ASIJ and picking grapes: a sweet harvest

So after a busy Sunday festival we went to the elementary school orientation for the American School in Japan (ASIJ) on Monday with both kids. (Alex’s orientation is actually tomorrow but he gets dragged along.) At the crack of dawn– or 7:20am we get on a bus to ride to the ASIJ campus. Unlike buses in the US there is a place to hang your umbrellas as you get on – does this tell us something about the weather or about Japanese design? At this point we are still jet lagged so getting up is much easier than normal. The bus ride takes us through the ugliest parts of town – nothing but elevated highways looking out on construction projects and concrete slabs – which combined with the gray rainy weather is not a very welcoming sight. We get to the school at 8:20. The ride makes us more determined to move closer to the school so that the ride is shorter for the kids.

The welcome that we receive at the school is nothing short of fabulous. We are greeted multiple times and asked if we need help. Even though we had been unable to attend an orientation earlier all the teachers and councilors interrupted their most hectic day to help us out. Caroline spends a couple of hours with her teacher while we attend parent meetings – Alex spends the time in the library. We also scope out the information booths in the cafeteria – some information is for the children with the range of after school activities explained. Others are for the parents including a booth for printing your home business card with a map – very necessary in Japan. When we pick Caroline up we spend a couple of minutes with her teacher – Mrs. Bade who was raised in Japan and has been teaching at ASIJ for 7 years. She seems to be a wonderful teacher who is very interested in science and writing. We are most impressed. We are even more impressed after having lunch at school. There is a small kiosk as part of the book store that has a small but nice selection of sandwiches and salads. These come in plastic containers that they reuse. You get a 100Y back for returning these items. They also have a good selection of ice cream and snacks.

The elementary counselor meets with Caroline to see how she is feeling about the move . (He meets with all the new families and makes sure that the children are ok with their new school. Throughout the year he works with each class to help them grow emotionally – some of the adults I know could use his services.) Alex has a similar counselor that works us into her schedule . She has hiked Monchu Pichu and has traveled all over the world – her office is decorated with items from her travel and I would like to spend more time talking with her. She talks with us and then talks separately with Alex. As soon as she hears that we had a Japanese tutor at home she whisks him up to the Japanese teachers so that they can put him at the correct level. I have never seen this type of responsiveness at our Texas public schools – although they might be able to do this if they had the amount of money that ASIJ has as well as the committed parents – the turn out for orientation is quite high and the place is packed. I think both kids will have a great year. Finally, we notice the libraries are very well stocked and encourage the parents to check out books – 25 at a time – to make sure everyone has access to reading material. (We can even get items from the High School if we want.)

After a full day at ASIJ we return by train, finding our way to the Chofu train station through a drizzle. The trip back to our apartment takes three train transfers and ninety minutes; not difficult but I would rather not do this too often.

Tuesday Alex does the same trip again with Jonathan, but this time Caroline and I stay behind and remove some of our things from the bags. I do not want to unpack too much as it will all have to be re-packed when we find a permanent apartment.

Jonathan and Alex return very impressed. Alex will have much more freedom to roam his campus compared to the US and he is very happy.

Wednesday we all get up early and see the kids off – thereby meeting the other returning parents at the bus stop. Mostly wives of businessmen – Jonathan is the only male. Both kids return quite happy so I think we made the right choice in sending them to this distant school.

With both kids in school Jonathan and I get to business finding an apartment. Since we were in total agreement after seeing our first 3 places we split up. We realize that we prefer low-rise apartments and wooden floors. After being shown both western and Japanese places we decide that we prefer Japanese bath rooms – that is we like having the bath and toilette in separate rooms and we prefer the Japanese shower – mainly because it feels much less cramped than standing in a small tub. Our main frustration is that the real estate folks do not understand that the need to be near a late morning bus stop is more important than having a beautiful apartment. They would never make an adult have a longer commute in order to keep the children from a long bus ride

What do 4 gaijin do on their first real weekend in Japan? They travel to Shibuya to check out the electronic stores. Shibuya has an incredible street crossing that has to be seen to be believed – this would never work in US as nobody would observe the crosswalk signs and traffic would be stopped for hours. Japanese apartments are usually rented with no appliances – we spend a few minutes pricing refrigerators and combination washer/driers. The latter sound great but I can state from using one in our service apartment that they still have a long way to go – these take about 4 hours for one very small load. The electronic store is very loud; definitely don’t want to spend more time here than necessary.

On Sunday we were invited by a Japanese friend to travel on a slow view train to the wine district and then try to see Mt. Fuji on another slow train. We had to line up at Shibuya at the entrance to a non-smoking non-reserved car and it is a good thing that we got there a bit early as a line did form, but it was behind us so we had our pick of seats. We did notice a size difference between this and Amtrak – the seats were perfect for the kids but Jonathan did not have room for his knees. The advantage of these trains is that they enabled us to see that Japan is more than just concrete slabs and construction sites. The first train was a double-decker with wonderful viewing possible – that took us to the wine district.

When we got off the train our friend got a cab to take us to a grape harvesting stand. There we were fed a sample of grapes and then we were loaded into a very small van which took us up to the grapes – about a 5 minute drive. We cut a few bunches of very delicious grapes from their over-protected growing spot – each was encased in plastic. (By the way we were told that each bunch is pruned 5 times by 5 people or 25 times.

We then went to an onsen for a quick soak. The onsen was rather typical – men separated from women, one must wash completely before entering, then enter your choice of pools with different temperatures and some inside and some outside. Since the train schedule was inflexible and the lunch possibilities were too expensive for our host to recommend – we have noticed he is rather good at hunting out inexpensive alternatives, we then took a cab to the train station and went to the nearest town for lunch. Then we boarded another train and headed to Fuji. It was getting progressively greener and the landscape was demonstrating why much of Japan cannot be used for building – very steep terrain.

Although the outing was not demanding it was a bit too long for my taste and I was quite happy to take a Shinkansen back to Tokyo, especially since the next day was a school day for the children.

The following day we were shown the empty apartments by one of the real estate people and decided that the top floor with a view but old fashioned kitchen was better than a great kitchen and no view. This is where we will be – very close to the University of Tokyo in the Shoto area – which we were originally told was too expensive. However, we are in an older place – 20 years without a major overhaul and the location is great for the kids- the bus stop is at 7:44 not 7:20 and Jonathan is walking distance to a major train stop. Also there are many eating places within walking distance so I don’t care what the kitchen looks like.

We are told that obtaining an apartment in Japan is the biggest hurdle that we will face during our visit and we feel lucky that the time between our first day of looking and our acceptance by the landlord – they often say no to foreigners – is exactly 2 weeks. We filled out paperwork that shows our income – the real estate folks do not care about savings at all, only monthly paid income which must be at least 3 times the rent. Much of the form is ridiculous – for example it is more important to have a Japanese person who will back you than a company – go figure. At no time do they ask to see anything that one would need in the states. The letters that we fax could be totally bogus and they would never know. Perhaps this is one of the reasons they dislike dealing with gaijin.

The only problem with the apartment is that we have to wait for them to repaint – this is done after every tenant has moved out – steam clean and replace the heater and a.c. unit. We would prefer to move ASAP but this should give us time to hunt down what we need to get started.