We moved here from Washington D.C. on November 17, 2007. KL is a new Tokyo based correspondent. I am her fiancé. I have no job but do have the world laid out before me. KL makes enough for me not to work, although I do hope to pick up a paycheck or two along the way.
The flight to Japan is 14 hours long and feels about that long. But before we boarded, we got our place in D.C. packed up by members straight from central casting. Maud shook my hand, introducing Junior, his friend Jeff, and "Up there in the truck, there's Senior." A family of movers with a friend along for the ride would be packing up our life. The first day they packed up most of our stuff into three categories: storage, air freight, and sea freight. KL and I went out for a great steak over at Ruth's Chris to celebrate our last few nights in America. The rest of the night was not so nice. We slept on the remaining bed with no pillows, no blankets, and no sheets. She bundled up in my packing pants and her superman jacket, one of my sweaters rolled up under her head for a pillow. I did much the same; my travel pillow pulled out and my jacket turned into a blanket.
The next day Manny, Mo, and Jack came back and packed up the rest of the belongings de la Tuggle. When all was said and done, we drove into town in the Kerley's Honda minivan to pick up O.J., the editor/shooter who's putting together a new reporter tape for me. He met us on the corner of 16th and Eye Street in front of an Au Bon Pain. A few fixes later and we were off to pick up reporter extraordinaire, David Kerley, at his bureau. Traffic was a nightmare, but we made it to McLean, VA with little trouble. Dave and I sat about drinking and talking while Janet and KL went out for the food. Dave told me he envied the chance to check out and experience a new world without the pressure of paying the bills. I know what he means. It is just shy of great.
For dinner, I pulled out the best bottle of wine I know of (Dead Arm) and we all shared in it. Dave snoozed over the after dinner conversation and we finally headed off to bed. We were mere hours away from saying goodbye to the country we've called home for more than 30 years. In the middle of the night, I got up to use the restroom. As I stood before my half-dome of relief, my private time was interrupted by a crash, bang, boom, ouf, clunk! When nature has finally run its course, I tentatively opened the door. The light in the hall had just gone off and left me blind.
"Anybody need any help?" I asked. The light flipped back on.
"Did someone fall down the stairs?" asked a visibly confused Janet.
"Well, I didn't," is all I say, knowing full well it's just the kind of thing that could happen to my lovely, soon-to-be wife. I'm worried at this point, but I see the Kerley's dog hovering near the top of the stairs. Maybe Belle made all that noise, I think. She's an excitable dog. So I slowly walked to the dark bedroom only to find a too-empty bed.
"Shit! Where's KL?" Then she walked up behind me, seemingly OK. I asked her the
obvious, "Did you fall down the stairs?" Yes, yes she did. KL decided she needed to go to the restroom, too, and she wasn't going to wait on me to finish. So she got up and started walking down the stairs to the bathroom on the first floor. The only problem was that she was sleepy, wearing socks and trying to climb down an uncarpeted wooden staircase. She showed me her scratched thumb. Crazy good luck. I thought she might be really injured. I was very worried about her.
The next day, we went to the airport with Dave and Janet. He was off to Chicago for a fundraiser. We were off to Japan. KL took a sleeping pill on the plane and it sort of worked but I just stayed up watching bad airplane movies. United sucks. Not only did they not seat us together (leaving us to swap seats on our own), the food was very average, the service matched the fare, and the seats just aren't that comfortable. But it was the only nonstop from D.C. to Tokyo's Narita airport. So we took it.
14 hours later (have I mentioned it feels like it?) we landed and found our taxi driver wearing a hat bearing the name of KL's new job.
"Are you Mister Lah?" he asked.
My proud answer, "Yes!" He had iced coffees for us in the car and barely enough room for the 7 pieces of baggage we dragged off the plane. An hour and a half later, we stumbled, tired and weary from the trip, into the Oakwood corporate housing of Tokyo. The company set us up in a very spacious, fully furnished one bedroom apartment on the 11th floor of this earthquake-prone city. There is a flat screen, a huge rice cooker, a coffee maker, knives, spoons, chopsticks, plates, pots, and a radio. We have to take our shoes off to walk around in the apartment – it's a very old Japanese tradition. Our toilet performs more functions than the cars we left in the States. It warms the seat, sprays water on your butt in normal and soft speed, is a bidet, controls the pressure and position of said water, will blow your wet butt dry, and add a bit of perfume to said-sometimes unmentionables. The shower room is much the same. There is a normal shower, a self-filling tub, and reheat button for said tub, a cool breeze, heater, ventilator, and dryer function for the room itself. I don't know how to work most of the functions, but today I did manage to scald myself in the self-filling tub with water around 45 degrees Celsius. I am not that good at making the conversions yet. But I'm burning… no learning, one day at a time.
We also have the smallest oven, washer/dryer combo, and dishwasher either of us has seen. They build them small here in Japan. Space is at a premium and you can tell.
We slept hard that first night, but I got up just in time to tune my Apple Mac Book to the Slingbox/TiVo combo I have hooked up in Atlanta and watch the University of Georgia play some ball. The Dawgs won! We beat Kentucky and are waiting for Tennessee to drop one so we can go to Atlanta and play for the S.E.C. conference championship against L.S.U.
That same day, KL watched the Grey's Anatomy I taped for her and she was oh-so-happy. Our new motto is, "We love technology. It will keep us sane." I taped a few games and will watch them through the week. I am totally digging the whole TiVo experience right now and Slingbox just kicks ass. It allows you to watch TV anywhere in the world that you have a high-speed Internet connection and a computer. I have watched American TV in Jordan, Pakistan, and, of course, The Land of the Rising Sun.
Or should I say The Land of the Early Setting Sun? In the winter the sun starts to go down at 2 p.m. I'm watching the sun go down from our terrace right now and it is just thirty minutes shy of three o'clock. The pink sun is reflecting off the glass buildings before me.
On Sunday, we went out for lunch (since we slept though breakfast) and stopped off at the grocery store. We bought what ended up being about $100 of groceries. Didn't look like much when we got it home. We had 5 fat big grocery bags worth of food, but US money doesn't go very far over here.
Tokyo is one of the top 5 most expensive cities to live in, and so far it feels that way. It took us forever to choose what to buy at the store. You can sort of figure it out, but it takes about twice as long since very little of the food packaging has English written on it. We got back and unpacked, which took most of our remaining strength. The end of the night found us eating food from a 7-11. We both had some microwave noodles, rice cakes, and beer. A sleeping pill later and we were in bed.
KL got up on Monday to start her new job. I always wanted to be a foreign correspondent. She didn't, and is. Life is crazy. She went to work and I sat around watching the New England Patriots beat the hell out of the Buffalo Bills on my Slingbox. Then I had that aforementioned tub and finally went for a walk. Now I'm back putting the finishing touches on this little note and getting ready for a nap.
So far, life in Tokyo for this Southern boy is just fine.
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