Beginng of the End

Day 29 Tuesday 7^th September 2010

Happy homeowner

For the first time in nearly a month its overcast and windy. The temperature is in the high 20s so just right for me. We moved out of the apartment this morning. I can’t say I am sorry to be leaving. 22sq metres is just too small for me to live in with another person. Shizuka has the uncanny ability to know exactly what I’m about to do and to be in the same place a split second before me. I am constantly bumping into her or trying to squeeze past her in this narrow apartment. I guess we Kiwis are spoilt when it comes to space. We are not used to the complete lack of privacy and having to live so closely beside others. The apartment complex is fairly typical for Japan.  It’s not that old so everything is clean and works but it is a thoroughly depressing place to live in. I need space and sunlight and fresh air and the ability to spend some time outside. There is magnificent mountain scenery but you can’t see it because the windows are frosted glass. I hate frosted glass. It’s for bathrooms. Why would you use it for your main window? Secondly, there’s no outdoor area. Not even the standard tiny balcony.  The people living here have been courteous but other than saying hello, don’t interact with each other. Nobody annoys you by parking in your space or by playing loud music but there’s an absence of warmth or interest that’s strange for me. Living with 20 other people in a space not bigger than 3 NZ houses for 1 month but never having a conversation with any of them is vaguely disturbing. I’m also sick of sleeping on the floor. Futons may look cool and be fun for a couple of nights but let me tell you, they are not. Yesterday a bulldozer appeared on the empty land in front of the building and started pushing great heaps of dirt around. It looks like they’re about to knock up another apartment block so I’m glad we won’t be around to witness all the noise and dust that will create. So the verdict is…if you’re single and need a place to crash at night it’s adequate but if you want some comfort and relaxation you need to spend a lot more than Y60,000 per month.

After the apartment the house seems huge. The windows are big and you can see out to the great view. It’s bright, airy and spacious. To me, it’s a source of wonderment why anybody would choose to live in a concrete box when they could have a house with a garden for less money. So what if is not close to a train station or a supermarket.  Use the money you are saving and buy a nice car. In this country distance is time. Someone once said that commuting is just unpaid labour. If you commute by being wedged into a packed bus or train I believe it is. Driving however is different. I love the idea of driving home from work, from the city to the countryside in something cool like a Ford Mustang convertible.  Instead of paying that horrendous mortgage buy a cheap house on the edge of the city and get yourself a sports car.

I have a business associate who is Japanese and lives in Osaka. He came and visited the house this morning. He lives in an apartment which cost an obscene amount of money. It is near a station and only 25mins to the central city. He has 3 young children. I could see the same things running through his head as he looked around. The idea alone is not enough to convince most Japanese people. The concept of lifestyle and work life balance is only starting to take root. When confronted with the actual thing however, most undergo a change in attitude.

We left the house around 1PM and went back to Kameoka for lunch. By 3PM we were on the road to Nagoya and Shizukas parents place. The Kei truck is not the most ideal road trip vehicle but we got there in just over 3.5 hours. Not bad.

