In the new apartment.

Well, I'm here in the new place. It's actually a lot nicer than I was expecting, although I'd hesitate to call it glamorous by any stretch of the imagination. There are 6 rooms and 2 shared bathrooms, common area, and kitchen. The rent is about 620 a month at the current exchange rate, which is a lot more than I was thinking...nothing to do about it now, though, except to get working as soon as possible.

This is what is known as a gaijin house, which means that it is occupied by foreigners on both a long-term and short-term basis until they find other housing or move out of Japan. It's cheaper than a hostel, by a lot, but is effectively much the same thing, except without the constant supervision of staff members. So, cleanliness is a bit less than the ideal, but it's not a shithole either. At the moment, I'm pretty happy with it and I look forward to meeting my roommates.

As I was leaving today, after paying the rent and deposit, I saw this stunning cloud formation from my porch. I'm not really into the whole omen thing, but I'll take any good news that I can get.



Final note: the internet connection here is fast. Unholy fast. Burn your face off fast. I've never-seen-anything-fucking-like-it fast. I'm going to be filling up a hard drive or two, and my loyal followers can finally look forward to me shutting the hell up about my stupid weak-sauce internet connections...