Heat where you want it

I'm learning quickly that luxury is a relative term.

A luxury to one is not the same as luxury for another.

Then there is a totally different category: heated toilet seats.

Ray's apartment is about the size of our living room back home, and it's about twice the price. It's essentially a studio apartment, with the kitchen and bathroom connecting and the bedroom, living room and office merged into another room. The street-facing wall is a large sliding glass door that opens up to a balcony and overlooks the town and high-rises of downtown Tsukuba (pronounced "Scuba") and overlooks the twin peaks of Mt. Tsukuba.

It's just like being in a foreign country.

The Japanese way of living is simple, and it's quite refreshing. Nothing's extremely over the top or showy. The bed is hard, and a twin size, just big enough for two to fit and one to fall off.

I called the wall side, so I won't be the one on the floor.

The sleeping area is divided off by sliding doors covered in rice paper, which are very easy to break through when fumbling around in the dark.

But it's cute and cozy, and it's home for the next 23 days. It's crazy how a place a third of the size of our apartment back home can still rack up the same cost in utilities.

Food is expensive, too.

I ate my first authentic Japanese dish in the Narita airport, which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. The Japanese take pride in their work, so you're getting great quality whether you eat in the airport, mall or sit-down  restaurant. Ray & I had 小カツとじ共おそば, which is a dish of soba noodles and katsu (fried pork).

I'm still learning how to make literal translations sensical.

Cold Soba Noodles

Warm Soba Noodles

I had warm noodles, and Ray had them cold. They were interesting to say the least. They weren't the best tasting thing in the world, but they weren't the worst. They supposedly have all the essential nutrients the body needs, but since they are  noodles I question their nutritious value.

The katsu didn't taste fried. It was covered in bread crumbs, cooked in eggs and served over rice. I didn't need soy sauce to make the rice taste good, which attests to how well the dish was prepared. It's a recipe I'm dying to make and take back home with me.


It wasn't heavy or greasy, which was good since by the time I ate that I had been awake for 43 hours with only three 20-minute naps in between. I slept most of the way on the bus ride to Tsukuba, but caught a few glimpses of the town as we rolled in.

It's about the size as Gainesville, but with a big-city feel. There are some high rises, and the streets are small and close to the buildings (as opposed to large parking lots separating the road from the store.) People do a lot of walking here, which probably attests to the healthy look of the Japanese.

They drive on the "wrong" side of the road here, which makes my heart stop every now and then when I feel we're about to collide. I can tell language is going to be a huge barrier. Even though English is becoming very popular, it seems rare that "working class" people in this area speak it fluently, or much at all. So, bus drivers, servers, cab drivers, etc use a lot of hand gestures to communicate with us. It will probably be different in Tokyo and large metropolitan areas we will visit.


I have just been informed that they don't really have cake here, which is going to be a bummer come January 5. Today is the Emperor's birthday, so a national holiday. A lot of things are going to be closed, so I think it's a nice excuse to recover and plan our trip!

It's 5 am here now, the time difference is really difficult. It's definitely going to be interesting to switch my entire circadian rhythm to the opposite of what I'm used to. (It's 3 pm EST).