Waterblaster Health Warning

Small but strong

Some may know it as a power washer.  Some call it a pressure washer. Kiwis call it a waterblaster and there’s no finer thing that could be hooked up to a garden hose. Some of the passers-by have been in awe of the little yellow machine with the big noise. And well they should be. There are very few issues that can’t be solved by a 1000psi jet of water. Waterblasting is a spiritual thing. By squeezing the trigger you have the power to renew things.  You can bring things back to life and restore their former glory. Operating a waterblaster is like being god. Aim that nozzle at some dirt and you will know how it feels to be a miracle worker. It’s a time machine too. A quick squirt can send objects back in time, to a time when they were new and shiny. It’s a creator of wealth and an adder of value. Everything’s more attractive, sought after and worth more when it’s been cleaned by a power washer.  Cleaning and scrubbing are boring chores to be avoided if possible. No so with waterblasting.  Everyone who sees its business like shape, hears the sound of the motor and witnesses the pure power of the jet is instantly captivated.  The fact that you are cleaning is soon lost to you. You are not merely performing some menial chore. You are harnessing the power! The first thing that you notice is the recoil as you squeeze the trigger. It’s no accident that the nozzle is shaped like a rifle…this is a serious machine, a weapon. Loose objects are sent hurtling away just from the air pressure of the jet. When you finally take aim at a dirty surface you will start to appreciate the awesome capabilities of this wondrous device. It’s a strange phenomenon, the illusion that you are applying a coat of clean rather than removing a coat of dirt. The results are instant. That white line on the stained concrete provides the proof. This is not like some low carb diet, with the effects taking weeks to show. This is a before and after picture created in seconds.  A motivational machine! The job at hand is dealt with in no time. You’re feeling like you’ve just ridden a rollercoaster, adrenaline is pumping through your body. You want to do it again. Fortunately for you the jet has over sprayed onto something else and left a clean streak. You rationalise than you can’t just leave it now it’s been highlighted. Before you know it this secondary task is being undertaken. It’s known by military types as mission creep. All too soon however this comes to an end. Now you’re feeling like an African dictator…you don’t want to give up the power. Luckily, dirt is everywhere. The side of the house, the driveway, the garden wall. Soon you’re eyeing up your car and wondering if the paint will stay on. Like an addict looking for a hit, you start to wonder what else this fantastic machine can do.  How about weeding? Yes! Waterblasterers make fantastic weedwackers. Again a mundane and tedious task is transformed into an exciting adventure as bits of plant matter and other debris is sent flying. What else? That bird shit on the roof of the garage….in fact let’s blast the birds that put it there. Annoying seagulls are no match for our yellow friend. By now your boots are full of water and your hair is sodden and like God on the seventh day, you survey all you have done. And you notice that all the things you have cleaned are now splattered with mud and shredded plants from that brilliant plan to use a waterblaster for weeding. At this point a strange reality sets in. As a cocaine hit wears off so too does a waterblasting high. You realize that you will have to clean this mess up and you really don’t want to…it’s become a boring and tedious chore.

Feel the power

And so you see, waterblasters really should carry a health warning. Users may experience wild mood swings, hormonal imbalances, delusions, hallucinations and depression.  After effects include having to wash your muddy clothes in a bucket because the wife won’t let you put them in the washing machine and repairing the damage you’ve done on your cleaning rampage. In this case I blew holes in the insect screens and had to buy some new mesh. Even professional aren’t immune to this madness. A roof cleaning contractor I know in NZ had some time left over after cleaning a roof and decided to wash the house owner’s white patio furniture as a gesture of thanks and goodwill. Unfortunately the paint came off in large chunks. When the owner returned home he was less than impressed. What made the situation worse was the cleaner had got the address wrong and was supposed to clean the roof on the house next door.

Stories about Food

Every blogger in Japan prattles on endlessly about the food here.  A large proportion of TV schedules are devoted to food shows.  Visitors here rave incessantly about the food.  I don’t get what all the fuss is about. The food here is mostly weird slimy sea creatures dished up with some strange veggie type objects and some mashed up kind of bean things.  Some of it is good; some of it is utter rubbish, just like anywhere else. Preparing and eating food seems to have been elevated to an art form and mere chefs have become celebrities. That Ramsey idiot in England is a classic example, ranting and raving and carrying on like he’s god. You’re just a cook you tosser! You work in a kitchen. Get over yourself. I am not a food snob. I don’t care who the chef is and where he came from. I can’t tell the difference between fresh and frozen and have no interest in whether it’s organic or not. I think it’s a crime that people idolise these clowns when really deserving occupations like engineer, doctor or scientist get next to no credit or acclaim. Eating is not a higher form of behaviour.  You eat so you don’t die. That’s it. It’s just food.

Wax On

Day28 Monday 6^th September 2010

9AM. Up the road comes a small van. It’s the flooring man. Followed by another van. I didn’t think it would take two of them to do this small house. The door opens and I can see straight away we’ve got a problem. The flooring guy has fallen off something and can barely walk with a stick. He’s still cheerful but obviously in some pain. He tells us he is unable to do the job but that he won’t let us down and has asked another company to do the job instead. Now that’s service. I can just imagine how this would go at home. You would get a phone call, probably around 10.30AM, where your Kiwi tradesman would say “ Yeah. Sorry mate can’t do it. Maybe next week.”  This guy knew we needed it done today and made sure it would be done. He even stayed around most of the day to make sure the other guy did a good job. Seems word of the big Christchurch quake has reached here as he knew all about it. Shizuka also got some emails from Japanese friends and family asking if we are OK. 

