Kata in Japan: March 2016

I promised photos of my room in Tokyo for comparison to the one in Hitachi. Here they are!

The room looks pretty ok in the photos, but guess how much stuff I hid behind the bed. :P Not really much space to do anything, especially to cook anything. The table also wasn't big enough for my study style (I need space to spread my books and notes!), but luckily there are plenty of cafes in Tokyo where I could go for studying.

But the location was perfect! If you don't remember, I lived in Takadanobaba and had only two stations to Shinjuku and five stations to Shibuya with Yamanote Line, which is the busiest line in Tokyo. I certainly don't miss the morning rush hour in it.

Greatest things in my room were the TV (great Japanese listening practice, current room doesn't have one...) and the light switch on the wall next to the bed.

Yes, I kept my rice cooker on the floor because there was no space.

Doorway with genkan. The closets are only for hanging stuff, so not that useful and I ended up keeping half of my clothes in the suitcase.

If you're still wondering why I'm so happy with the Hitachi kitchen...

Bathroom is a bathroom. It's the same size in Hitachi as well. Note: Japanese people love baths, thus a bathtub and not just a shower. Though I have to admit that taking a hot bath after a long day feels reaaally nice.

My great balcony.

The view. Actually pretty nice if comparing that the people living one floor lower would probably stare at the wall.

Hey, my name is Kata and I suck when it comes to writing a blog. It's been three months since the last update, but for my defence I have to say that I didn't have internet in my new room (only on my phone) until the last days of Jan.

I spent my Christmas holiday in Finland, met friends and family, ate ryebread, cheese and salad, did a shopping as I needed to get things for to survive the next 8 months, ate ryebread, ate ryebread etc... Did I tell you that I ate ryebread? Best thing ever when toasted and eaten with butter, tomato, cheese and cucumber. Yum!

I came back to Japan on Jan 4th and moved to Hitachi-shi on the 7th, so I had 2 full days to clean up my room, do moving-out-registration at Shinjuku city office, meet some friends at izakaya, deliver Finnish souveniers to my host family and pack up all my stuff and send some of then to my new dorm ahead of me. I used Yamato Transport's Kuroneko TA-Q-BIN service which was both efficient and reasonable priced. They picked up my luggage by 6pm on Wed and on the next day it arrived to my new dorm during the time slot I had specified.

The luggage I sent to Hitachi. They are the same size. I also carried a full backpack and a sportsbag with me. Wondering how I'm getting everything back to Finland...

All six of us moving to Hitachi-shi or Hitachinaka-shi from Takadanobaba (Baba for short) went together. Alan (UK) is living in Hitachi as well, but his internship started before ours so he already left earlier. From the Team Baba, Thomas is moving to Kudamatsu (far away to the southern tip of the Japan's main island Honshu) and Francesco (IT) to Tsuchiura (halfway between Hitachi and Tokyo).

Ed and Anthony are living at the same dorm as I am, while Mathilde, Aidan and Giovanni are living near Katsuta station about 20min by train from our nearest station, Hitachi-Taga. We got picked-up by our supervisors at the station and they took us to our new dorm to do the registration and get the keys, showed us the bus stop we'll have to use to get to work and finally took us to the city office to do the registration.

I never posted any photos or told anything about my room in Baba, but I have the photos and I'll promise you I'll post them here at some point. Anyway, my new room is waaaaay bigger and I have a kitchen as well as my own laundry machine and dryer! I also have a huge amount of closet space, the thing my previous room didn't have. Couldn't be happier with this new room. :) This dorm also has common rooms on each of the four floors, another thing we didn't have in Baba.