…and we’re rolling.
If you’ve been keeping up with my recent escapades, you’re probably wondering “So what is that crazy Russian-Canadian fellow in Tokyo up to these days?”, assuming you use the term ‘fellow’ in your daily speech. Well, I might just have some answers for you, ‘ere mate. Week 2 at my new job is coming to an end, and I cant complain - it seems like a good place to be for the next little while. Apartments? Ivan and I decided to split a larger 2-bedroom apartment just to keep the cost of living down. We found one in the past week and I signed the lease today - not too shabby. Of course I recently bought some new stuff which combines with the huge appartment move-in expenses to make me utterly poor. As it seems right now, I’m over the ‘transitional’ hill of ’starting a new life in Japan’. Hourrah.
Job: “Who do you work for?! What do you do?” Easy there. It’s a small-sized IT firm called Emissary Computer Solutions, and I’m the newbie in the office (aka ‘nugget’ or ’snappa’) - basically an intern for now, and nobody really knows what department to permanently assign me to. The title IT Support Specialist means that I do some workstation maintenance, troubleshooting, and of course windows re-installs at the office or at customers’ sites. Its kinda fun wandering Tokyo, following this Australian guy around for the first little while; I fear that one day i will just pick up on too much of the accent and the Canadians won’t understand me at home anymore, eh? Also i’ve memorized a good section of the Tokyo metro subway and know my way around - thats pretty fly for a white guy. The company is growing very quickly into several markets - a very promising thing to hear - but this of course means more work for everyone. On top of IT Support i’m getting server migrations, VOIP server configurations, and of course webdesign tasks thrown at me amidst a never-ending pile of email (that I sort into folders). Hectic. All in all though, the people in the office seem great so far, and i’m happy to have an understanding boss (who teaches Aikido and reads my blog now and then..). Yea, thats about it for the job.
Apartments. It’s true - finding a place in Japan is a pain, especially for a foreigner. First of all, there aren’t that many english-speaking real-estate agencies, and to add to that, some landlords request japanese-speaking citizens only, and other B.S. restrictions like that. Second of all, there is alot of up-front costs that set you back such as the 1-2month’s rent security deposit, several month’s rent as a bribe to the landlord for taking you in, and a month’s rent to pay to the real-estate company for finding you a place. On top of this, add the cost of the first month’s rent, the fact that 1 month’s Tokyo rent is quite expensive as it is - and you get the fun experience i got to go through recently. Nonetheless i have signed the lease for this one place that Ivan and i plan to share for the rest of our stay in Japan. It is a 40 square metre, 2 bedroom place and it is less than a minute walk from a subway station. The rent is a around 1000CND /month, and the move-in cost was only a bit over 4 months rent for this place. I will share more details when i actually move in - i dont know much more about it at this point - but i am relieved that i have a somewhere to stay.
Speaking of money spending, I decided to pick up a laptop, since my AWESOME (sarcasm) Sony Vaio is being taken away by the old company I worked at. I went out and got a used IBM x40 for something like 870CND. It is a very cool tiny little computer - finally i can have a laptop that i dont mind carrying around in my bag! The battery is supposed to last 5 hours when it’s new, but this one is a year old so it goes for about 3 hours - not too bad. Also as an impulse buy, i bought into the iPod craze so now i have a used 4 gig nano. Yay! .. but this also means i have to convert most of my music library from wma to mp3 or AAC. Eugh - stupid apple/microsoft war, can’t all filetypes just get along?! Oh well - yay Ipod!
Thats about it for now, will keep you posted on the appartment & job.