Looking sharp

The flooring guy waxed the floors and they look great. I replaced some brackets on the septic tank breather pipe and cleaned up the back yard a bit. The property behind us is undeveloped with a few pine trees growing on it. We are told that it belongs to an old guy who lives further up the mountain and that it is unlikely that he will ever do anything with it. I like it because it’s like having a big back yard without paying for it. There are empty plots on both sides of us also. That’s unusual here in japan. If it wasn’t for Mr Trump across the road we would have no immediate neighbours. Which is just the way I like it.

The Gaijin Dilemma

I have been here 4 weeks now and I still haven’t seen another European. There’s a few Philippina’s in Kameoka but that’s been about it for foreigners. I’m certainly the only gaijin in the village. None of the locals seem to be fazed by my presence. I wave and say hello to everyone and they have all been polite and courteous in return. I was expecting some expressions of surprise and was even prepared for some hostility. Buying a property in the way we did is controversial in Japan and being a foreigner makes it more so. I think my limited Japanese has been of some help in this matter. Also NZ is well known in Japan and well regarded.  One old woman from up the street informed me that her daughter had spent time in Christchurch. The odd behaviour of the people across the road doesn’t seem to be connected with the fact that I am a gaijin. They’re just strange people. The debtors wife told us that they are not liked in the area and that there was a long running feud between them over a noisy dog. Obviously we have inherited this ill feeling. She told us not to bother with them as you can never make people like them happy. The problem is in them.  

Would you talk to this guy?

This brings me to the subject of what most foreigners living in Japan know as the gaijin dilemma. Whether to acknowledge the fellow foreigner or to completely ignore them. While I always used to say hello to foreigners their mixed reactions have caused me to re-evaluate this policy.  Some people will be desperate for conversation while others have a “get off my cloud” attitude. To some, it seems, acknowledging a foreigner shows that you haven’t been here long, you don’t know anything, you’re a Japan newbie. There’s also the question of would you talk to this complete stranger if you were at home? Probably not. So why, just because you are in another country, would you do so now? Remember a lot of gaijins in Japan are there because they are misfits in their own countries.  Square peg types. A lot of them have figured out that Japan is a haven for those with no social skills or those who are considered odd by their fellow countrymen. Then there’s the JapanGeek factor. I certainly don’t want to waste a second of my life talking about robots to a Manga geek. Even worse is the chance they could be missionaries out to spread the good word. The last thing you want to do is start a conversation with a Mormon or Adventist. And there are those who have travelled far to get away from their countrymen.  So you’ve got to be careful who you talk to. Time and place is also important. Kyoto is about 40 mins drive from here. In Kyoto there are more foreigners than you can shake a stick at. Consequently I wouldn’t go out of my way to greet a foreigner there. Out in the boonies however it’s a different story. I would make an effort here. Paradoxically, these foreigners are the most likely to have the “I’m the village gaijin, get off my patch” attitude. Another foreigner could ruin their day. What’s your plan if he ignores you?  These days I take a hierarchical approach to this problem. I ask myself are these my kind of people? Best for me will be one of the commonwealth brothers. ie. English, New Zealander, Australian or Canadian. Of course it can be hard to tell before speaking to them. This being Japan the odds are they will be American but that’s OK as there’s lots of common ground and Americans are less likely to ignore you.. They might be French or Russian and not even speak English but that’s OK too. I find I can communicate with the Europeans like French, German, Dutch and Spanish whose languages have a common base that is similar to English. They mostly speak good English anyway. French people tend to have a bad reputation as unfriendly and unwilling to speak English but I find that I kind of like them. I can string a few words together in French and I have found that makes a great difference to their attitude. As for anyone else, it gets tougher. I remember having a fractured conversation in an Osaka Hostess bar with a Ukrainian girl with Japanese as our common language with a few English words thrown in here and there. Ruthless stereotyping is also great help. There’s no point for me to say hello to a Korean because they tend to be dour and humourless or Chinese as their language is totally impenetrable to me. There are a lot of Brazilians here but other than their appetite for partying and having a good time I don’t know much about them. Russians are notable for their total lack of English. A few years ago I used to see a sour looking Russian regularly at a car auction I go to in Nara. Every time I saw him I would say hello to him. His usual response was to completely ignore me so I made it my mission to elicit a response from him.  After about 2 months I had him up to the nodding stage. By the end of the challenge he was grunting and mumbling something. There are a couple of other things to consider.  Are they drunk? At night there’s a good chance. Do they look Hung over? In the morning, very possibly. So you can see, by narrowing down the field to those who you would really want to talk to and being prepared for  a possible snubbing  you can minimise the stress of this issue.

