Well, that’s what getting set up in a new place usually takes, doubly so for Japan. Fortunately the folks here are being very helpful and walking me through everything or even doing it for me.

Yesterday I toured the kindergarden, elementary and middle schools I’ll be teaching at with my supervisor. Afterwards we took care of some things at the town hall. He’s set up by local bank account and got me my inkan (seal) that’s used in place of a signature. It has the kanji ‘ta’ (rice paddy) on it, I guess since I’m “tado”.

Later the lady from the local electronics store dropped by to start the process of getting a cell phone. Yes, the sales person dropped by the office. Imagine that happening in the US. Alas I won’t get it for a couple weeks because I have to receive my alien registration card first. But I’ll be getting one that has GPS mapping on it from Docomo. Yes, I am a gadget freak, but having a cool cell phone is a perk of being in Japan. It was only about $140.

Today they got my home telephone situtation worked out, looks like it’ll be turned on August 6th. After that I can work with the local electronics store (DeoDeo) to get Yahoo BB (broadband) set up. Then I’ll finally feel settled in.

At lunch I went to the post office to mail my absentee voting form, hopefully I’ve gotten the info right on it, don’t want to miss voting this year.

Then this afternoon we went back over to the post office to set up a postal savings account. The post office bank is available all over Japan (as opposed to regular banks, which are usually local) and makes it easy to transfer funds to my accounts in the US for paying bills. It also has an ATM that speaks (yes, literally speaks) English and works with my Davis Mothan FCU account (the postal ones are on the VISA/Cirrus system I think).

Finally, I’ve gotten straight what my address is. If anyone wants to write me its:

Saka 170-1 Mukaihara-cho
Akitakata-shi Hiroshima-ken
739-1201 JAPAN

or something like that (they usually reverse the order here, but this way should work). Or in Japanese (if this works):

????????
?????????????????

Probably enough for now I guess…

[comments from old blog]

cyrax777 wrote:
cool hey Tad whats the time diffrence anyway?
07/30/04 22:24:03

Wayne haarbye wrote:
Soo - you’re there is Sunny Japan. How do you like it?

Wayne
07/31/04 11:32:29

Wayne haarbye wrote:
Well this only happens once in a blue moon. Oh- that’s right, tonight is a blue moon.

Wayne
07/31/04 11:34:11

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