Apartment! Woo!

(7/25)

YOSH’. So I finally finished moving into our apartment for the next six weeks (and, I think, mine alone for the last two I’m here). The entrance/kitchen area REEKS, and when we made the mistake of opening the refrigerator, it’s really apparent that something was rotting in there. The whole entry smells awful. Luckily between the entry/kitchen and living area, there’s a door. Right now we’re sitting in the living area, with the air conditioning cranked up.

I say “now” subjectively, as there’s no internet access in the apartment. “Now” for me means about 6 p.m. Okazaki time, Tuesday afternoon. This will undoubtedly be posted about 18 hours from now. Until then, I shall write a running narrative of our move. For now, though, we need to write a grocery list and go out and get food for dinner. Word.

(A few hours later)

It’s 11 p.m. and Sarah and I JUST finished dinner. About 8,000 yen later (which we’re splitting even) we made a trip to the 100-yen store and grocery store to stock up on the necessities. It’s nice to have a kitchen, though figuring out how to cook for the two of us on a budget is a bit trying. Once we’ve got the big stuff out of the way—mostly kitchen fixings and the baking soda we spent an hour in the grocery store trying to find—it’ll be less than 2,500 yen per week for us to make all our own meals. It’s also nice to not have to eat out every night.

The apartment isn’t actually that bad, other than a suspicious smell emanating from the fridge. By “suspicious,” I mean “like somebody left a rotting cat in the back.” It was godawful. Sarah opened the door once, ONCE, and the stink was around even three hours later, after we’d gotten back from shopping. We ended up buying a little thing of scented oil to ward off the smell, and after an epic quest to find baking soda, our fridge is on its journey back to normalcy.

So one meal of half-price salmon and rice later (they slash meat prices in half after 5 p.m.) I’m stuffed and ready for bed. Okay, and so I snuck a lemon beer in there as well. It wasn’t half bad, but now I’m about ready for sleep.