We just finished moving to our new house in just one weekend. Thanks to the help of our pinoy friends here who helped Dan carry all the heavy stuff and Juliet's bf who donated a washing machine(that works faster than an ordinary one) and a decent light set!
We also bought second-hand stuff from an american guy who left for Korea, they are mostly kitchen stuff (stove, rice cooker, toaster, and lots and lots of pots and pans), and since he loves to cook he left us with lots of gadgets for cooking which I luuuvv!! By tinkering with the stuff, I learned that you can schedule the rice cooker on what time to cook rice for you. Just set its clock time correctly, click the "予約" (yoyaku, or appointment) and set what time it will cook. Of course don't forget to put the rice inside. No worries, coz contrary to what Lola warned, the rice here doesn't turn into lugaw even if left emerged in water for hours.
Adding fixings to the house is the easiest thing here in Japan because everything you need and can think of can be bought from the hundred yen shop. Like there are endless types of cleanser you can choose from like kitchen oil stain cleaner, kitchen anti-fungus cleaner, refrigerator cleaner, furniture cleaner, etc... and different types of hooks, basta everything! Just a few trips to the hundred yen shop and our house is clean and fixed, and you wont even see messy wirings.
To solve our dilemma with the lights, we found this light socket set from Bic Camera, it's a bulb socket with a pull string for on/off (wala kasing switch dito for lights, so we need that string), and we only plugged to the light socket on the ceiling. No fancy fixture, just that which costs only Y1000 and a light bulb for only Y580 and we now have a light for the other room! I learned that even light bulbs don't come cheap here because the only brands you can choose from are National, Toshiba and other popular Japanese brands which spell E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E. Ironically, the lights in the house gave us more pain in the butt than the aesthetics.
Also, our bathroom is changed to a more modern module from Hitachi, with a bigger ofuru or bathtub and a computerized water heating system! No more twisting and turning of knobs, just one click of a button and we instantly have hot water. The previous owner also left his airconditioning unit, so we're looking forward to one cool summer. Our verandah is also bigger than the usual, as in it's big that we can have a party there or set up a kiddie pool.
My life here in Japan is almost perfect. I have a house that I love to bits, lots of genuinely helpful friends and enjoyable get togethers, we have the world's best and most systematic transportation system, we don't have to pay for house rent, electricity, gas and water are all taken cared of by the company, I love the food here and I have mastered doing grocery and finding the ingredients that I need without nosebleeding from all the overwhelming kanji and thanks to Maila, I can now cook a gyudon comparable to Yoshinoya's!
If not for their work culture, I can live here forever, I might even get inspired to get serious in studying their language. Oh why can't everything be perfect!
We also bought second-hand stuff from an american guy who left for Korea, they are mostly kitchen stuff (stove, rice cooker, toaster, and lots and lots of pots and pans), and since he loves to cook he left us with lots of gadgets for cooking which I luuuvv!! By tinkering with the stuff, I learned that you can schedule the rice cooker on what time to cook rice for you. Just set its clock time correctly, click the "予約" (yoyaku, or appointment) and set what time it will cook. Of course don't forget to put the rice inside. No worries, coz contrary to what Lola warned, the rice here doesn't turn into lugaw even if left emerged in water for hours.
Adding fixings to the house is the easiest thing here in Japan because everything you need and can think of can be bought from the hundred yen shop. Like there are endless types of cleanser you can choose from like kitchen oil stain cleaner, kitchen anti-fungus cleaner, refrigerator cleaner, furniture cleaner, etc... and different types of hooks, basta everything! Just a few trips to the hundred yen shop and our house is clean and fixed, and you wont even see messy wirings.
To solve our dilemma with the lights, we found this light socket set from Bic Camera, it's a bulb socket with a pull string for on/off (wala kasing switch dito for lights, so we need that string), and we only plugged to the light socket on the ceiling. No fancy fixture, just that which costs only Y1000 and a light bulb for only Y580 and we now have a light for the other room! I learned that even light bulbs don't come cheap here because the only brands you can choose from are National, Toshiba and other popular Japanese brands which spell E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E. Ironically, the lights in the house gave us more pain in the butt than the aesthetics.
Also, our bathroom is changed to a more modern module from Hitachi, with a bigger ofuru or bathtub and a computerized water heating system! No more twisting and turning of knobs, just one click of a button and we instantly have hot water. The previous owner also left his airconditioning unit, so we're looking forward to one cool summer. Our verandah is also bigger than the usual, as in it's big that we can have a party there or set up a kiddie pool.
My life here in Japan is almost perfect. I have a house that I love to bits, lots of genuinely helpful friends and enjoyable get togethers, we have the world's best and most systematic transportation system, we don't have to pay for house rent, electricity, gas and water are all taken cared of by the company, I love the food here and I have mastered doing grocery and finding the ingredients that I need without nosebleeding from all the overwhelming kanji and thanks to Maila, I can now cook a gyudon comparable to Yoshinoya's!
If not for their work culture, I can live here forever, I might even get inspired to get serious in studying their language. Oh why can't everything be perfect!
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