Bank Account-

In order to get paid for my job, I was required to open a Japanese bank account-

And that's what I did for the second day-

First, you need to have an alien registration card...
Now this was easy, you need a picture, your passport and an appropriate visa-

Next you need a identification paper telling the bank that you are a foreigner and that you don't have a personal stamp thingy- Apparently, they don't like signing things and every family has their own little stamp with their family name or something- You could have it specially made or buy it at the hyakuyen shop (dollar store).

Now, once you have all the required information... finding a bank is the hardest part. For most banks in japan, you have to have been living in japan for at least 6 months- my working visa only said 6 months... damn it- Got reject by 3 banks before I finally remember that the company actually told me to try Citibank. Took 3 hours of walking around to finally find a branch that will let me get my crap done. This is mainly caused by the fact that I actually went to Citibank's main office building 50 mins away from the station that was closest to it- You would think that if you go to the main office they must have some type of service counter, right? NOPE.... damn it $#^$&%(*&&*()@(%#*^&...

But finally- after 6 hours of adventuring around Tokyo in 34 degrees weather, I got my stupid bank account... only to find out that city bank has exactly 103 ATM machines in the whole of Tokyo. WOW- I'm think this adventure for the bank is not gonna end any time soon....

Moving IN

WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!! Finally.... I have been in Japan for about 2 weeks now, and life is starting to catch up to me. This month has gone by pretty fast, going to Beijing, waiting for my visa, starting work, blah blah blah- I have finally settled into my room in OOMORI Tokyo, and have began my internship working for Hartford life insurance doing data mining. So many things have happened in the past two weeks that I don't know where to begin... well.... lets start from day one...

I arrived at the Tokyo international airport on the 20th of july at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It is called the Tokyo international but it is situated in the prefecture next to Tokyo lol. It takes about 1 hour to get the city by train or about 2.30 hours to get there by bus. Since I've been to Tokyo before a couple of times, I knew exactly where to go and what to do, so there aren't any adventure stories about getting to the city. So I got through customs, got my HUGEASS suitcase that weight about 20? Kilos (multiple that by 2.2-2.3 to get pounds for you American folks), got a ticket and hopped on to the bus bound for Shinjuku. Shinjuku in the heart of Tokyo and it is also has the famous crossing that is often shown with any TV program talking about Japan. The train station handles about 3 million peeps a day, and works like a giant maze (trapping another quarter million). Anyways, this place was nowhere near where I lived but I had to go and get my keys and sign my apartment contract.

After I got my apartment stuff settled I jumped on to a taxi and headed straight for my shared apartment... which was directly across the city from where I had been. The ride took like 5000 yen which is about $50 USD..... but not even god was gonna make me hail my heavy suitcase to the train station and go there by train.

My room is pretty nice, probably the biggest in the whole apartment, and has a huge window with a great street view. I was quite satisfied with everything, except they didn't give me anything that I needed to live with.... no blankets, no covers, no pillow... basically all i had was a frame and a mattress. Mission 1: get crap. The building itself is quite well situated and there are quite a few department stores and dollar shops... so i cruised around there to pick up the things that I needed.

Funny things happened while i was trying to find everything. I mispronounced the Japanese word for 'pillow (makura)' as the word for 'tuna (maguro)'... should of seen the guys face when i was trying to animated the action of sleeping on a pillow but actually saying tuna tuna at the same time. In the end, pillow purchased.

Everything else was okay. I couldn't find a blanket, so I ended up getting a very large towel instead, didn't quite understand what i was thinking... Anyways, I got most of the basic stuff that i need for the night and I headed back to my den.

Later, I found out that my pillow case was actually a size smaller then my pillow... so my solution: try and stuff the pillow into the smaller case.

Result: didn't work... a quarter couldn't fit into the case and it was so stuffed that I felt like I was sleeping on a book-

Since I had been up since 7 am, I was ready to catch up with some Zs. So I said goodnight to some hallmates that I met and retreated back to my room. As I started to change to go to bed, I noticed something odd.... My room has a huge window facing the streetings... with buildings across from me. The view was great and all BUT they didn't give me any curtains. Whoops... *was about to take off my pants*... couldn't do anything now, it's 11 and all the stores are closed =( So I put my shirt back on and got some shorts, turned off the light and pasted out.

I have managed to steal a double mattress from the hallway and mount it on my single bed and the ledge by the giant window- it worked out fine except I can't sleep with just my boxers on until i get some curtains. I didn't want to scare the old people living across the street from me or the people that are walking on the street and happened to look up at my building-