moving to Japan

Discuss anything and everything relating to that fascinating island empire of the east
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greg
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by greg »

I got over the weather shock after my first week. The first week, I didn't feel like doing anything. We still hate this dump, but we're a little more used to it than before.

Next week I have an interview in Fuji City for a job working directly for their board of education (BOE). It will be better pay and more stable.

My only concern was the 5+ magnitude earthquake they had in the area over the weekend. My wife says that Shizuoka prefecture is due for another massive earthquake (they say one occurs every 150 years), and if they do, a tsunami could do some major damage to Fuji City since it's a coastal town.

I'm not very experienced with earthquakes, but I've always understood that once an earthquake hits an area, it's quiet for a long time after that. The only one I felt when I was living in Himeji was in Tottori, and that happened just once. My wife says that there's a possibility that Mt. Fuji may reactivate with tectonic movement from earthquakes. Ugh, such is the peril of living in Japan. We're far safer from people here, but it's the natural disasters that are dangerous.
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Daniel
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by Daniel »

Yikes.

Peter, you've been living in Japan for awhile. Any advice on earthquakes, tsunamis, etc?
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greg
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by greg »

Well, my interview is on Monday. At least it will be a nice road trip through the mountains.

I've never been to Shizuoka-ken before. My wife's been doing some research on Fuji City. Some negative points:
1. It is a coastal city, so that means it will be very hot and humid in the summer. Then again, Himeji was the same, and I survived. I was looking forward to a cool summer in Saku, but at this rate, this might not happen.
2. One of the biggest industries in Fuji City is paper, which means paper mills, which means stinky. Still, I think I'd rather live downwind from a paper mill than downwind from a horse ranch. There are several horse ranches in north Phoenix and I'm not fond of sniffing horse ass all day long.
3. The city has bosozoku. Those asshats are so obnoxious. They ride around on pussy bikes that they rev throughout the city at 3am, "ree ree rinrinrin reeeeeee!" They don't have badass, manly motorcycles. They just have those high-pitched pussy bikes. The police pretend to chase them around, but they don't really do anything effective to solve the problem. They know that if they give anyone a police record, then that person can't get a decent job as a result, so then the guy will probably enlist in the yakuza or something. It's a retarded situation.

Other than these three, plus the chance of there being a massive earthquake in the next few years, it might be a nice place to live. Rents are cheap, with spacious 3DKs going for 400k and up a month.

Plus, in May, SHIZUOKA HOBBY SHOW!
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by Daniel »

BikeLover wrote:Not really much you can prepare:

Have an emergency pack ready with 3 days of supplies(food, water, medicine)
Arrange meeting points, etc.
Secure furniture from falling over, as well stuff that can fall off furniture.
Know you local evacuation centres and similar.

If a really big on hits count 3-4 days to look after yourself with what you got in the survival bag and that might also travelling.

3/11 was big and was felt over a very large area, gas-metres automatically shutdown(easy to reset).

The Goverement and cel-phone companies do broadcast quake alerts for bigger ones a few seconds before they hit 5-15sec.

HTH.
Very helpful answer as always. I will remember these notes myself as well for when I can hopefully go to Japan to. Thank you.

Ever had to evacuate due to natural disaster? How did it go for you on 3/11?

greg wrote:Well, my interview is on Monday. At least it will be a nice road trip through the mountains.
Good luck! :)

greg wrote:The city has bosozoku.
Are they in real life like they are portrayed in anime?

greg wrote:Plus, in May, SHIZUOKA HOBBY SHOW!
Anything good there? (sounds like it :) )
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by greg »

On a video game forum I am also on, this one friend of mine who lives in Chiba was there when those propane tanks exploded. He said that he could feel the shockwave from the blast hit him in the chest. Some other dude who was a JET in Sendai was MIA for about a week or more. He said he saw the tsunami rushing right at him as he looked out the second story window of his home. He had quite an amazing game collection, which was all safe on the second floor of his place. He had to move all his stuff out to elsewhere because there were some roaming gangs of street thugs going around, breaking into people's homes and stealing stuff. So there was some looting going on, but it was nowhere close to what happened after hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.

As for bosozoku, they are usually portrayed as thugs, I guess. GTO showed them to be fairly fun-loving, but usually they serve the purpose of getting beaten up by the protagonist or something. They wear these baggy white clothing covered in kanji and sometimes hide their faces with white hoods. They're just stupid as hell and I stay away from them.

So the interview went well. The woman in charge of the ALTs told me afterwards, off the record, that there was a "99% chance" that I'll get the job. Life there seems manageable, except for traffic jams and the paper mills. We'll have to carefully select an apartment that is away from the stinky paper mill smokestacks. When we first pulled into town yesterday, it really wasn't so bad. Then around 3pm, it was a real sharp smell that stank. But last night and today, we couldn't smell a thing. So it really depends on the wind. I think I'd rather smell that then horse ass like in some parts of North Phoenix where I am from.

About the Shizuoka Hobby Show, I'm sure Bike knows much about it since he's into plastic models as well. Shizuoka City has become like the plastic model capital of the world, as it is the home to four major model companies: Tamiya, Bandai, Hasegawa, and Aoshima. Shizuoka is also often the home of the life-sized Gundam, but I believe that is currently at Odaiba. It seems to go back and forth.

