September 8th 2012 - Day 2

After a good nights restful sleep, and an interesting Japanese/western breakfast, I began the second day. First on the Job list was dumping some extra luggage in my apartment (and grinning like a fool just because I got to use the key for the 1st time....lets face it, we all do that really).

As I said before, my plan today was to buy necessary furniture for my apartment. Unfortunately Akihabara is known as the 'electric' city, not the 'bed and furniture' city. Only option was to travel to a recommended furniture shop half and hour away by train (minus getting lost time thanks to google maps). And luckily this place really did have everything I needed: furniture, cutlery, bedding, anything none electronic I could get my hands on.

Now I said before that I hoped to take my mind off of yesterdays failings. Well furniture shopping did - and I know because I watched my brain fly away like a half blown balloon. Finding and choosing the furniture was the easy bit. Arranging delivery not so much, not for a first time buyer and NOT in another language. I'm pretty certain that in the process I either signed up to be a shop member or sold my soul, hard to guess really. Needless to say it left me a bit shellshocked when it came to buying everything else I needed.

Now Japan is one of the most diverse cultures one can every imagine. There are thousands of small, everyday rules and habits that govern daily life. The same applies to what household appliances one might need i.e. an extra bowl for rice, a set of slippers one HAS to change into when entering a home, or my personal favourite, a stool for the bathroom so that you can shampoo your hair comfortably before entering the tub (no I'm not kidding, let that be a lesson to any future Japan goers = no soap in the bath either). As if buying furniture was hard enough, now I had to make sure I had everything I needed and make sure adapt what I used to know about living into Japanese. In the end I had to settle for doing a second trip (especially since I couldn't work out what size curtains to get).

So after coming back to the hotel and cooling off for a bit, I thought it would be best to try and get anything electrical I'll need sorted as well. No dice - couldn't find anything in English and my brain hadn't come back yet.

The real pick me up of the day was finding a restaurant round the corner where everything on the menu is Unagi - for those who may have heard but not be sure, Unagi is not 'a state of total awareness' as said by David Schwimmer in Friends. In reality Unagi is eel, and its one of the best Japanese foods you can have (if you have to pick favourites). And it didn't matter that I couldn't read the menu, just closed my eyes and pointed at something = Never fails.