Narrative Disorder… in Japan!!

SO, where are we exactly? Nagoya is on the main island of Japan, south west of Tokyo. In the map below the sprawling brown, tree-less area on the right edge is Tokyo (or part thereof) and the compact brown, tree-less area to the South East, surrounding a bay is Nagoya.

Here it is from just 40 miles.

And we live east of central Nagoya in an area called Kakuozan which you can see in the green area on this map - it’s not outer east but not inner east either, it takes 12 minutes by train to Nagoya Central station. 

Nagoya is one of those cities which has semi-highrises and huge multi-lane roads and motorways all over it so it can be hard to tell where the ‘city’ as such ends and the suburbs begin - but we are definitely in the suburbs.

Nagoya is a city of contrasts… sigh, did I actually write that? Well, it fits. In Nagoya the old and new stand side by side - though not necessarily happily as much of the old is below code and is gradually being either lovingly brought up to standard (which means won’t collapse in an earthquake of 5.5 Richter) or, unfortunately, knocked down and replaced. This photo below was taken the car park of our local supermarket.

And this is around the corner from the supermarket on my way home, it really is a beautiful thing to see - I hope it doesn’t disappear…

Even the new has its cutenesses though, this is our local florist As well as the obviously cute name, if you look carefully on the left of the door (your left, not the door’s) you will see white pointy things hanging down - these are small paper cones about the size and shape of a large waffle cone from a generous ice-cream parlour and they have small posies in them! There is something so delightfully child-like about them they always make me smile when I pass.

Bringing you closer to our new home now, this is our street - it is off a major road (6 lanes, I think) called Higashiyama-dori (dori being Japanese for road) - our railway line is Higashiyama and apparently it runs under the road for most of the way - I assume the railway line came after the road, though.

So, as I was saying, this is our street which is very green for Nagoya. I have no idea what the street is called - it does have a name but it’s in kanji which I can’t read and the addressing system is not related to your road so I have not yet had a chance or need to find out.

FYI the addressing system is rather confusing, everyone lives in a ‘cho’ which is an area and you live in a block within that cho - we are in the first block of Otana-cho - needless to say the GPS system in which you can enter phone numbers to find places has taken off here as even the Japanese find it difficult.

Kakuozan is very, very hilly and off our street are roads which are either like this not-so-steep one (seriously there is one near the supermarket which is more than 45degrees - no exaggeration!)

Or pedestrian-only streets like this one.

If you look carefully on the left edge of this shot, you will see Superman standing at the (out-of-shot) gate to our apartments!

And these are they - DEFINITELY a member of the ‘new’ architecture faction! I didn’t take this shot very well it looks like the building could go up and up forever but actually the window on the left (which is our study) has no building above it. The block is really more of a set of two story villa units built up the hill. You can’t see the first floor of our apartment at all because of the wall around the entrance porch but our front door is below the study window, as is the kitchen.

Not hugely interesting pictures I know, there has been little time for sightseeing as yet - there is a temple near by which I will visit soon and a local fire festival soon, too but for now the above is pretty much all of Kakuozan I have seen outside of ward offices and supermarkets/shops that sell things like bathmats and laundry supplies! Touristy pictures will flood in once I am a) driving and b) living in an apartment with furniture… but you’ll see how it is next post in a fascinating tour inside…

As you will have gathered from the change in blog title and in the weather widget in the sidebar…we’ve arrived!
Superman and myself were installed in our new little villa unit in Nagoya on Monday 23rd and Brigie joined us (somewhat sorry for herself but extra cuddly) on Wednesday 25th. The new house is pretty bare except for a temporary bed until our sea shipment arrives and appliances as we were unable to organize leased furniture from Australia. We organized that the day after we arrived and we should have somewhere comfortable to sit in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, we are making do with two floor chairs we picked up for about Y3000 each ($30AUD) which are made for tatami rooms. The fluffy blue pod which Brigid is stubbornly looking at rather than sitting in cost twice the price of the floorchairs but of course Brigie won’t use it - we never learn lol. The floorchairs are actually quite comfortable but not having a table and so, for example, resting my laptop on the box the transformer came in as I write this makes for back-breaking work. Our desktop computers are arriving by air next week (we had an allowance of 4 teachests by air and we filled most of them with our computers - priorities, priorities…) but we will likely not use them till the desks arrive even though all my current email and skype addresses are on the desktop and I am hanging out to contact everyone!

I’ll make this a quick post and get working on a couple of longer ones I’ve been planning. Standby - pictures incoming…

As we take a break from packing to enjoy the bounty that is the-last-stuff-in-the-fridge, I thought I’d take the opportunity to make what will no doubt be the last post from Australia for quite some time.

