Besides, I think first impressions are important, since they change shortly- so here what problems I had to deal with in the last/first 48 hours, which seem to me like one unbroken sequence of fast-forwarded events...no sleep, difficulty to remember people's names, names of places, locations ...loss any sense of orientation. Looking out from the car window, it seemed to me that weve been driving in a circle all day. This is a whole different world, to begin with. The greatest problem of all is THE LANGUAGE. Now, I realize how much words actually mean. In any other western country you could at least guess what all those signs mean...by the shape, color, font...but here you are completely lost- names of shops, street signs, food, any kind of instructions on any place, shop&object- be it a remote control, a pharmacy, billboards...all illegible!so to come back where we started:
problem nr 1:
FOOD I know what sushi is, I know miso soup, maki, teriyaki and green tea too. But those are the most "harmless" things you could eventually get...I have no idea what 99% of the food and drinks over here are e.g Vinegar drink or corn / red bean soup in a can... I just buy them blind-sometimes I get lucky...sometimes I throw them away, which leeds me to:
problem nr 2:
recycling I have 3 different rubbish bins in the flat. And of course, plastic and glass are supposed to be collected in seperately by default, so that don't count. Two have sings on them- burnable and unburnable, the 3rd if probably paper...In my opinion everything is burnable...I meanapart from metal things you could burn anything, right??? But I still haven't had time to read the 3- page leaflet I got from the agency concerning this subject and figure out where to throw away what...
...Mentioning the flat: as I said, 1st time I realize how much we don't appreciate our ability to read, or simply understand signs. It took me quite a long time to find out how to adjust the right temperature of the air conditioning, since all the buttons are in japanese, of course. The red button(in this case purple) is easy, ON/OFF, but for all the rest I have no clue, I just tried them all till it finally got warmer.
problem nr 3: WC
take a lok at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU_vNb_XkTM&feature=related ...no comment. Those "washlets" are quite cool...sometimes the flush button is tricky to find, but sometimes they do it all alone, sing you a song and the seat is always warm! The real problem is: Why don't we have those in Europe???
problem nr 4: bathroom
Why isn't a curtain for the shower in my all-made-of-plastic bathroom? Not that I care that much, but the toilet paper gets wet when I take a shower. Well, it looks like some kind of very thin rice toilet paper anyway, so it dries very quickly. Besides, if there was a curtain, it would basically block the whole one-square-meter bathroom so you would either be behind or in front or underneath this hypothetical curtain... so basically problem number 5 is that whenever I take a shower the whole bathroom is totally showered.
problem nr 5: fruits&vegetables are quite "luxurious" goods, you buy them piecewise, perfectly polished,wrapped almost as a present. A kilo of apples costs almost a fortune...
problem 6:
japanese banknotes are quite big, well, at least much bigger than euro! don't fit in my wallet! I need a new wallet!
problem 7:
how do i deal with this mobile phone the agency gave me...it's a bit weird...
Funny how, when they gave us the phones and the chargers the other girl was like: " So do you need to plug it in to charge it?" Because, well this is Japan, here everything is done by itself...They still plug their phones to charge them and don't use some kind of wireless electricity! Weird...how very old-fashioned is that! LOL
8: sliding doors
Whenever you go into an elevator which happens to us 20 times a day at least, the doors bite you in the ass before you make it in... No time to lose!
I could go on for a while like this...but those were some small domestic problems. Well not really problems, but first things to get used to. The real problems go much deeper than that, such as: When and where and how to bow? (whenever you greet someone) And how many times? And how deep? Do they actually expect me to bow? Because sometimes I try to be kind and bow, and they give me a hand for a "normal" handshake. But if I don't bow and they don't give me a hand- do I look impolite? And if it comes to an awkward situation- do I smile? Cause I've been watching them, it seems like they laugh when they are embarrassed or shy, not when it is funny... And so far nobody made any joke... And basically, they bow even when they speak on the phone and say "hi"...I guess we also shake our heads sometimes unconsciously, when the other party actually is unable to see us...And do Japanese feel as weird as we do when they are oversea? And does our food seem awkward to them as well? But what could they not like? How long can I keep a tuna-rice-ball in the fridge?...
And now another problem: BIG IN JAPAN? What are those Guano Apes lyrics actually trying to say? Who is supposed to be "big in Japan"?
AND last but not least, although it's been only 2 days, there are A LOT of cool stuff over here! Basically, I think there is nothing that you couldn't find in Tokyo! I love the drinks vending machines everywhere where you can get cold and hot drinks, I love trying the "weird food", I love how kind everybody is, I love the lights everywhere, the zillion of shops, the CONVENIENT STORES open 24/7such as LAWSON, AM PM, 7Eleven, Family Mart...the the the... the whole everything is just SUPER COOL!
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