First Day in Tokyo

So, we’ve been in Tokyo for 4 days now. It’s been an interesting few days to say the least. We left Kyoto for Tokyo on Sunday night. We stayed Sunday night in a suburb with a young couple who had just bought a new house in hopes of starting a family (the wife was a friend of Jonathan’s from the mission). Jonathan was put off by the husband however; he had lived in America for 10 years (high school and college) and was a bit abrasive with the way he approached us as Americans. It would be hard to describe over a blog, but imagine the smart-mouthed hot shot who was Tom Cruise’s rival in Top Gun, but Japanese. It was like that.

Anyway, Monday morning we woke up and commuted into Tokyo. This was the most incredible experience I have had since being in Japan. As we waited for the train to arrive, the couple we stayed with tried to warn us of just how cramped it was going to be in the small train car. The husband pointed to the uniformed man in white gloves who was waiting by one of the train entrances and explained that the man’s job was to push people into the train so the doors would shut. I laughed, not quite grasping what that meant exactly. When the train arrived and the doors opened all I saw was a mass of dark suits and heads. I could not tell which head belonged to which body, and there was not an inch of room from what I could see. I felt the panic fill my body as I saw the crowd in front of me squeeze their bodies into the bulging train car. Although I wanted to turn and run, the crowd, as well as the uniformed “Push-man”, forced me unwillingly into this sardine can called a train. I shot a worried look at Jonathan and yelled “you can’t be serious”. Before I knew it, I was stuck with a Japanese man’s bum pushed tightly into my groin and with my face smashed like a pancake against another man’s back. It only took me a second to overcome the terror of not being able to move my arms or legs (I’m a bit claustrophobic). The insanity of the situation soon sent me into fits of awkward and confused laughter that filled the otherwise silent train car. When the train started to move, the mass of the people shifted towards the back of the train and I was so tightly squeezed between two men’s bodies (neither of them were Jonathan by the way) that it was several seconds before I could breathe again. Jonathan tried to protect me from being completely wrenched, but how can he fight the forces of several hundred people being tossed about at the will of an old, rickety train track? I was later told that it is not uncommon to have a rib broken on a morning commute to Tokyo. I guess we were lucky.

After 30 minutes of being drenched with sweat and only being able to take quick short breaths, the train doors opened at our stop. We fought our way off the train and made a literal sigh of relief. Finally, we start our life in Tokyo.

The first thing on our agenda was to find an apartment or mansion, as the Japanese refer to it. For those of you who don’t know, we will be spending 3 months in Tokyo. For 2.5 of those months, a generous American family, which is vacationing in the States this summer, has offered to let us use their home, free of charge. This means that we only need to rent an apartment for 22 days of our stay. Because of Jonathan’s research and his extremely capable nature, we were able to accomplish this task within two hours of entering the city. We have a small but furnished and extremely comfortable apartment (according to Japanese standards) situated just a 15 minute walk from the US Embassy, the location of Jonathan’s internship. We are living in Roppongi which is an area of Tokyo known for its “nightlife” (this means there are several “gentleman’s clubs” around the corner from our apartment) and upper-end restaurants and stores. For 22 days, our apartment is costing us $1500, quite a chunk of change. It’s perfect though. There’s lots of light, and although it’s small, the space is arranged to make it feel open and livable. We won’t be creating any culinary masterpieces for the next few weeks considering that the kitchen consists of a single small burner and a small frying pan, but hey, I can’t tell what any of the food is at the grocery store anyway.

After finding our apartment, the next thing on the agenda was to stock it with food. The closest grocery store to our apartment, we were told, is in the basement of Tokyo Mid-town, which is a large building hosting store after store of high-end everything. We figured it might be a little expensive, but in the end there can’t be too much of a difference from grocery store to grocery store. We spent about $100 on two days worth of food. Yes, this grocery store was expensive, but so are groceries here in Japan. After talking with Tami (I will introduce her later,) I was told to expect groceries to cost about 3 times more on average in Japan than in the states. This is true especially of produce. I took pictures of the most outrageous prices. You can buy cherries for about $3 per cherry. Mangoes are about $25 dollars each. Roma tomatoes, that are about half the size as the ones found in the US, are $1-$2 each. Potatoes also run about $1-2 each. Surprisingly, chicken breasts are cheaper in Japan than chicken legs, wings, and thighs. In Japan 2kilos of chicken breasts will cost you about $6, while 2kilos of dark meat runs about $17. Go figure. We brought our meager bags of groceries home and cooked a small feast of mabotofu (tofu, pork hamburger, and sauce) and rice. Delicious.

After lunch we needed to retrieve our bags which were shipped to the family’s house that we will be using in about a month. We were a bit nervous to meet the Reid Family. Our only interaction with them had been through Kyle, the husband, and only over email. We didn’t know what to expect, and although we were excited about their generous offer to use their home, we were nervous about what kind of people they would be and what they would expect of us. Also, Kyle won’t be vacationing for the entire 2 months that we will be living in his home. For several weeks, we will be living with him, which could be rather awkward depending on how we did or did not “click”. We went to the nearest pay phone to give Kyle a call and he quickly invited us to his house for dinner and offered to drive us and our bags home that night. He gave us directions and at about 6 o’clock we set out for the Reid’s house. After getting lost and being about 30 minutes late, we stopped on a corner to give Kyle a call. He quickly came to our rescue in the family minivan. Upon meeting Kyle, our worries quickly vanished. He’s in his 30’s, happy, loves The Office, and was our friend instantly. The Reid house is beautiful; we will be living in luxury. Tami, the wife, is cute and fun. The four kids ranging from 3-12 are charming and playful. Jonathan and I instantly felt at home there. For dinner Tami served grilled steaks (beef is a luxury in Japan), baked potatoes, salad with my favorite dressing (Brianna’s poppy seed), and lava cakes for dessert. It was heavenly. Jonathan lived in Japan for 2 years and didn’t know you could have such an American meal here. Kyle took us home Monday night, promising to help us in any way he could. He also invited us over again for Sunday dinner. We are so happy and blessed to know the Reid family.

We went to sleep around 10pm in our bed that was described as “semi-double” on the brochure, which is really closer to a twin. We only have one pillow, and since tomorrow is Jonathan’s first day of work, I told him he could have it.

Jonathan lying on our "semi-double" bed. It makes for a restless night sleep for Jonathan. For those of you who have not heard Jonathan tell stories of me hogging the bed, you should ask him when you get the chance. He feels very passionately about it.
Microwave, rice maker, tea maker, and refrigerator.
This is where I create our dinners.
The bathroom is one big plastic room.

Mangoes? These are just $200 (move the decimal up two places to convert into dollars approximately.)
How about cherries? You can get this well-packaged set for only $100.
Bunch of grapes? $35.00.
2 Kilo package of chicken legs and thighs...$17.22 (Costco prices).
2 Kilo package of chicken breasts...$5.88? Apparently, the Japanese hate the breast...oh, the sneaky workings of the law of supply and demand.