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Again I had a full day of training, so not much to say.

Bunny came to meet me after work and we walked home which was nice.  We stopped and had chips and toasted chicken panini because I was having chip withdrawal, now I feel much better.

There is a mysterious phenomenon here when it rains.  Instantly, every person on the street has an umbrella.  E.v.e.r.y.o.n.e.   They’re not the little fold up umbrellas, they are the full sized un-foldable brolleys. 

The odd thing is, if it is not raining, even if the rain has JUST finished, there is not a single person to be seen carrying an umbrella with them. Where on earth do they all come from?

I am thinking it might be a little like musical chairs…. Rain starts.. quick! grab the closest umbrella!  Rain stops.. hurry! put the umbrella down again and keep walking.

I am going to watch carefully next time it transitions from rain to no-rain, see what really happens.

I started training today, so really did nothing very exciting to blog about.  I didn’t take any photos either, which will make this entry very un-pretty.  I just want to write so I can form the habit and try and keep this up to date.

Maybe I will think of something to photograph as I write.  Or maybe I will just stick in an old photo….

My first day at work was not as scary as expected, and I didn’t come home dreading ever returning, so that was a good day I think!  Many of the people here seem to have been here for a long time, including my trainer who has been here over 9 years…. so it can’t be so bad.  I assume it is entirely up to me whether I enjoy myself ir not.

I will be given a monthly rail pass to travel to and from work, which I can use as many times as I like within the month.  Very useful as Patrick and I travel to Shibuya quite often anyway.  It will also save messing about with tiny coins and fighting for a ticket machine in peak times.

Although the trains are often packed full, I don’t seem to mind when I know I am getting off in two stops anyway, so the commute is an easy one.  Another lovely thing is that using mobile phones for anything other than silent emailing or gaming is not the done thing.  No more listening to maximum volume, irritating ringtones while women fish about in their handbags, and no listening to unbelievably dull details of people’s lives while they yell into the phone as if they are the only person on board.  Yay!  When are they going to bring in similar rules on Melbourne transport?  Are we just behind?  Or a nation of arseholes?

Our apartment building in North Melbourne had no options for recycling anything even if we had wanted to do so.  Here, we were given a full page instruction sheet on how to sort our rubbish and how and what days to leave it out.  If we get it wrong, it will magically reappear back on our doorstep to be re-sorted PROPERLY.

At the moment I don’t really understand the sorting system, or where to put it once we have figured it out, so we have a cupboard full of rubbish waiting to be sent out. I would just take it down the street and dump it in a bin, but the only bins I have seen are recycle bins, so we are at a complete loss!

I am sure we will figure out the rules soon enough, and although it is confusing, I think that whale-killing aside, the Japanese seem to have a number of habits we should have picked up by now.

We went and bought phones today.

We have enjoyed not having phones for a little while but figured we were going to have to get them sooner or later.

The phones are so clever!  Do so many things….

Patrick’s has GPS, so if he gets lost, he can instantly send me a map of his location so I can go and rescue him.  It also shows the locations of 7-elevens and post offices and so forth.  Very useful!

Mine has a tiny cat inside that translates into Chinese, Korean and English from Japanese.  Seriously.

I only wish it translated FROM english.., I think that would be more useful.  It’s cute either way!  He even wears different shirts appropriate to the translation he is doing.  Hawaiian shirt for holiday translations, Business shirt and tie for financial…

It will be fun working out what else our phones can do.

We also found another nice food hall today, which stocks Patrick’s favourite belgian biscuits.  What a find!  Very good luck.

…

I start work tomorrow.  NOOoooo…. I’m a bit scared. 

At least the location is cool, we already are familiar with the area as we go there every day, so I don’t have to worry about having to go somewhere new and scary.

AND it is upstairs from the food hall so I can stock up on hard to find foods easily.

We walked to Shinjuku this afternoon, and discovered a few dangerous things.

We are only a few minutes walk from a lovely and reasonable priced homewares store….

AND

Odakyu department store has the yummiest looking selection of food.  Now we will become poor and fat quickly.

We bought a box of moon-bunny cakes, because they had bunnies on and were pink and white…. And a little strawberry ice-cream cake.  MMMmmmm…

How is it that everyone here is thin?  There are so many places to eat cheaply and it is all SO GOOD.

We also went to the Metropolitan government building, but we left it until afternoon, so although the sky is blue, it was a little too smoggy to see much.  We were impressed to find that entry was free to both towers.  And Rialto charges $20! 

Next time we will go back early in the morning, and hopefully will see Mt Fuji.

…

Another thing we noticed on our walk today, was an enormous queue.  Hundreds of people lining up excitedly for no apparent reason.  It looked horribly like they were lining up for entry into a Krispy Kreme store.  When they could have been buying moon-bunny cakes!!! WHAT where they thinking?????

I got the washing machine working today.  It took a while.  I read the instructions carefully and managed to complete the first wash while I cleaned the bathroom… Then the second time it didn’t work, so Patrick pressed all the buttons and got it working, but it seems to be taking forever to finish.

Oh well.

I also got the drying whatsit in the bathroom working.  I’m in love!  It has already dried all the t-shirts and socks I washed earlier, just in the time it takes to work out how to use the washing machine a second time.  So clever!

I am very much enjoying all the clever high-tech devices in our apartment.  I don’t think I am going to want to live anywhere else now.

ESPECIALLY now that I have my lovley new slippers to keep my feet warm on the floorboards!

It is going to be very very difficult to avoid shopping in this town…..