Shaky Islands

Day 27 Sunday 5th September 2010

New blinds...shady!

Woke up this morning and switched on the computer to news of a big earthquake in Christchurch. Seems nobody was killed but the central city is a bit trashed. Here in japan earthquakes are a regular occurrence, or so everyone tells me. In over 70 visits to this country spanning 13 years I’ve yet to experience one here. I have felt them in Auckland and Los Angeles but never in Japan. People here claim that the earthquake factor is a big part of why houses fall apart here. Conventional wisdom is that all that shaking destroys them. I think that while it must play some role, it is overstated. I believe its low cost materials, poor quality construction and shady development companies that are mostly to blame.

On the level

We hung the last of the blinds today and did some tidying up around the garden. I had bought some pink paving stones with the idea of placing some palms in pots on them. Then I figured out that palms won’t survive the winter outside so I guess we are going to need some kind of conifer. I laid the stones anyway and we will figure out which plants will work next spring. We also bought some new mesh for the insect screens which are mostly buggered. The place is looking good now that it’s clean and empty of junk. The flooring man comes tomorrow and on Tuesday we’re off the Nagoya to visit Shizuka’s folks.

Virginal Art

This is another place that I’ve been driving past every day for the last month. I’ve no idea what they do or make here but it’s kind of fun speculating.

Shoji Time

Day 26 Saturday 4^th September

We are into the final stage of the project now with only a week to go. The weather at home has been just terrible with incessant rain and wind. Once again we have glorious sunshine and 30 degrees+ here today. All the local rice farmer types can be seen riding around on rice harvester machines as the harvesting season gets into full swing. It seems the average age of a rice farmer in the country is 66. Young people are not interested in such a job and who could blame them. All the old people here are bent over and hunchbacked from a lifetime in the paddies. The average farm size is only 10,000 sq metres or about 2.5 acres. One guy I talked to has 5000 sq metres of rice which he only grows because the city gives him a tax break if he is doing something productive with the land. By the time he pays to maintain and run the planting and harvesting machinery there’s no profit in it. It has become an occupation for the retired or those who have another job as well. While all the activity looks impressive, the agricultural sector here is approaching crisis point.  

Totally trad!

Today we bought some new blinds for the now clean windows. We also got some new lights for a couple of the rooms to replace the hideous circular florescent lights that are standard fittings in Japanese homes. There’s nothing worse than the harsh glare form these artificial suns hanging from the middle of the ceiling. Shizuka replaced the paper on the sliding Shoji screens for the windows  in the Tatami room. The mats are quite worn so we bought a carpet to cover them until we get new ones. I had my doubts about this room but it’s come up looking great and it’s kind of cool too.

BOOK OFF

BOOK OFF Kameoka

This is my favourite shop in Japan. It's not because I like what they do there. I like it purely because of the name. BOOK OFF! Its a used book and CD exchange. We brought a truckload of old books from the house to this place and they took the lot and even gave us some money for them. Apparently they have a special machine which trims the edges of the pages on used books giving them that crisp new appearance. There are branches all over the place and they are wildly popular with teenaged manga geeks, who can be seen cluttering up the aisles while engrossed in their silly comics. In typically Japanese fashion, when you sell them some books you have to fill out a huge form with lots of personal details like your address, age and what you had for breakfast. (OK, I might have made that last one up but you get the idea) and then go away and wait for them to phone you so you can then go back to pick up your cash after you've signed and stamped a reciept. All that for a few old books. BOOK OFF also has a used computer business with a similar concept. It's called ...........HARD OFF. I did not make that up.

