Lazy Sunday

I'm sitting in my host family's living room; moved in on Thursday. I have a host brother (Yousuke, 15) in his first year of high school and a host sister (Mio, 13) in her first year of junior high. My host father (otou-san) is a businessman, and my host mother (okaa-san) works part-time as a librarian.

The house is small by American standards, but average by Japanese standards. I have my own bedroom, as does Yousuke. Mio sleeps in my host parents' bedroom. A standard Japanese-style toilet room and shower/bath room. Single main living room, small porch (mostly used for drying clothing it seems), and a kitchen. Japanese appliances tend to be rather smaller than their American counterparts. The oven, for example, is only a few inches tall; I think most things use the burners. Living room has a Western-style table and chairs for dining, and a couple of tatami mats and Japanese-style table for relaxing/homework/television/whatever. One computer in the living, plus a cable running to Yousuke's room for his laptop. I picked up a wireless access point so I can move around, but it's been pretty wonky, so I might return it and just run a cable into my room; that seems to be fine with okaa-san.

My bedroom's a decent size; maybe on the order of 8' x 11' or so, including the built-in closet. Bed, desk, some drawers in the closet. Works just fine for my needs.


I'm sitting at the table. Okaa-san's preparing lunch right now. Udon, I think. Otou-san's in here watching TV, and Mio's watching TV and practising guitar. Yousuke's in his room. He had school of some sort yesterday, despite the fact that it was Saturday. That seems to be common to the Japanese educational system. Mio hasn't had school for the past week or so thanks to some disease outbreak.

Among the random things I've learned: routers here don't seem to have 802.11n and gigabit Ethernet. What's the point of 802.11n if your wired network can't handle the speeds? Also, when you buy a cell phone, it doesn't come with any accessories. You have to purchase your own AC adapter, even. Though my phone was free, and the store gave me 5000 yen in Visa gift cards for some reason, so it's not all bad. Plus my phone has 1seg TV and an 8-megapixel camera.

What else... commute. I'm living in Seijogakuenmae, part of Shinagawa City (one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo). It's about a 10- to 15-minute walk to the train station. I take the Odakyu line to Shinjuku, Yamanote line to Takadanobaba, and finally Ginza line to Waseda. Then it's another 10 minutes or so to campus. All told, probably around 60 to 70 minutes. Apparently around average to slightly longer than average.

Lunchtime, I think. I'll post more later.