Things I've Purchased: Dressing Table

This will be the first in a series of posts about any remotely unusual items I have purchased here in Japan. 

So, as I mentioned previously, we have to put a little effort into the heating and cooling of our house.  But no matter what we might do, our bathrooms are always the least comfortable rooms, temperature-wise.  So, I don't really want to spend a lot of time in there primping.  When I do have to look decent I tend to take over our computer desk and leave makeup and bobby pins all over the place.  For some reason, this really bothers Chad.

Fortunately, I had just the solution to his problem....I had recently seen a remarkable array of cute little dressing tables in a furniture store called Nitori.  Nitori is kind of a really small-scale Ikea-ish chain store.  I wish I had a photo of all the tiny dressing tables (maybe sixteen different ones) or that I could find them on their website but no such luck.

While purchasing one I discovered that the store didn't keep them in stock, but instead would deliver it (for free) to my house on a day I named.  Accomplishing all this in Japanese was a trick, but I managed. 



The actual process of having it delivered, on the other hand, was excruciatingly difficult.  I know how to say "please come in", "put it here please" and "thank you very much".  I thought that would be all I needed.  Instead, two guys showed up and started jibbering at me and handing me forms to read.  My neighbor wouldn't answer her door, and Chad (who has bilingual co-workers all around him) wouldn't answer his phone.  So the poor delivery man and I conducted almost the entire conversation on our cell phone translation programs.  Turns out, he had to inspect the walls in my house and point out every little dent and ding to me before he could bring the table in.  I had to watch him bring it in very carefully.  Then I had to inspect the table very carefully.  Then we had to go back through the house and review all the dents and dings and agree that they were the same ones as before. 

All while pecking on our cell phones and holding them up to one another.  Sigh.  I feel like I am making progress on speaking Japanese and reading Japanese but understanding a native speaker who is speaking natural Japanese at their normal speed is extremely challenging.

But I have a really cute dressing table now. ;)