Love thy Neighbour

Day 25 Friday 3rd September 2010

We can now see through them!

Today was unbelievably hot. We did a bit of painting and cleaned more windows. About lunch time we decided to knock off for a while and have a good lunch. We went to a Korean barbeque place which had an all you can eat deal. It was so good we were unable to do anything other than drive home for a nap in air conditioned bliss. We returned to the house in the afternoon to continue our tasks. Shizuka was outside when the neighbours wife came out and started whining about something. This is the first time she has initiated contact with us. Leaning out the window I was able to catch the jist of what she was saying. She was bleating that the rubbish guy had left some wood chips on the road from the furniture demolition job.  She also is annoyed that we have not come and informed her of what we are doing and generally not sought her approval to work on our own house. Shizuka pointed out that she had tried to introduce herself to the husband but that he had been rude to her.  Annoying wife then started moaning how the last people who lived there were bad people. Shizuka pointed out that we are not them and anyway what had they done that was so bad? This didn’t make any difference as she continued bleating and refused to say what the problem had been.  By now I’m quite sick of hearing her annoying voice so I went outside and told her we were too busy to waste any time on her and to go away.  Speaking English to each other seemed to annoy her even more as her limited intelligence doesn’t stretch to knowing any English. I doubt she will talk to us again as I left her in no doubt that I’m not interested in her complaining.  In my country neighbourly disputes can be a lot nastier than a few sharp words and ignoring each other from then on, so I’m not fazed at all by her behaviour.  Shizuka  is not happy at all however. It’s a shame because everyone else here has been really nice. Anyway I got on with the wallpapering and it all looks great.

The Fridge Incident

Day 24 Thursday2nd September

Dusty carpet

Today Shizuka decided that the carpet in the master bedroom is not up to her exacting standards. It looks ok to me but what the hell would I know? She decided to call a carpet company to get a quote to replace it.

This morning I noticed that the fridge is not working properly. Its cold in the freezer but not up top in the fridge part.  At this point I should probably relate some background detail on the fridge. When we arrived here we found a nice looking Panasonic fridge freezer in the kitchen. I open the door to check it out and then closed it as fast as I could. There was still food in it and it did not smell too good. I made a snap decision to get rid of it. Then we found out how much that would cost. Y20,000 is how much it costs. Apparently the gas must be evacuated. This must be done by a qualified and licenced professional no doubt wearing a white helmet. The fridge issue was revisited. Shizuka drew the short straw. On exploring the fridge she found that the food inside was mainly in jars and bottles and that there was nothing badly decomposed. Mercifully the freezer was empty. So then, nothing nasty like rotten meat or veggies. It didn’t smell great so we dragged it outside and stripped everything out of it. All the shelves/compartments were scrubbed with detergent and then water blasted. We put a charcoal anti odour thingy in it and let it sit open for a few days. We then plugged it in and it worked great and it smelt OK. All was good until today when I went to get some cold water from the fridge and found that there is an error code showing on the onboard computer and of course it’s not cold. A call to Panasonic was followed by a visit from a humourless technician. A quick scan of the fridge computer showed that the fan that pushes cold air into the fridge has died. I enquired as to the price of replacing the fan. The tech’s facial expression was one of shock shortly turning to disbelief when he figured out that I was actually suggesting that he repair this fridge. “Why don’t you just buy a new one?” he said. We explained the ridiculous financial cost of pursuing such a course. “But it’s 6 years old” he stammered. “ Have you got a fan in your truck or not?” I asked. Reluctantly he went to check. Miraculously he did indeed have one. I enquired if this was a common failure item which he vigorously denied , claiming he had never replaced one before. Yeah Right!! You just happen to have one in your van by pure coincidence. By now he’s figured that this crazy foreigner is serious about repairing this thing so he gets to work. After less than a minute there’s a sharp exclamation from the technician. I look over to him to see him standing well back from the fridge with a look of absolute horror on his face. What’s the problem now? He points out to me some tiny black dots on the inside of the fan housing. Apparently what we are seeing is cockroach shit. “Now what do you want to do?” he demands. “Just fix the fucking thing” I think to myself.

