Photo of the Day: Outside Pachinko at Moto-Yawata Station

Father Xmas Gets Behind the Blue Samurai

Photo of the Day: Cheap Beer Near the Station

Practically Giving it Away!

Photo of the Day: Statues at Small Temple

Fukurokuju (福禄寿) God of Wealth, Happiness, and Longevity

Heaven Comes to Funabashi

Sorry for the short notice but this is one event that you really shouldn't miss if a. you love beer, b. live near Funabashi, and c. have some free time this afternoon. Our favourite Funabashi bar (Danke Schön) has gone all out to organize its very own Oktoberfest! The event started yesterday and will continue until tomorrow. It's an early kick-off, with pumps ready from around 11am (my god, I love Japan) and finishes around 7pm this evening. So if you have some time, hope to see you down there. We won't be hard to spot - just look for two very happy foreigners swilling steins of Bittburger, singing: "Ein Prosit, ein Prosit; Der Gemütlichkeit; Ein Prosit, ein Prosit; Der Gemütlichkeit ...oans, zwoa, drei, g'suffa! Prost!

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit
Der Gemütlichkeit
Ein Prosit, ein Prosit
Der Gemütlichkeit.  - See more at: http://www.oktoberfest-songs.com/ein-prosit-lyrics.html#sthash.iImY3w51.dpu...Eins Zwei Drei Zuffe!"

Link:  http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20130919-00000066-minkei-l12

Danke Schön: http://ichixfuna.blogspot.jp/2012/07/whenyou-come-across-truly-great-bar.html

 

Ichixfuna Born Again Blog

If you were a regular reader of this blog, you might have noticed this is ichixfuna's first post since May. That's precisely when my first was born – a bit of a life changer is the best understatement I can come up with. So, for anyone who's in a similar position in this area, you could do a lot worse than go through the same process as we did - my wife pretty much organized everything, by the way. This post is a product of her research, knowledge, and wisdom.

Having a baby in Japan can be a smoother experience if you have the right support and are confident in the services you use. First, you need to find a decent hospital. A friend of mine recommended a family run clinic in Nishi-Funabashi called Yamaguchi Hospital. This was a brilliant shout. They took very good care of my wife throughout the whole process, providing us with a few excellent 3D scans along the way and making the final 'push' as comfortable an experience as possible. 

After that, it's a good idea to choose one pediatrician for regular visits. We chose one on our bus route near Moto-yawata Keisei station - Satou Kodomo Surgery (さとうこども医院). Check-ups are monthly and you get plenty of advice about the crucial first stages of parenthood. Also, painful as they are, inoculations are part of these visits. My wife kindly endured the screams and is already on her fourth visit of sets of five jabs. Thankfully, these reduce after the first few months – just a jab a month. 

Ceremonially, the Omiyamairi (traditionally held 31-32 days after a boy's birth and 32-33 days after a girl's) is one for the calendar. At the local temple, a priest will go through the rituals of welcoming your baby to the world and blessing them in the process. This is also a great opportunity for a photo session, as everyone dresses up nice for the event – even the priest was happy to pose with us. Nice day all round.

Next on the list is a full-on photo shoot. Part of the deal with the Yamaguchi clinic is that they provide you with a coupon to get a decent set of photos done. Studio Alice must have a deal with them, so that's where we had ours done. Our little chap was on his best behavior and he was dressed up in a beautiful kimono and posed for several shots, which we had the chance to choose from at a later date.

The final stage for us is now deciding whether to put our child in the hoikuen system. We chose where we are living now because there is one fifty yards from us. Unfortunately, and I only found this out after, that it's a bit of a lottery when it comes to applications; there's basically no guarantee that you'll get your child a place there – could be on the other end of town. With any luck, he'll end up locally, though. Either that or my wife will probably stick with full-time home care, which she's happy to do.

So, if you're in or about to start the same process we've been through, let me finish by saying despite the sleep deprivation and the loss of hearing through scream practice, it's worth every minute. And knowing where to get the services certainly helped to put our minds at rest and made the whole experience leading up to it and in the first few months go particularly well. 

