Budgets and General Household Life

 Hmm.  Totted up my income versus expenditure yesterday and discovered I was only about 600yen (about 5.50€) short of breaking even since I moved into the apartment on the 26^th of September, and began earning.  Now, if I had had a normal working week this week, I would have been able to reclaim the outstanding yen in the week before the month was up.  However, due to an unfortunate and sinister coincidence, not one, but two public holidays imposed themselves upon me, which meant that for some reason my landlady took taken into her head to close the bar until Friday, whereas usually I’d be working a few hours most evenings during the week.  Damn ‘Respect the Elderly Day’ they won’t earn much respect from me with this sort of carry on.

I had worked out at the start of the week that if I was economic (by not spending money on luxury items such as food etc) that two days working in the Café, another two nights in the bar at the end of the week, and my one private lesson would leave me slightly better off than when I arrived.  My stocks would be sufficient to see me through, if it wasn’t for the fact that one of my CouchSurfers seemed to be on a similar budget, only he was using my food.  The others were all fine, mind, this one just seemed to lack a degree of social protocol.  I was treated out to a meal midweek by two of my surfers, but the beers afterwards (they did offer to pay for those too, but I wouldn’t let them – or at least not for all of them) pushed the target even further out of reach, despite the fact that I got a third day at the Café on Friday.

I was also supposed to work on Saturday night, but got randomly invited to go salmon fishing by a guy at the bar on Friday night, and I figured it was too good an opportunity to miss, so I took it off to drive five hours to the Northern tip of Hokkaido to the fishing ground.  More on that later.

If I’ve given the impression that I’m struggling financially, I’ve been misleading and apologise.  Granted that I’m not exactly flush at the moment, but I paid next month’s rent yesterday and have plenty left in the coffers to feed me.   I don’t get out all that much, but it’s all part of living the dream, eh?  This month will be more profitable as I have more regular hours as well as an increased wage in the Café for my second month.  I thought that my boss in the bar/landlady was going to be upping my wages as well or at least that’s the impression I got from the conversation we had the other night, but I appear to have been mistaken.  I think I’m going to demand/request better pay this week though. 

On the upside, it means I’m spending lots of time at home studying the Japanese writing system (two alphabets down, the last one is a slow process, but I’m getting there) also am trying to make it to as many of the free Japanese lessons held around the city as I can (although I’m currently averaging at one a week).

My House

My home, although a far cry from being my castle, is sufficient for me to live in to a degree of comfort.  I would say that it’s nice to have my own bed, but since I’m unable to sleep in it, or even stand near it because the dust around it results in an uncontrollable fit of sneezing, watery eyes and itchy skin, I have to make do with a futon on the floor.  I’ve tried hoovering the mattress, beating it with a stick outside (which raised a few eyebrows, whatever about clouds of dust), and clearing out the dust around the bed with a damp cloth (actually one of my surfers performed that last task as it was a bit much for me).  Still no good.  But sleeping on the floor is much more in keeping with the Japanese style anyway.

The temperature here dropped from the high 20’s to 15C almost overnight, and the house has become fairly cold.  I do have a paraffin stove that heats the place up very fast so I’m still nowhere near as badly off as I was in my apartment in Greece which had no insulation to speak of, tiled floors, high ceilings and killer black mould.  At least, not yet anyway, the mercury still has a way to drop before we hit winter temperatures.

Went on the search for a more comfortable internet location with my mobile office (basically my computer held by bungee cords on a table I rigged up over my bicycle basket) and found a new park about a block away.  What this park lacks in convenience (three minutes cycle instead of a stroll across the road) it makes up for with a better connection (a choice of two, in fact).  It may not have the personality of my local park, with attractions like the strange homeless-looking man who comes along and pats one of the trees in the morning and the irritating drunk old man who comes along and goes on and on about “America numba waan, UK numba waaaan….France no, Germany – Hitra no, Japan no, Hiroshima sad,” (America and UK number one, France is no good, Germany and Hitler are no good, Japan is no good and got taught a lesson by the States and the UK with the Hiroshima bombing – the last part is coupled by him licking his finger and dabbing tears onto his cheeks), but it does provide more or less undisturbed internet use.

My CouchSurfing hosting got off to a good start, had two guys from Poland arrive on the 2^nd of September and had people staying constantly for over three weeks after that.  My total so far is ten, and my last one left on Saturday morning.   For the most past I enjoyed their company immensely, some great stories and ideas floating around in the travelling community and I’d definitely recommend hosting if you’ve got the space/time/desire.  However that one guy from Hong Kong was very hard work, but I think I probably got him as some sort of Karma for being a git when I was in school.  I hosted him at the start of September and agreed to take him back later on in the month when he came back from WWOOfing, before I realised what I was getting myself into.  He arrived back in town on the 19^th and stayed in hotel in town that night.  However, he did call me saying that he would like to meet up for dinner.  I said that was fine, so out he comes to my place with a bag of five apples (which I appreciated as apples are a bit pricey) and then starts examining the contents of my fridge and asking if I have any pasta.  I throw something together for the two of us, he eats an apple while he’s waiting.  We ate and he hung round for a bit more, while I tried to ignore him and study some Japanese.  Eventually he left taking another apple with him for the road, and leaving the dishes for me.  What a guy.

