Country Goes to Town

The first week we were here we had to take the train into Tokyo to visit a bank (to get a bank account) and company headquarters.  I thought we had to go to the American Embassy too, but apparently we can just call or email them to tell them we are here.  A company representative went with us and taught us how to ride the trains and subways, which is good, because otherwise we might still be wandering around under Tokyo.  We are going to try it by ourselves sometime in the next few weeks.

coming up out of the subway at Otemachi

a shrine next to company headquarters

that tower you can barely see just to the right of the big skyscraper
is the Sky Tree aka New Tokyo Tower

recess on top of a a skyscraper - bad pic, but those are kids playing

gardens in the sky, these are all from company headquarters at Iidabachi

I think we were around Akihabara here, headed home

Around the 'Hood

Our neighborhood is a little maze-like but that seems to be the way of much of Japan.  The roads aren't that clearly marked.  Our American GPS with Japanese maps works great though.

Gardening is popular here and most of our neighbors have pretty little gardens and are constantly digging in them.  I walk around the neighborhood a lot and take pictures:

down the street

some people have space for vegetable gardens

a neighborhood shrine?  no clue, but it's about a block away

neighborhood garden

yard around the corner

New Digs

We have a wireless network at our house!  Tokyo D'Esposito is officially open for business.

It's been a long two weeks.  When we arrived it was almost dark at 4:30pm (the sun comes up early and goes down early here - no daylight savings time) and our driver piled us in our car and took off across Tokyo.  It was completely dark when we arrived at our house and all I could see was a maze of a neighborhood and a very urban landscape.  So I pretty much freaked out all night.  Chad won our bet about who would lose it first and I didn't even care.

Good news is that I'm much better now and not freaking out at all.  Not even at the earthquakes. ;)  But more on those later....for now here are some long awaited pictures of our house.

in the light of day

dining room

living room

the kitchen

from the back, across the rice paddy - the one in the middle