toyko Beach to look for a good lunch location.  While wandering around, we spotted this:

Anybody want to guess who kept bugging us to go there once we'd seen it (it's an indoor amusement park with arcade games - kind of iT'Z on steroids)?  We told Cooper we'd stop by there at the end of the day, and so he kept asking us when that would be.  For lunch, we decided on a Japanese restaurant that served shabu shabu.  Shabu shabu is a Japanese variation of hot pot.  The first couple of courses were not big hits (to put it mildly), but everybody liked the main course.  We were brought thinly sliced meat and vegetables, as well as rice and dipping sauces.  Then we cooked the meat and vegetables ourselves at the table.  It was very good!  Our chopsticks ability, though, is still quite low.

We then headed toward the Miraikan (the National Museum of Emerging Science), enjoying the stroll, despite the cold and windy weather.  I'm sure that area is quite crowded in pleasant weather.  On our walk, we thought perhaps we'd ended up in New York City:

The museum was interesting - there were exhibits about robots, environmental issues, space exploration, and more.  Greer wanted to make sure this photo was included:

For those worried about Cooper, yes, we did go to Sega Joypolis after the museum.

Thanks to Aunt Jen and to Lori for finding a place online where Greer can read the first few chapters of her book online!  Maybe we won't be on the "bad parent" list now!

Japanese word of the day:  go  (click to hear pronunciation) means "five"

Jan. 3, 2012

Well, we had lunch at Burger King today.  I thought it would be a lot longer before I wrote those words.  We decided to take the kids to a movie, getting there took a little longer than we thought, and there was a Burger King just as we exited the subway.  Fast, convenient, and, compared to many of our other meals, not expensive (though I can't say "cheap").

I wanted to take a picture of the menu, but it couldn't be seen clearly with the kids in the picture, so I took two:

The cinema was quite crowded, probably due to the New Year's holiday.  As I mentioned earlier, New Year's is an important holiday in Japan.  Many businesses close down for several days around New Year's.  TGA, the company that works with Exxon families to help them relocate, is closed from Dec. 28 to Jan. 3, and the management company for our apartment is closed through Jan. 4; hence our move-in date of Jan. 5.  Here's where Drew experienced a problem with cross-cultural communication.  Drew realized that TGA was back in the office a day before the realty management company, so he thought we might be able to move in a day earlier.  He proposed this, TGA came back with why they thought it might not be a good idea, he replied to their concern, they came back with a different concern, etc.  After an exchange of several emails, he finally realized they were trying to tell him "no" without actually saying "no."  Then he thanked them for looking out for him and said Jan. 5 was an excellent move-in day. :)

We had checked out the movies in advance and picked one of the movies in English - Real Steel.  The Adventures of Tintin was also playing in English, but we had seen that over Christmas break in Ohio.  Purchasing our tickets we came across something new:  we were asked where we wanted to sit in the theater.  We were given tickets with specific aisle and seat numbers on them.  Another note about purchasing the tickets: Drew first went to the hotel concierge to see if we could book the tickets online ahead of time.  But we couldn't because you have to be a resident and put in your home address.  No fly-by-night movie ticket purchases!

As we came out of the theater, we heard a drum beat start up.  Lucky us!  We were just about to witness a performance on the Japanese drums.

After the performance, some of the performers were talking to members of the audience, so we asked one if she spoke English.  She didn't, but her friend did.  That's how we found out it they were called Japanese drums, or taiko, and we found out the name of their group, Wadaiko Dojo Dondoko.  We took a short video of part of the performance, but the quality of our video was so poor that we decided not to upload it to the blog.  Instead, here's a link to a YouTube video of this same group performing in the same location on Jan. 1.  They performed there Jan. 1, 2, and 3 as part of the New Year celebration.  (I guess the person who did this video is working with slightly better equipment than my old point-and-shoot camera. :) )

Then we wandered around the area a little more and found a very large Starbucks that was also a bookstore.  They had a small English section, but no luck on Greer's book.  We also came across this pond that was home to Space Medaka, which, according to the English sign, are descendants of fish born in space during a 1994 space shuttle flight.  Of course, we couldn't read the Japanese above the English, and it might have been talking about the joke played on the gaijin. :)  (Though I did find this info about Space Medaka (click here) online.)

Then we stopped for dinner at an Asian restaurant.  Everybody picked a dish and we all shared, which was good since every dish arrived at a different time.  We had steamed soup buns, stir-fried shrimp with chili sauce, fried rice with spiny lobster and asparagus, and shredded beef with bell peppers.  I had to list them because it was amazing that everybody (read: "Cooper") liked everything.  We even all liked the jasmine tea.

Japanese word of the day:  shi  (click to hear pronunciation) means "four"
Note about this word of the day:  Four is considered an unlucky number in Japan because shi has the same pronunciation as death.