There's also Wonderfest (Winter and Summer), which I believe is either at Tokyo Big Sight (Odaiba) or Makuhari Messe (Chiba). The focus of that show seems to be anime figures and garage kits, moreso than plastic models, however. I'd like to check that one out someday as well. If I get the job in Fuji City, though, I'll have no excuse not to attend the show in Shizuoka. I'll definitely try to capture that event on video for my YouTube channel, for sure.
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greg
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by greg »

Good news and bad news.

Today my mom passed away. She has had leukemia for about 10 years now, and in recent years, her trips to the hospital seems to have increased exponentially year by year. She has no real autoimmune system anymore, and the antibiotics she has been given was ruining her body. She was weak when we said goodbye and left for Japan. That was the last time I was able to give her a hug and say goodbye. About a week or so ago, she went back into the hospital. She started to improve, and was even moved from the ICU into a regular hospital room. Dad says she was even sitting up and smiling. Then she got an infection and had a severe fever of 106. The doctors couldn't figure out what the problem was, so they gave her some very strong anti-fever medication. It turns out that the port that was grafted into her chest was causing the infection, and when it was removed, the fever went away. She had this port put into her body a few years ago because she has collapsed veins, so this port looked a lot like some sort of computer cables dangling from her body. She was in the hospital so often that they used this to draw blood samples and also give her IVs and transfusions.

Well, the medicine she was given has a powerful side effect: it collapsed her colon. She was in such a weakened condition that the doctors couldn't do much. Her body became bloated and poisoned and she was in much pain. My older sister told me that it's better that I did not see her in her final days. It was sad to see, and she wouldn't have even remembered who I was if she saw me. Her mind was gone. When your colon and intestines shut down, your body basically poisons itself to death. About 11pm Monday Arizona time, Dad and my sister made the decision to turn off the life support. Around 2pm Tuesday, she finally passed away. Her soul seemed to have already departed, and they did not want to just keep an empty shell's heart beating. Her will stipulates that she is not to be embalmed, so the funeral will be swift. Probably this weekend. I cannot make such arrangements on such short notice, but nobody in the family will think ill of me for it. It's just not fair. She's had victory after victory with all her hospital visits, and a tiny little infection ballooned into a fatal situation. She has had several near-death experiences. She told me that before, God had given her a choice to either pass on or keep living. I wonder if she was given a choice this time. I'll miss her.

The good news is that today I got a message from the Fuji City BOE. They have decided to hire me. I think once we move there, I will have Dad come and stay with us for about 3 months. Maybe we'll go hike Mt. Fuji together. My parents had visited Japan 11 years ago for our wedding, but they were both sick in bed the whole time. Now that he's by himself, I don't want him to feel alone.
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greg
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by greg »

Thank you. Of course I am sad that I won't see Mom again, but I am sadder for my Dad, who is now alone. Mom had breast cancer about 20 years ago. I think the chemotherapy is what gave her the leukemia. My dad can't cook for himself at all. He's depended on her for everything, and I feel so badly for him. That's why I want him to come stay here in Japan for as long as he can, and play with his granddaughter. I'd good that you at least have your son. I just wish I could still be there for Dad. He was crying on the phone tonight when I called him. This will be his first night sleeping as a widower. I'm so sad for him.
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by greg »

Thank you.
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by Daniel »

Greg,

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.

I know exactly how you feel. I've been through the pain of losing many relatives. Yesterday I spent my day at the hospital. The tragedies keep piling up one on top of the other, and sometimes I feel like I've had enough pain and sorrow to last me a dozen lifetimes. To think about why these things happen to good people is so painful. It's so difficult for everyone involved. I know exactly what you're feeling, my friend...


We're all here for you.
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greg
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Re: moving to Japan

Post by greg »

We're staying in Fuji City this weekend. We worked with the home locator company Minimini and we narrowed our choices down to five. We've decided upon a great apartment that was actually our #3 choice to begin with. The one my wife liked best wasn't quite as great as we expected. She noticed a moldy odor in the bathroom and they were keeping the bathroom window cracked open. The bathroom was supposedly spotless, so if it was smelly, then maybe it wouldn't be that great. That was a 3DK. The two I liked best were 3LDKs near the train station. My #1 choice was on a second floor, and while it had a nice layout, we were concerned that our little monster racing around may annoy neighbors.

So my #2 choice, which together with my wife was our #3, turned out to be the best. It is a small building with only four units. It was 65 square meters, the largest of all the ones we looked at. It was a 3LDK too, so one of the rooms wouldn't have to become our living room/eating room. So we'll have our own room, a shared hobby room, and another room for our daughter's stuff, where she will eventually sleep when she gets older and wants to sleep in her own room in another year or so.

It's a convenient bike ride to both Fuji Station and Shin Fuji Station (shinkansen). It's a quiet neighborhood. Also, what is really nice, is that the only shared wall is in the bathroom. The bedrooms are completely independent from any other residents! This is a great relief, because in our current apartment in Saku, we can hear our neighbor screaming at her 1 year old son sometimes for no good reason. In our apartment in Arizona before we moved here, we shared a wall with these two idiot college-aged sisters who would stay up all night giggling and having masturbation contests or something. Also, there are no stinky paper mill chimneys nearby, either.

When we visited that place, I had made up my mind. I was afraid I'd have to bicker with my wife because of her first choice (really, a 3DK may as well be a 2LDK if you have to sacrifice one of the rooms to be the place where you'll put your sofa and TV in), but that odd smell and that constantly open bathroom window is what made her change her mind.

We will likely go back to the place today for a second look. I think I will take a video of it and maybe upload it on YouTube.
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