How to Clean a Japanese Air Conditioner

Want to hear something gross? I just learned last week that air conditioning units are supposed to be cleaned once or twice a year. Yes, that means that in 4.5 years our air conditioner never once got cleaned. Oops. Can I blame this on growing up with central air? Last week when John and I both noticed a musty smell I googled it, and found this blogpost from Okinawa Hai incredibly helpful.

Basically, the front of the unit lifts up so that you can remove and clean the filters. Then while the filters are out you spray in some cleaner that kills mold, bacteria, etc. Following Okinawa Hai's recommendation we hung up a sheet to protect from drips. Honestly, none of the cleaner dripped out, so it seemed pretty unnecessary. It did catch a little dust the fell when we removed the filters, but I think that's probably due to how long our filters had gone uncleaned. After ten minutes you can return the filters and restart the air conditioner.

The whole process was very easy. We bought the cleaner on amazon for less than 400 yen, though it should be easy to find in hardware stores and probably drugstores. Immediately afterwards we noticed that the air in our apartment smelled fresher. So, if you didn't know this was necessary, or you haven't been sure how to do it, don't hesitate - it's very simple.

Air Conditioner Cleaner

Filters out - getting ready to spray

Super Gross Filters!

This is what they look like clean

Apartment Upgrades

I've been so bad about posting lately! It seems like most days I'm using up all of my brain power on writing and then when I get home I just want to completely shut my mind off and watch tv or cook or really do anything that doesn't involve my laptop.

Despite my laziness, John and I took some time this weekend to put up some new pictures in our apartment. I think I vented about it back when we moved in that it's so hard to decorate because Japanese apartments don't allow you to put any holes in the walls. But we've slowly come up with a work around. Our wallpaper (that even covers the ceilings) is gently textured, and we've found that we can put very tiny pins in without making visible holes. Honestly, we bought the pins you use to display dead butterflies and other insects. So then the challenge is what can these tiny pins hold up? The answer is very light picture frames of fabric hangings.

We've found inexpensive picture frames at Bic Camera made from extremely light wood. Because they're so cheap they don't even have glass in them, just a thin sheet of plastic to protect the photo. They're basically perfect. I've also finally purchased a tenugui, a dyed fabric that can be used as a tapestry, to wrap gifts, or for a number of other purposes, and a wooden hanger to display it. It's really fun and I'm already obsessed with finding new ones to match the coming seasons.

Besides the wall hanging, John and I put up some pictures from North Carolina this weekend. We have a series of three that John took: Thomas Wolf's look homeward angel in Western NC, the lucky strike tower in Durham, and some swamp grass in Eastern NC. It makes me pretty happy to walk by them every day now.

North Carolina Love

Summer Wall Hanging

Very Tiny Nails

Golden Week

Golden week is a series of holidays that fall close together in the spring, and this year it fell as a three day weekend followed by a four day weekend.  John and I didn't do anything in particular, but we had a fun time relaxing and enjoying the extra time together.

Early in the week we made a trip out to Kawasaki and signed up for a Costco membership.  It's exactly like the US, except there are a bunch of Japanese products for sale as well.  But we bought a lot of produce and John found an enormous bag of chocolate chips.

So many chocolate chips!

Another evening we went to a beer garden selling frozen beer.  To be honest, the concept was great but the evening was a little too cold to enjoy it properly.  The frozen beer itself didn't taste great, but it kept the beer underneath (a huge glass, by the way) delightfully cold.  I think it would be excellent on a hot afternoon.

And every once in a while you need a bottle of champagne in the morning to go with some pancakes like we did on Saturday.

Perfect weekend brunch

Speaking of pancakes, John prefers "pancake" syrup while I prefer maple syrup, and I will argue forever that the real thing is better.  But I have to admit that the pancake syrup here has an amazing bottle with a spout that pours both a thick and a thin stream of syrup.

Lots of syrup?

Or a little.  Cool, right?

After our boozy brunch we decided to rearrange the furniture in our living room.

It seems more social this way

Besides that, I've been cooking a lot.  When we moved here I found a food blog - Tokyo Terrace - by another expat in Tokyo that I really liked, but unfortunately she had moved back to the US and wasn't writing anymore.  But just recently she started up a new blog - Set the Table - that I've really been enjoying.  I'm putting up pictures of the recipes I followed, but her photos are waaay better than mine.

I've made her Brussels Sprouts that are cooked with soy and pineapple.  They paired really nicely with pork chops and mashed potatoes.

