City Slicker

This weekend we moved to our apartment in the city. As I mentioned awhile back, we'll be here for two months so I'm close to the hospital and my doctor. Chad is driving back and forth from Gunma which, so far, is going pretty well.

We didn't get a ton of information about our apartment (it was arranged for us by the company) until just before we came because, well, that's just how they roll.  But I'm pleased to report that they came through for us again....the apartment is in a great location (just south of Ueno Park which I first mentioned here) and is very nice. 

apartment building

apartment

our view

As you can see it's small (one bedroom) but suits us just fine.  The bathroom and bathtub are surprisingly large and Western-style, most of my appliances are in English, it's easy to cool and it comes with two nice Japanese ladies to clean it twice a week.  So far the only con is that it's on a hill.  And as great as the location is, I'm not going to be able to take as much advantage of it as I would under normal circumstances.  Normally I would be down in Ueno Park every day but since I currently have the mobility of a large arthritic duck, I'm not sure I can make it that far (probably less than two miles but the park is huge).

street right in front of apartment

down a very steep hill

nearby elementary school (surrounded by trees)

another neighborhood street

down the other side of the hill to the local grocery

The only other thing of note is that it's been a little hard to figure out where to get food, considering we limit ourselves by eating very little Asian food.  So far we've mastered pizza and burger delivery and we have our eye on a couple of local restaurants where hopefully we won't wind up with a plate full of sea urchin.  And then there's groceries.  Tiny little local city supermarkets/bakeries/butchers are a little hard for a country girl to wrap her mind around.   Although again, I wouldn't be nearly as concerned about figuring it out if I were able to explore more.  On Monday I had a disastrous experience trying to find what I thought was a large international supermarket on the other side of the city.  Long story short, it was tiny and didn't deliver.  But with Chad's help I finally located a small but adequate supermarket about two blocks from us and I'm currently waiting to see if a delivery boy actually brings the groceries I bought this morning to my door this afternoon.  Fingers crossed.  And then I get to try to make dinner in my tiny little city-folk-don't-cook kitchen.

the grocery store....it ain't Wal-mart

And one last thing....we didn't bring our full computer setup with us so blogging is a little more difficult.  So if things get a little rough around the edges for the next coupla months, that's why. ;)