OK. Let’s assess the problem.

The infamous fridge

Are there cockroaches in it now? Answer. No.  

Is there any damage to the wiring? No.

Is the computer OK? Yes.

Is there any sign that the insects have actually gotten into the food compartments? No.

So what the hell is your problem then? Answer. This fridge has cockroach shit in it. You can’t possibly use it now.

How about we just clean it up? His response is that he doesn’t know how to do such a thing.

I then demonstrated to him the strange method of cleaning a fridge with a cloth and hot water. 2 minutes later there are no black dots to be seen. Rather than being impressed by this bit of gaijin ingenuity he just looks appalled. Without any further protests he fits the fan, replaces the cover and plugs the fridge into the wall socket. Success. At Y12,000 it’s not a cheap fan but it’s a fraction of the cost of replacing the whole thing. I bet when he got back to the office that technician would have greeted his colleagues with the words “you won’t believe what I just had to do!”

 The carpet guy showed up at 5PM exactly. How do they do that? I just can’t get my head around the concept of a punctual tradesman. It’s like Tomato ketchup and icecream. These things just don’t go together. He looks at the carpet and tells Shizuka that there’s nothing wrong with it. I like this guy! He says that he can replace it but that it would just be a waste of money. He proposes to come and clean it with his cleaning machine and while he’s at it he will wax the wooden flooring in the rest of the house. We agree on a price and he says he will come on Monday at 9 AM. I do believe he will too.

Wannbe 4WD

King of the carpark

I spotted this toy off road car and snapped it for my mate Glen in Auckland as I knew it would warm his heart to see it.

Glenn is a poor deluded soul who believes that a Suzuki is as good as a Landrover.

As well as being wildly misguided, Glen has a severe memory loss problem as he has no recollection of all the times he has been rescued by my Landrover. It probably stems from an incident where he ended up with  his Suzuki falling over as he tried to follow a Defender 90 through a forest.

It does look rather cool though in a "yeah, thats my girlfriends car" sort of a way.

Compounding Errors

Day 23 Wednesday 1 September 2010

 

Sans Balcony

First day of Autumn. 33 degrees. Still feels like summer to me. The seasons here are like clockwork and the national life follows them rigidly. The start and end of the rainy season in June can seemingly be predicted to the hour. The weather here is remarkably stable and weather forecasts eerily accurate. Compare this to Auckland where the word changeable doesn’t even come close, forecasts are a complete guessing game and aren’t worth the paper they are written on. It’s often said there that if you don’t like the current weather you only have to wait about 10 minutes. So the fact that this year in Japan nature isn’t playing ball is a bit of a dismay to the locals. Still, that’s no reason not to implement all usual autumnal procedures such as switching off air conditioners and breaking out your winter wardrobe. Never mind that it’s still sweltering hot out there. Rules are rules don’t you know. All fans must be cleaned up and returned to storage. People must switch from eating cold noodles to the hot variety. All across the land winter bedding is being dragged out and made ready and snow tyres are being fitted to cars all by hot and sweaty people.

I had another lost in translation incident today at the Home centre. The staff there are, no doubt, tired of me with my awkward questions and unusual requests. On the other hand, they are pretty damned useless and know next to nothing about what they are selling. Take Jointing compound for example. This is stuff that every home has in it. For those that aren’t familiar with it, it’s the plaster that is used to fill the gaps between the plaster boards on walls and ceilings. Anyone with even the vaguest notion of DIY home renovation skills knows what it is. At home, there is a whole aisle dedicated to the stuff.

The staff at Conan Kameoka have never heard of it. I tried the following languages.

English…Plasterboard.                                                                     

The mysterious plasterboard

American…Drywall.

Kiwi….Gib board.

Blank looks. They sell sheets of it but they don’t know what it’s called or what goes between them.

Next up was sign Language. Ah yes!..... They bought me a tube of silicon!

A quick sketch with paper and pen yielded a tub of epoxy filler.

By now there 3 of them gathered around.

I mention that it comes in a bucket….and am given tile grout.