We got the brussels sprouts at Costco

I also made her Bacon and Egg Polenta.  I'd never eaten polenta before, and wasn't sure what I'd think, but it was amazing!  John and I both enjoyed it and I can't wait to make it again.

So delicious!

When I was making the eggs for the polenta I cracked one open and discovered it had two yolks!  I've never seen that before.  Of course, I immediately broke one of them, but I think you can still tell in the photo.

Apartment Photos

I got a request recently for some photos of our apartment.  I guess I talked a lot about about the apartment hunting process, and showed a couple pictures of funny things about the apartment, but never put pictures up of the finally product.  So here we go.

You might remember my complaints about the marble all over the place.  But, I'm getting used to it (though every time I drop something in the entryway I'm worried the floor will break).  John was really excited to get the perfect stool for putting his shoes on.

Between you and me, he never uses it.

This is our bedroom.  We've had the hardest time figuring out how to hang pictures in our apartment.  Apparently apartments in Tokyo are really strict about putting holes in the wall and will charge you massive fees if you do.  And because we have a textured wall paper we can't use command strips.  In the living room we have a picture rail that let us hang a few pictures from the ceiling with fishing line, but there wasn't one in the bedroom.  We finally found tiny pins (the kind for displaying dead butterflies in a case) that make holes small enough they blend into the weave of the wallpaper.  This painting is just stretched canvas, so it's light enough for the pins.

We tried a couple arrangements in the living room before we settled on this one.  We like it because it does a good job of keeping the eating area separate from the living room area, and when you sit on the couch you look out at the skyline.

John organized our books by color

My plants.  The basil's been having a hard time.

The kitchen opens just past John's desk.   It's a really good sized space, and I've adjusted to not having an oven.  We might get one eventually, but for now this is working.

The set up I do have is 2 induction (IH) burners (and one that's not IH) as well as a fish oven, which I've been using as a toaster.   The IH burners are controlled by buttons on the surface, and the oven and non-IH burner are controlled by a little panel that pops out.  There are all sorts of intricacies I've learned though.  The non-IH burner can't be used at the same time at the oven.  And the IH burners can't go to high while the oven is on. 

The fish oven and control panel

I can read about two thirds of what this says!

 It's strange how quickly life here has become normal.  Now that we've gotten all our furniture and everything's set up this place really feels like home.  Before moving here I was so scared of living in a big city.  I felt like I might get lost between the skyscrapers and the crush of people.  Instead I've been surprised to find how much our neighborhood really is just a little neighborhood.  We have parks nearby, and there's very little traffic at all on our street.  It actually feels very calm and quiet here.  I recognize the cashiers in the supermarkets now and John has people he recognizes on his walk to work - like the old man throwing a tennis ball to his dog every morning.  (There are 6 different Starbucks with a 10 minute walk of our apartment though - that's different!)  Life has settled into a pretty nice routine.

New Apartment

We've been in our new apartment for 2 weeks now, and I love it!  Akasaka is a fantastic neighborhood, we finally have furniture, and it's feeling like this is really home.  Back in the temporary place John used to dread coming home to our apartment.  But this place is great.

I was worried that I would miss the bright lights and liveliness of Roppongi (and the proximity to Donki) even though I couldn't wait to get away from some of the seedier aspects of the neighborhood.  But Akasaka has almost everything I could want.  There's a great area around the stations with lots of shops, restaurants, and fun things to do.  But we live on a quiet street with a neighborhood shrine, and we can even see stars at night!

Three Things I Hate About Our Apartment:

The bathroom has the world's tiniest sink - and only COLD water!  (Though the toilet seat is heated, which it turns out is awesome.)

No central air (I guess I'm spoiled), but we're losing a lot of heat through the windows since we don't have curtains yet.

Our entryway is marble which is a) Ugly b) Ostentatious and c) Cold on bare feet!

Three Things I Love About Our Apartment:

The washer/dryer controls are in English!  

Our fridge can open to the left or right!

This is our view.

All in all, it's really great.  We're close to Raku, it's not hard for John to get to work, I now have kitchen sink that is bigger than the whole kitchen was in our last place, and of course it's wonderful to have our belongings back after packing them up in August.

Apartment Hunting in Tokyo

Several people suggested that John and I should go on International House Hunters, but sadly when we looked into it they were only recruiting home buyers, not renters, so we got to do it the normal way (and by normal I mean super crazy).  But while we were visiting some of John's family in Colorado we ended up watching an episode of  the show that happened to be in Tokyo.  It was really fun to know the areas the couple was looking in, and it gave us a little more confidence in our own budget.

