Time for a Fulbright style welcome. Mimi and I took a highway bus to Tokyo to attend a reception for the current Fulbright grantees at the house of the deputy minister to the US embassy. Buses are a cheap way to travel around big cities in Japan instead of the Shinkansen. The [...]

Today concluded the third day of three major shopping days. It takes a lot of effort and money to move to another country. This time I have it made since Fulbright is picking up the tab, but to do this on a whim would be quite difficult. In 2007 figures it costs [...]

After waking up I took a quick trip to the convenience store to pick up some provisions for breakfast since I am waiting for my new fridge and microwave. Then Mimi and I finished cleaning the apartment and installed laundry hanging poles outside. We also washed all the dishes that Mimi’s mom gave [...]

Yatto, Nagoya ni tsuita! Actually it is Seto City, but I moved into my apartment today with the generous help of Mimi’s parents. We got up early in the morning and went by car from Nara to Nagoya, which allowed us bring a lot more stuff than we could on the train. [...]

After looking at 8 different apartments at 3 different real estate companies, I finally made a decision. This took a long time because within my budget getting a place with enough space while being clean and new was difficult. Some of the apartments were quite big, but on closer inspection left one a [...]

Yesterday I came to Nagoya by train to begin searching for an apartment. I had already visited some apartment finding websites before coming to Nagoya to get an idea of the types of apartments available. After about a two hour train ride from Nara to Nagoya I transfered to the Higashi-Yama subway line. [...]

I spent the last two days resting from traveling. In addition I tweaked the blog so it will be the easiest to manage in the future. I also added some search engine optimization. This weekend I will continue to prepare to move to Nagoya on Monday. I need to find an [...]

I tried to stay asleep until the morning but it was difficult. I went to bed around 10:00 and my eyes kept opening throughout the night. Finally Mimi took a shower around 6:00 in the morning and that had us both get up. We prepared our luggage and [...]