I tell Shizuka to tell them to go away. They are all utterly useless.

I didn’t expect much from the part timer Housewife or the high school student working there for the holidays but the supervisor having no clue was too much to take.

In the end I found a type of gap and crack poly filler. It’s not really ideal but it will be covered by the textured wallpaper so we will get away with it. On the subject of wallpaper, I was concerned about finding a match for the stuff on the walls of the house. Needless worrying however as there is only 2 kinds available. It was like the line in the Blues Brothers…”we’ve got both kinds here. Country. And Western.”

At least they knew what sandpaper is.

We never did find out the Japanese name for Jointing Compound. If anybody out there knows please do let us know.

Insecure Load

Day 22 Tuesday 31^st August 2010

Furniture removal Sumo style

Today was a big day. The builders arrived on time and got right into it. Shortly after the rubbish recycle man showed up with his friend each driving an old kei truck. This will be interesting. A kei truck has a load weight rating of just 350Kgs.

His mate looks like a small sumo wrestler.

He’s cheerful and enthusiastic and we take an instant liking to the guy.

All the furniture is dragged out onto the road and smashed into small pieces and fitted onto these 2 tiny trucks.

By now its 11AM and 33 degrees and everybody is drenched with sweat.

I tell them to have a break and drink something before they fall over.

So they sit down and we have a conversation. These guys are real scratchers and their policy is to do as much business as they can. Always negotiable, they’re unusual kind of Japs. Our kind of people. By now they’ve twigged to the fact that this is a court seized house and assume we are property tycoons. You can see the curiosity and one says to Shizuka that’s he is very interested in how we got this place

By the time they’re finished, these trucks are well overloaded with smashed up furniture and mattress’s and a sofa hanging out of the back. They look like something you would see in Somalia or Bangladesh.

No sweat!

maximum capacity

I take a couple of photos which leads one of them to ask if this is necessary for the court.

Shizuka just tells him no. They’re to show the folks at home and for our blog.

He looks amazed as he contemplates international fame.

The builders have been watching the proceedings with great interest. The young guy’s eyes light up when he sees a surfboard appear from out of the house. He asks his boss to ask us if he can have it. “Sure” we say. I ask him if he’s ever surfed before. He replies no but he’s always wanted to try. The rubbish guys have decided to come back another day for a few things they just can’t fit onto their trucks. Off they go, slowly. The road between here and Osaka is a bit narrow and twisty and I hope they will be OK. At home a cop would throw the book at you if he saw it.

I borrow the builders long ladder to clean out the gutters. Luckily everything is in good shape up there with very little debris to clear. One more job crossed off the list.

Got there eventually

By afternoon the job is just about done. There is not quite enough cladding to cover the hole so they decided to fix a thin metal sheet over the repair. I go down to the village to get some drinks. Driving back up the hill I can’t believe what I am seeing. The metal sheet is white and looks OK but they have cut it into 3 strips to cover the repairs on either side of the window and below it. The bottom one looks good. The left side’s also good. The right side is twice the width of the left one. What the fuck are they thinking? I point out to them that the trims are not symmetrical. The boss replies that the repaired area is wider on the right. I tell him it look like crap and that I want it to look good. He’s not upset, more bemused that I would object on the grounds of appearance. They recut and remount the offending panel. He sheepishly admits that, yes, it looks better that way. Good guys and capable of some good work but they need to be supervised constantly to avoid cock ups like that. He tells me that Japanese people tend to worry more about the interior of the house and don’t really care about the outside appearance. Tell me something I don’t know.

At last the house is empty of crap…..Yahoo. One of the things we completely underestimated in this adventure was the sheer cost and hassle factor of getting rid of all the junk in this house.

Hot !

It has been officially declared that this August has been the hottest on record. No surprises there. The last two weeks have been mostly fine with a few showers and some spectacular thunderstorms at night. One good thing is that the sun is nowhere near as ferocious as home and sunburn hasn’t been a problem. 