In that spirit, I will try to condense our experience into a house hunters adventure for you.

Apartment #1

This apartment is 2 doors down from your closest friend!  It's a 20 minute commute to the office.  The view is lovely, the amenities are great, the building is brand new, and it has a gym!!  But, the kitchen consists of 2 burners and nothing more.  The design of the apartment is very modern, but to your southern sensibilities is feels a little cold and stark.  And unfortunately the price is pretty high, you'll need the building to negotiate a lot.

Apartment #2

This apartment is on the top floor of the building and you have access to a rooftop garden!  There is tons of storage space, and the floors are a wonderfully warm wood.  The kitchen consists of 3 burners and a fish oven.  It's a 9 minute walk to your friends' apartment and a 14 minute walk to the office.  It's smaller than the other apartments.  And, unfortunately there is a building under construction next door for the next year.

Apartment #3

This apartment is on the 27th floor!  In fact, your ears pop riding the elevator up each time.  It's in the building next door to where your friend lives.  And there are 2 bedrooms!  The kitchen has 4 burners and an oven! There's a gym! The washer and dryer are separate units!  But, the apartment is 20 years old, meaning it doesn't have the latest earthquake technology.  It also has all the "glamour" of the early 90's.  And there is monthly surcharge of $150 on your electricity bill.

You're feeling overwhelmed by a realtor who sends mixed signals, and confused by a process that involved many steps and negotiations that are unfamiliar to you.  You feel rushed to find a place before your belongings arrive.  You hope beyond hope that you can be settled in your new home before Christmas.  And the entire process reminds you just how real this huge move is.  Which apartment is the right apartment for you?

Well, the answer is Apartment #2.  We went back and forth between #2 and #3, and actually applied to all 3 building, and in the end the decision was made for us when only #2 was able to negotiate to the terms we required.  While I was briefly disappointed to lose the oven, John and I both felt a sense of comfort and belonging in the second apartment that we didn't feel in the other two.  And ultimately we're very excited to be there.  As a bonus we found out afterwards that it's very close to another couple we're friends with, and it's extremely close to our favorite restaurant in the city.

If things go according to plan, we'll be moving in on Dec. 26.  A small part of me thinks this is terribly cruel, considering that I actually packed our little Christmas tree in our container along with decorations months ago in preparation.  But as time has passed I've come to accept that we'll be making new traditions and finding meaning in other ways, rather than trying to recreate past experiences.  And most of all, I'm thankful that John and I have a safe and beautiful apartment where we will both be happy to live.

We're here!

I can't believe we've already been here for more than a week!

Our temporary apartment is very small, much smaller than last summer, but at least it's a place to stay.  Again the kitchen only has one burner (so stay tuned for an interesting Thanksgiving post), but we're making it work.  Tonight I made potato soup for dinner (which John claims to have never eaten before) complete with a cheesy bacon crouton.

And although things tend to be pricier, I've found kiwis to be a bargain.  And I do love their packaging.

Most of what we've been doing is looking for apartments (beside John's whole job thing), and it's not nearly as fun as International House Hunters makes it look.  Mainly it's exhausting, emotional, and agonizing.  We've seen a ton of places and we've applied for two.  We just found out this evening that one of them rejected us, but we're waiting to hear from the other place, and I'm going to see another place tomorrow.  I know it sounds really weird that a place rejected us, but here there's a whole negotiation process over the price, and because John's firm signs our lease for us they require the apartment to agree to certain terms, so that's where the hang up was.  But just to lighten to the mood here is a picture of the funniest things we've seen so far while searching.

In case we forgot what room it was?

Otherwise, we've been accomplishing things and seeing friends and mostly being happy to be here.  I discovered some amazing cookies that are actually German, I think.  If you ever come across some Chocolate Happy Hippos, I highly recommend them!

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, and I'll be sure to post soon about ours.  And keep us in your thoughts that hopefully we'll have some good apartment news to share soon.

Apartment Update

Alright, as promised, I'm putting up pictures of the new apartment.  As it turns out, our first night here was a freak occurrence, and there have been no more loud nights, so we're quite pleased with the place.

We now have a super high-tech bathroom.  This is the little control panel (on the wall about the toilet paper) that lets you have multiple flush options, multiple bidet options, and a bunch more stuff that I haven't even figured out yet.  There are also multiple control panels (two in the bathroom, one in the kitchen) to control water temperature and fill the bathtub automatically.

From the door this is the view down our apartment.  The first doorknob you see goes into the bathroom, then the hallway has closets on the left and the "kitchen" on the right.