Looks like I spoke too soon about the internet.  My new park let me down today.  Damn.  Back on the bike, standing on the side of the road.  Had one or two pics that I was going to add as well but that seems to be giving me trouble too.  Typical!

Waste Collection and Employment

A hectic few weeks have passed since my big move to Sapporo, and I haven’t really had the opportunity to keep everyone updated quite as much as I planned.  The main things that have kept me busy have been: work (kind of); becoming a CouchSurfing host; study (ish); and trying to get my head around the waste collection in Japan.

I’ll begin with the last one first, as that may take a bit of explaining to people not familiar with the “efficiency” of the separation of household rubbish.

Basically, while most of us in Europe are content to divide our rubbish up into ‘recyclable’, ‘non-recyclable’ and possibly ‘compost’ for organic waste, the Japanese go a step further.  Or, rather, several steps further, by separation waste into nine different categories.  These are: Burnable Waste; Non-Burnable Waste; Plastic Containers and Packaging; Bottles, Cans and PET Bottles; Branches Leaves, Grass and Weed Cuttings; Miscellaneous Paper; Pressurised Spray Cans and Gas Cartridges; Dry Batteries; and Bulky Refuse.

This division not only makes life awkward in terms of fitting several bins into an already limited kitchen space, but also results in a lot of time staring at an object that you are planning to discard and trying to figure out what bin it should go into.   Inevitably the trusty “Garbage and Waste Sorting Guide” needs to be consulted before making the decision, which is quite often an option that you hadn’t even considered.

An example?  Alright then, picture this - You’re writing and your biro runs out (you manage to catch it, but discover that it’s also out of ink).  You examine at the choices in front of you and reckon that it’s probably between ‘Non-Burnables’ or possibly ‘Plastic Containers and Packaging’ but probably the first one, right?  WRONG!  Ballpoint pens are, apparently, quite combustible and thus appear on the ‘burnable waste’ list, along with lunchboxes, rulers, SD memory cards, rubber and vinyl goods, clothing, blankets, leather and kitchen waste (basically compost).  Charcoal also comes under this heading, but, although I fail to see why you’d send your barbeque fuel off to an incinerator, at least that kind of makes sense.

Even when you’re fairly certain of where an item is supposed to go, it turns out to be less simple than anticipated.  A PET bottle (you’re average soft drink bottle), which appears in a category of its own, must first be de-lidded and de-labelled before being disposed of, and these are then placed in the ‘plastic containers and packaging’ bin.

Waste is collected every day of the working week, ‘Burnables’ on Monday and Thursday, ‘Plastics’ on Tuesday, ‘Bottles, etc’ on Wednesday and Friday alternates between the remaining waste types, with the exception of ‘Bulky waste’ which you have to ring a special team for and pay for disposal.

I have narrowed my bins down to three, as I had to buy them myself and I was sick of walking around loose supermarket bags of rubbish on the floor.  I chose ‘Plastics’, ‘Bottles etc’ and ‘Misc. Paper’, as these are the ones that I use most.  For my burnables, I’ve taken to keeping a small plastic bag on the sink for them, which I then dispose of in the bins at the 7/11 shop around the corner.

In other news, I’m juggling a few part time jobs at the moment.  Most frequently, I've working in my landlady’s bar - basically paid to get people to come into the place, chat with them and maybe get bought a few drinks in the process.  The wages are pretty rubbish, but I was told last night that next month they’ll be going up by a few hundred yen, which is good news, at least, if that was what she was saying to me.  Didn’t really like the work at the start, but now it’s alright, and it is a good way to pick up Japanese.  I do prefer the nights that nobody buys me any alcohol, though.  I work there most nights from nine until midnight, if it’s quiet, or later if there are a few knocking around.  I can take nights off whenever I like, they usually just ask the night before if I can work the following night.

Job number two is in a Conversation Café, where I work for three hours at a time making conversation with Japanese people who are interested in practicing their English.  The pay is alright, and the people are interesting.  It works on a rotational basis, people pay for an hour and join the table, and if they are newbies that invariably leads to introductions, which we’ve quite possibly covered already, which is a rut that I feel that I have to figure a way out of, so that we aren’t just repeating ourselves, which isn’t too stimulating for the rest of the group.  There are notebooks that we can jot things like vocab down in, or draw pictures to help customers understand if there’s a breakdown in communication.  I have come across some pretty complicated words in there from past conversations, which have made me feel like I’m not really covering the same ground as the other ‘conversationists’ for want of a better title.  But I enjoy the work, and have now been given an extra day per week (making it two days), which is good.  My wages will increase there in month two as well.

Finally I have also taken on a private language lesson which I have once a week for one hour.  It’s just a conversation lesson, although now she wants to go over some grammar points as well, so that’s going to be fun.  The pay could be better, especially as I meet her in a café and so have to shell out for my own coffee (or orange juice), but it’s good experience, and she seemed happy enough with the first lesson, so we’ll try to keep that going.

My free internet in the park seems to have vanished, I think they got wise to my antics (me and three of my CouchSurfers lined up on benches and foldy chairs probably hastened the outcome, but it was good while it lasted).  I’m hoping that it’s just a temporary lapse though.  It means that I have to wander further down the road to the traffic lights, and use the internet from some company or other.  I think I can only do it outside of working hours, though, as one of the guys got chased away from there the other day.

I think that’s probably enough talk for now.   More to come.