The local landscape

The countryside here has turned from vivid green to gold as the rice crop approaches harvest time. To me, the scenery here is nearly picture perfect. The bright green rice paddies contrast with the dark green forests and steep mountains. The sky is deep blue most days and the air is crystal clear. In NZ summer means heat haze while winter brings the clear days. It’s strange for me to have the heat and the clarity together. The old traditional houses are straight out of a storybook with their sweeping tiled roofs and sculpted conifer trees in the garden.  It’s a landscape that’s similar to NZ but yet entirely different in the way that humans have impacted on it. One thing that struck me was the blatant disregard Electricity companies have for the landscape.  The mountains here are fantastically steep and heavily wooded. But that hasn’t stopped the power lines people from building huge pylons everywhere you look. Some of them must have been constructed by helicopter.  It’s like someone got a map and then just drew a straight line for the route of the power wires.  Damn the terrain!! They just go straight up the side and over the top. The howls from the local population would be deafening if someone tried to do this in NZ.

The village

The area seems to be a mecca for motorcycle tourers and road cyclists. The roads are in good condition and the traffic is light. The 60Km/h speed limit is routinely ignored with most people travelling at 70-80ks. I find myself wishing for a big cruiser like my mate’s 1800cc Suzuki Boulevard. The warm weather, good roads, slow speeds and beautiful scenery all make for a great motorcycle experience.  Shizuka, on the other hand, is not so impressed. I guess when you grow up with it it’s nothing new. I can just imagine this place with a covering of snow.  I would like to come here to see that but just for one day as I hate the cold.

The Building Game

Day 21 Monday 30^th August 2010

Builders.... Stylish.

The builders showed up at exactly 9.00AM. That’s another great thing about Japan. Tradespeople always show up exactly when they say they will. The concept of “9AM ish” or flexi time hasn’t caught on here thank god. No moaning about traffic or having too much work on.  On the other hand they are not what I would call hugely efficient and take a long time to do the simplest of things.  The building team consisted of one middle aged guy and one teenaged apprentice. They were wearing that peculiar uniform that construction types go in for here.  Huge baggy trousers, the kind a circus clown would wear, and those weird boots that have the big toe separate from the rest.   

A quick chat with them about what I wanted done quickly established a few things. Firstly, creative thinking is out. If you have a problem, you need to have worked out a solution before you hire anyone. 

2x4 construction

In NZ when you hire a builder you hire his experience and knowledge. You show him the problem and he then tells you the best way to fix it at which point he goes ahead and does the work. These guys are here to do what they are told to do. Basically they are experienced labourers. I had to show them exactly what I wanted done, detailing exactly what materials I wanted and how they should be used.  Secondly, if they don’t have the exact materials to hand, they seem totally incapable of improvising a substitute. I had stripped all the insulation and rotten plywood from the wall cavity. The waterproof membrane was in bad shape so I cut out a section of this as well. I asked them what they had to replace this membrane. The older one replied that they didn’t have any on their truck. OK I’ll go and get some. What’s it called in Japanese and where can I get some? Another one of those endless discussions ensued between the two of them. The conclusion was that while they know what the product is used for, they don’t know the name of it or where to get it. In the end they suggested that roofing asphalt would work and that they did have some of that. I then went to the home centre and got some plywood, Styrofoam insulation and plasterboard. 

open heart surgery

When I got back they had removed the balcony but were standing around looking concerned.  It seems that the wet wood shows signs of termite damage. They were speculating that the whole wall might be crumbly. I asked them if they would check it out. They didn’t know how to without removing the cladding on the outside of the house. I suggested that they go up into the attic and have a look at the top of the wall on the inside.  This seemed to strike them as a rather good idea. A quick check showed it to be fine. In fact the timber framing up there looks as good as new.  The termite damage is confined the wet rotten part. Around 1 PM a third guy showed up. He’s the cladding expert we were told.  We need to recycle as much as this as we can as it’s not available anymore. They slowly worked their way through the job but by 5PM I knew it wasn’t going to be finished today. To their credit they worked until 6.30PM. Your average clock watching Kiwi would have been long gone by 5. They  said they would be back tomorrow and I even believe them.

Arriving back at the apartment I instantly noticed that the badminton rackets had vanished. Perhaps they kids who left them there had reclaimed them. Maybe the city sent out a special abandoned Sports Equipment removal team. Speculation is rife but in the end we may never know!