How the heck do you work these things?

After dinner we all headed back to our place with Shuhei, Miho and Yumi. We had asked them to help us with our washing machine and shower because we couldn’t understand the Japanese instructions. We also couldn’t figure out how to work the pilot light for the shower (no hot water = cold showers). I also wanted their opinion as to what was causing that stench that I had previously told you about.

As soon as we walked in our place and of course you couldn’t smell anything. Go figure! We walked into the shower where they attempted to figure out how to work the hot water. It was funny because they had never seen anything like our shower before. They couldn’t figure it out, so they decided to go next door and ask the neighbour. The neighbour who also works for Nova said she had the same problem when she first got here. She took one look at our shower and said “This one is different then mine, sorry I don’t know how it works. She was super nice and said if we had any other questions about anything else to just come over and ask.

Shuhei and Yumi decided to go find another tenant and ask them. About 15 minutes later they came back with a lady named Hiroku. She spoke English and she too didn’t know how to work the hot water. She called a friend who ironically lived in this same suite before we moved in. She rode her bike to our place and took a look at it. She said she thought it was broken because the pilot light wasn’t turning on for her. She advised us to call accommodations as they would be able to help us out. Since she was there we asked her about the crazy stench and she said she had the same problem. She just poured bleach down the drain every once in a while and it seemed to work. She tried to get the landlord to change the drain, but he refused because it is fully functioning. It is weird because now that we have done some loads of laundry the smell has subsided! Weird!!!

It just goes to show how kind Japanese people are. About 15 minutes after Hiroku and her friend left, Hiroku came back and offered us to go up to her suite and shower. We politely declined as we were o.k. with the cold water for now. She also said that if we ever needed anything to not hesitate to knock on her door and ask. Soooooooo nice!!

While all this was happening, Yumi was on the phone with the accommodations people speaking Japanese. When she hung up she told us we needed to contact them in the morning. That is exactly what we did and after playing a lot of phone tag with the accommodations people, Jame finally figured out how to work the pilot light. Woo hooooo -- we have hot water!!! The only thing now is we aren’t sure how to control the temperature. It is either cold or really hot!! Ha ha ha ha!!!!!! We’ll figure that one out later.

All in all, our first few days in Japan have been great. Busy and very interesting! I am lucky to have Jame by my side because had I been alone I probably would have had a few breakdowns. We are both taking everything in stride. We had a lot of fun last night with my friends and look forward to hanging out with them a lot more. It is nice to know people here and we are excited to get a true sense of Japan through them.

Right now we are about to tackle the train system again. There is a huge fireworks display going on in another town. Who knows if we’ll make it there or not, but we’ll see!

August 26, 2006