Jan. 2, 2012

Thanks to Nick and Maren for letting us know the right way to say "Happy New Year."  Among friends, it's "Akemashite omedetou."  More formally, it's "Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu."  (Click here for pronunciation.)

Also, I meant to include a link to another blog when I sent out that mass email earlier.  When we announced our transfer to Tokyo, questions about our trip to Kenya this summer immediately dried up.  We never got to share (bore) most of you with our pictures (and there were literally thousands of them).  Well, my sister-in-law (also named Jen, but with the last name Donnalley) wrote a blog about the family safari.  It's at donnalleyfamilysafari.blogspot.com.  Check it out if you get a chance.  It was an amazing trip.

Kindle mishaps:  First, Greer left her Kindle on the plane when we landed in Tokyo (in her defense, I have to point out that she WAS sleeping).  However, we called the airline the next day, they had it, and they sent it to our hotel (740 yen for the delivery, quite the deal).
Second mishap:  I relied too much on the fact that she had a Kindle.  ASIJ (American School in Japan) sent us an email in December about the first day of school in January.  In the email, they recommended we obtain a copy of The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson and have Greer read the first 6 chapters.  Well, as you might imagine, December was somewhat busy, so I just told myself we'd buy the book for her Kindle when we had the chance.  Today, I had the chance.  Only it's not available on the Kindle.  Or the Nook.  And I can't really get it shipped to us in the next few days.  And the English-section of the bookstores here aren't very large (not that we were expecting them to be).  So I think we'll be showing up Monday at school as "bad parents who don't make sure their children do their homework."  Hopefully, we won't be the only ones?


On the positive side, today we made our first friends here in Tokyo.  One of Drew's Exxon colleagues, Rodney Webb, and his family moved here in August.  This is their second stint in Tokyo after a couple of years in Houston.  We met them near their house in Akasaka, close by Roppongi Hills, and took the subway to Hibiya-Koen, a very nice park.  There are a lot of gingko trees in the park, which I was told look amazing in the fall when the leaves change color.  They have 3 children, a boy in 3rd grade and 2 girls in 5th and 7th grades, which fits quite well with our 4th and 6th graders.  The kids played on the playground equipment while the adults talked, at least until we all got too cold.  Then we headed back towards their house, with a stop at a grocery store, where Whitney helped us find the detergent (grocery shopping is definitely going to be a challenge).  We need to do laundry as soon as we move into our apartment.  As you might guess from the iced tea story, we would rather wear quite dirty clothes before we do any laundry at the hotel.  We visited at their house for awhile, had dinner, and then headed back to the hotel.    

We forgot to take any pictures today. :(

Japanese word of the day:  san  (click to hear pronunciation) means "three"

Jan. 1, 2012 - Happy New Year!

Today was a quiet day.  We worked on getting the blog started.  The video of the hotel room proved to be quite a challenge as it was so long, but our technical person figured out how to lower the resolution so that we could post it (that was after a lot of time spent dividing it into multiple files as an alternative). 

We asked at the hotel desk about a place close by we could go for lunch.  However, since it was New Year's Day, most places near the hotel were closed (or at least the places the hotel would send guests were closed).  Rather than spending the time to take the subway, we decided to just have lunch in one of the hotel's restaurants.  Talk about sticker shock!  Exxon pays for us to stay in a pretty nice hotel, but the food is on us, and a pretty nice hotel (especially in Tokyo) has expensive food.  My mom nearly had a heart attack when I told her the price of the lunch, so maybe here I should just mention the price of one of the items.  We already knew (from Drew's previous trips) that a soda in the restaurant was around 950 yen (about $13).  We avoided the soda and ordered ice teas instead.  Want to guess how much an iced tea was?  1350 yen!  We had never had $18 iced teas before!  Note: Drew saw that they poured it out of a box and didn't actually make the iced tea.  We think we'll stick with the water.  In the interest of a balanced story, we should say that it was a very good iced tea.

We did decide to go out for dinner.  The concierge found us an Italian restaurant in Roppongi Hills, an area of Tokyo where some of the Exxon families live.  Dinner was about the same price as lunch, but we got a lot more food.  And an ice tea was only 400 yen.  But don't expect free refills - Jen and Greer got seconds of their hot tea, and there were four hot teas on our bill.

Here's Greer and Cooper outside the restaurant:

Here's one of the very helpful subway signs.  Without them, we'd never get to where we want to go.

Japanese word of the day:  ni  (click to hear pronunciation) means "two"

We also wanted to include a Japanese phrase for today to say "Happy New Year."  However, it was beyond our abilities to figure out what phrase to use.  You can click on "Happy New Year" for a link to one of the pages we found with various expressions.