Yamaguchi clinic: http://www.ywh.or.jp/byouin_annai/index.html

Alice photo studio:  http://www.studio-alice.co.jp/index.html

Moving in Japan – Episode 2

My first attempt at moving came two years after settling in to my new life in Japan. Stuck in my small, cockroach infested, fire hazard wooden box of an apartment, I thought it was about time I started looking for better options. An Australian friend had put it to me that we should consider looking for a place together. We decided that a good area for us both would be Nishi-Funabashi - convenient work wise and in an area that we both were familiar with. So the two of us went along to a small estate agents on the high street in search of pastures new.

One of the first problems that you will face in Japan if you are looking to move will be if you don't speak Japanese very well it becomes a far more complicated process. Knowing this, our choice of "Nishi", we thought, was a good one, as it's a fairly multicultural area (for Japan anyway) and so there would be a better chance that the estate agent would have some experience with foreigners.We were greeted with the complimentary green tea and offers of this place and that. The woman in charge – a confident, older mama-san who wouldn't look out of place as an izakaya matriarch - showed us some flats were available in a block just five minutes on foot from the station. We were asked if we wanted to take a look and we agreed.

We were accompanied by another slightly nervous woman in her 40s who had some command of English. She gave us some assurances about the place, telling us how popular it was and the usual spiel. We took the elevator to the 5th floor. We had a look inside – plenty of light, spacious enough for two. The best thing about it though was that it was clean. We were both ready to move, the place looked good, we checked with each other and both agreed that it would be a good option. So we headed back to the estate agent's to negotiate.

After arriving back, we sat down, waited with more green tea, and then declared our interest. The manager took over the negotiations, with the younger woman acting as translator. We said we were interested, this was translated, there was a pause, then the manager checked through her large address book. Running her finger down the page to an address with a thick red line through it, she declared surprise at something and relayed it to the translator:

“This cannot, sorry.”

“Sorry?”   

“This apartment already taken.”

It appeared that we had just missed out on this flat as it had suddenly been snapped up by someone else through another agent. The thing that was quite strange though was that the red line canceling out the address didn't look like fresh ink (it was old and dry and partially covered by old stains mapping the page). Oh well, we thought, that's your luck sometimes. At that point the manager relayed something to the translator. It just so happened that there were two identical flats in the same block that were available and if we were interested we could sign up for one right away. "Great!", we agreed. OK, lets go and take a look. At this point the atmosphere changed. It was as if someone had dropped a massive faux pas. We asked through the translator again if it was OK to go and take a look. This was the response:

“Why? You've already seen it.”

At that point, in these sort of situations, where you don't really feel that much in control, you could buckle under pressure and make rash decisions. Luckily, as we were together, we made the point that we wanted to take a proper look at the place and we wouldn't go any further unless we were allowed to do so. Finally, after some patient negotiating, they reluctantly agreed to let us see the place. And thank god we did. We went back and looked at two places: one was the most rancid smelling room I have ever been in – and I lived in a squat for a while – with four oily car tyres sitting stacked in the middle of the tatami room, fist-sized holes in the walls, and a broken balcony window, the outside of which was smothered in pigeon shit. The second one was just as rotten.

Of course we immediately said no way, even though they claimed the flats would be thoroughly cleaned if we decided to take one. We didn't even bother going back in the shop, as we got the feeling they had been trying to dupe us. We did have the slight suspicion that if you were a foreigner moving into this area, with limited Japanese skills and desperate for a place to live, this would be the ideal scam. Maybe a little over exaggerated but at the time it felt visceral.

We thought it might just have been bad luck, so we tried once more around Nishi a few days later. This time we asked my friend's Japanese girlfriend to help us and chose a very well known estate agent – less likely to have the same thing happen again. We went to the shop with a better idea of what we were looking for. This time, it's hard to comprehend what happened. Definitely one of the more bizarre events I've experienced in Japan.

We browsed outside the shop for a few minutes, looking at places within our price range advertised in the window – we saw it was busy so we we waited for a decent opportunity. As we walked in, the staff – a large, unfriendly looking woman – gave us the most unwelcoming look. We did the usual, “sumimasen” courtesies, and asked if it was OK to sit down. After we did, my friend's girlfriend asked to see some apartments in our price range. The woman got angry. Our friend asked for confirmation, all the time my friend and I looking on helplessly, occasionally asking for updates on what was being said. Suddenly our translator got up, said the usual thank yous, and said we had to leave. At this point the woman turned to the Japanese couple next to us and with a big smile looked to assist them in any way possible.