I say "packing" but we are, of course, not actually packing but rather preparing for the packers of OSS (Overseas Shipping Services I believe) to arrive at 7:30 tomorrow morning. As lovely as it sounds to have someone else pack for you I would actually venture that it is far more stressful because of the sheer level of organization required. When you pack for yourself you can organize as you pack: "Hmm, forgot we had that, guess I’ll put this in this box here" "Ah we’ll need that before the Sea shipment comes guess I’ll put that in this box here." Instead,one must provide a detailed inventory to the company some weeks in advance for both insurance purposes and as a guide for the packers THEN, as the day approaches, you have to find ways to ensure that it is communicated to the guys on the day. Having experienced this process to a smaller degree when we were transferred to Sydney, I can attest that packers (as in the guys who come and pack your stuff, not a certain wealthy Australian family with a penchant for gambling from both sides of the table) give a good impression of locusts. They arrive, they buzz about determinedly for what is probably a few hours but feels like a few minutes and when they are gone everything, and I mean everything is gone. I was recently told about a diplomat whose shipment arrived after two months on the sea and eagerly opened it up to find her partially full rubbish bin in a box. Seriously. Think about it. Two months in the sun on a container ship…

So, we are grouping everything in stacks or on shelves with big yellow, blue or pink stickers with Air, Sea or Store on them and hoping we’ve got it all right! Our consultants in the office have asked us to be around to direct everything which is a good sign since the lat guys asked us not to be present - so we should be okay. When it all comes down to it though, by midday Friday everything will be packed and "uplifted" and there will be nothing we can do anymore - which is exactly why I always preferred exams over assignments lol.

Sydney has been … well it’s been. We really, really, should not have lived in The Shire. We chose it because it was 3 minutes from Superman’s work and, frankly, we just didn’t know.  We had some glimpses when we told people where he was working and they said "You’re white, you could live down there." We wondered at the seeming racism but ignored it. No one suggested we NOT live here though. No-one told us that we would never hear a language other than English spoken nor see a complexion darker than ours that wasn’t due to an insane amount of time spent on a tanning bed. No-one told us that in the very few, just-barely-above-supermarket-quality greengrocers here garlic would be found "down there with the other exotic things" or that "brown" is still a descriptive used to describe bread - though "whitebread" is a perfect descriptive for the whole area so that’s probably ok. Having our cars vandalized when they couldn’t break into them three times hasn’t really helped our impressions either…

We were told that, because of the traffic (made worse, especially for new people by the higgledy piggledy civic "planning"), you’d have to "live" where you live  and that was, essentially, true - going into the city from here is a nightmare by car or public transport. Nevertheless I found solace slowly driving the 25 minutes to Hurstville to do my grocery shopping. The Westfield mall there is quite small and has become like a small town market. Every time I went around 11 in the morning I would see a group of ten or so 65+ yr old husbands of various European origin who seem to have made a club house of some sofas near the exit to the car park and chat for seemingly hours while they waited for their wives to finish shopping. I could shop for terribly exotic things like mirin or Chinese cooking wine or - shock horror - homemade kibbe and hummous.  Best of all, I could stand in the medicare line and eavesdrop on little old french ladies lamenting their daughters’ not yet being married or listen in blissful ignorance to the gentle rhythms of Mandarin or the bright clang of Cantonese. When we return we will live in Hurstville I think

Anyway enough procrastinating, my feet are almost not sore!! Must get back to it. No doubt my next post will be from our new home in Nagoya!!

We’ve finally be getting round to the latest Dr. Who and, though I’m slightly biased (I’ve adored David Tennant since Taking Over the Asylum and the really creepy murderer he played on The Bill ages and ages ago), I simply have to say…

BEST. DOCTOR. EVER.

(And I grew up with Tom Baker )

Billy Piper as his companion Rose is definitely my favourite companion as well (though I never really liked any of them - probably just jealous.) Clearly it’s some of the best writing and direction it’s ever had, too it just works so well… just the right amount of hokey special effects, doesn’t take itself too seriously and yet the stories are great! If you haven’t seen it for a while give yourself a treat and say hello again - though I recommend you start with his first episodes with Rose, they introduce his particular character beautifully and frankly just shouldn’t be missed!

Annabel Crabb is one of my favourite journalists. I always hope to see her on the Insiders couch each Sunday for her deep political insights and ability to cut through the dross to the heart of the matter at hand in such a way that even Piers Akerman knows the argument is done (not that it stops him muttering one last remark under his breath like a child pouting in the backseat).

She’s also quite a lot of fun. 

In this important article, Annabel asks:
"Why do our police have to sound like they learnt English from a mobile phone instruction pamphlet?"

If you’re cerebrally inclined (and you’re unlikely to be a friend of mine if you’re not - lets face it I’m either excruciatingly boring or completely baffling to anyone who isn’t) click the link and enjoy!

Guilty of grievous oratory harm - Annabel Crabb - Opinion - smh.com.au