New Apartment

I don't remember if I mentioned this in an earlier post, but part of the deal with our apartment was that they couldn't give us the place we really wanted until late June, so we would have to stay in another apartment for the first month.  So, yesterday we got to move into the new place (which I haven't taken any pictures of yet, partially because I'm doing laundry and there are piles of clothes all over the place, but I will soon).

For the most part, it's great.  The apartment is much bigger, we have separate-ish bedroom and living room areas, way more closet space, a fancier bathroom, and a much better view.  The kitchen is about the same, except that the washing machine is under our one burner, rather than in the bathroom, like it was in the last place.  And speaking of washing machines, this one is much less user friendly, and I have now managed to wash a load 3 times, only once on purpose, the other 2 attempts were supposed to result in drying (the machines here wash and dry, rather than requiring 2 machines...which seems efficient until you realize it takes twice the time to do one load...or when you can't decipher the options and keep accidentally washing the clothes).   The only real downside is that it's a lot louder at night, and we imagine it will be worse on the weekends.  But I guess that means we'll just have to take a trip to Don Quixote (like I need an excuse) to buy the loudest fan we can find to run at night.

I think that John is enjoying work, and I really will try to get him to write a new post soon.  We went to St. Albans, the only English speaking Episcopal (maybe Anglican) church in Tokyo on Sunday, which happens to be just a 10 minute walk from where we live, and liked it a lot.  They were doing a joint service with a Japanese congregation, which made it a little more scattered than I would assume it normally is, but I think we'll definitely go back.  And I found out about some really interesting volunteer opportunities that I hope I can get involved in.  More on that as it develops.

And finally, we found out that there is a holiday in July that John gets a day off work for, Marine day which is the Monday after my birthday on Friday, so we are trying to pick somewhere fun in Japan to take a long weekend trip.  The front runner right now is Hakone, a hot spring area a couple hours from here, in the direction of Mt. Fuji.  But more on that as it develops as well.