When we got outside, my friend's timid and extremely kind girlfriend was shaking – adrenalin was peaking.

“What's the matter? What was that?” we asked.

“She said there was nothing for you here.” she replied.

“What? Nothing for who?” we implored.

She told us that the woman had made disparaging comments towards us and that she wanted us to leave. She had said there was nothing, even though there were several places in our price range in the window. We went mad, at one point nearly steaming back in for an explanation. I caught the woman's gaze and she gave me a “What you going to do about it? / get out of here” look. My friend's girlfriend was livid, and she did mention the “R” word, but it would be hard to prove anything. Maybe she thought my friend and I were a couple and didn't approve of that kind of thing. Maybe she was just having a bad day, but the behavior of a member of staff at somewhere so well known was quite shocking. Anyway, it was enough to put us off more flat hunting. We both agreed to leave it for a while and stay in our respective boxes.

These episodes are certainly an uncomfortable reminder that some people will do anything to take advantage of those not in the know. It also served as a wake up call that if you are moving in Japan you should make sure you are thoroughly prepared, for you are likely to have some jaw-dropping moments, waiting to surprise you when you least expect it.

Episode 3 to follow.

Moving in Japan - Episode 1

With all the prospects of paying hefty key money (essentially a gift for the landlord), high deposits, and fees for all sorts of things, the hours of sitting in estate agents, filling out tons of paperwork, only to be let down at the last minute as the apartment suddenly gets snapped up by someone else, the hours of searching around for something that is not going to leave you broke for the next six months, but is barely big enough to accommodate your average XXL gaijin, the days of boxing, shifting and uprooting your life, and the delights of cleaning your old apartment from top to bottom and then being charged a month's rent as 'cleaning fees', welcome to the world of moving in Japan - it's not for the fainthearted. Here are some of my high(low)lights.

 

This will be my fifth move in ten years and the thought of it is as appealing as the last time I moved (around the time of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake). My first four years in Japan were spent living in the same apartment. I was living in Shimosa Nakayama (close to where I'm living now, incidentally – full loop), and I was living in what could be described as little more than a box with small, separate shower and toilet. For this, albeit being very close to the station, I was paying ¥70000 per month (about $750), and as I didn't really have much to compare it to at the time, I accepted that this was probably not a bad price to pay. 

My Austrian landlord had taken practically all of my money the first evening after I'd arrived – one and a half months rent up front, deposit, and insurance. He gave me the key and dropped me off. I'd just got here so I was too excited to care. The place was a lot smaller than I had been used to in the UK, but that was OK - I was in Japan! I wrote a diary for the first three months of my stay and most of what I wrote, reading back on it, was quite positive. My company gave me an advance on my wages to cover bills, eat and travel to work, and so I could keep up with rental payments, and so this helped me to get settled. In the small cluster of apartments in which I was living were a few other foreigners. I didn't really get to talk to them much, as they would come and go with quite high regularity.

After a while I got talking to one of the other residents that was living in one of the same sized apartments as me. It turned out I had been paying ¥10000 more a month than everyone else. So not only did I suddenly realise that the rent was extortionate for what I was getting, I was in fact being ripped off. I went to see the landlord about this and asked him to explain himself. He said that what I had heard was untrue, then showed me a few examples in his tenant book. Unfortunately, he showed me a few too many pages - “How about this, this and this?!” I said, pointing to apartments being rented at ¥60000. He admitted that he was overcharging me. I told him I wasn't going to pay him a month and a half rent to make up for the money he'd been taking off me, and with a slight grin he agreed. No “sorry” or contrition, just an air of, “Oh well, you caught me, but there's not much you can do about it.”

Looking back though, I really didn't have a leg to stand on, or at least I felt I didn't have anyone to turn to. Thinking about it I should've moved a lot sooner, but I ended up staying in his apartment for around 4 years, now that it was a bit cheaper – being close to the station and to work did help a lot too. Until a friend suggested we move in together, I'd never tried to look for another apartment. And so began the long, arduous trip into the world of moving in Japan.

Episode 2 coming soon.