Yep, this is my kitchen, still.   I'm getting bolder in it though, I think I'm going to attempt some beef bourguignon this week.

Underneath my one burner is our evil washing machine.  I am now able to wash and dry clothes like a pro (well...) but when the cycle is finished the door stays locked, and even when I push the buttons that are supposed to unlock the door, it still doesn't open.  John says I need to be more scientific in my approach, but what normally happens is I push the unlock button, nothing happens, I turn the dryer back on, push unlock again, turn it off, push unlock, turn it on, push ever button on the machine, yell at the machine, lie down on the floor in defeat thinking that our clothes will be trapped forever, sit up, and realize that it has miraculously unlocked.  I'm starting to think that there might just be a time delay from when I push the button to when it actually unlocks...

Here is our living room area.  It's still all one room, but having this much space is a HUGE deal in Tokyo.  The couch is even long enough for a person to sleep on!  If only we were living here when Christian came to visit.

This is our little table where we eat breakfast every morning!  In the old place, we always just ate it in bed, because as John said, it felt like the bed was most of the apartment anyways.

Here you can see the little divider that separates the living room area from the bedroom area.  It's also a dresser, so most of our clothes are stashed in there.

And we have a KING sized bed.

But, maybe best of all is our view, as you can see here, it is a normal out a window view, as opposed to our old view (below) that looked straight into an office that was about 6 feet away.

It was super creepy.

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.

We Made It!

We’re here! John is at his second day of work right now, and housekeeping is cleaning our apartment right now (fancy right?), so I thought now would be a good time to sit in our little common room and finally write something.

Our adventure started Thursday morning when we woke up at 4:00 AM to go to the airport. I thought it was John’s alarm that woke us up, but actually it was United Airlines calling to tell us that our flight from Asheville to Chicago had been canceled, and there was absolutely no way we could leave before Friday morning. So, we had an extra day in Brevard to relax, and as a bonus our flight left later on Friday, so we didn’t have to get up quite so early. On Friday we took the shortest flight ever, Asheville to Charlotte, and when we landed we learned that our next flight had been canceled. Again, they told us there were no flights until the next day, but we pleaded our cases, and the amazing woman at the ticket counter worked some magic, and suddenly we were on an Air Canada flight connecting through Toronto that only landed 20 minutes later than the flight we should have been on. So we landed the next afternoon in Narita, wrestled our bags through multiple subway connections, and then walked what felt like forever (probably only 6 blocks) in the pouring rain. But we found our apartment building with no problem. It’s slightly bigger than last year, and it’s definitely fancier than last year, although it has a little bit of a hotel feel.

This is the entrance to our apartment. On the left the first doors are the shoe closet. That's right, we have a closet specifically for shoes. The next door is for the toilet half of the bathroom. On the right the door you see is to the shower/bath room. Then we have a tiny kitchen.

Seriously tiny. It's basically a sink and one heating unit. We've also got a rice cooker, a microwave, and a large dorm sized fridge.

Then there is a door we can close to separate the hall/kitchen/bath area from the bed/living room. So here you can see the bed (a double this time!) and our little couch and coffee table

Standing where the bed is, you can see the rest of the room. We've got a little table, and dressers that hold the TV, and also serve as a desk. All in all, pretty fancy.

We’re living very close to where we did last summer, but the neighborhoods are very different. This summer we are in the heart of everything Roppongi, which is basically the foreigner/nightclub district. Within a block or two of our apartment are a McDonalds, a Starbucks, a TGI Friday's, an Outback Steakhouse, and a million clubs. Last summer, we were in an area with more residences, and the closest things were a tiny grocery store, some Japanese fast food places, and the AM/PM convenience store (my favorite!) which has sadly turned into a FamilyMart, we discovered.

John started work yesterday, but it was only orientation, so there’s not much to report there. He’s got an office this year, and a secretary, which is fun. There is one other intern, but he started last week so he’s already been through orientation, so John didn’t have much of a chance to meet him. It turns out that it’s just as fast to walk to work as it is to take the subway, so John walked this morning, and I went with him to see where he works. The building is not as impressive as Mori Tower, where he worked last summer. But apparently that building is supposed to be cursed, so it’s probably better that he’s not there anyways. Maybe John can write more about work at the end of the week.

Last night we met up with Grant and Tim, another Duke student, for dinner. We ended up going to a Korean place that was really good. And it was nice to get out do something fun after two days of setting up the apartment. So now I just have to figure out where I’m taking Japanese lessons, and plan lots of fun things to do while Christian is here, because he arrives in just a week and 2 days!