COCKROACHES

This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has lived in Japan before, but there are, for the most part, cockroaches EVERYWHERE! I know that I had some in my dorm in Kumamoto, and here those little guys are again, in my life once more.

But let us not get ahead of ourselves.

Let us start where we left off... I actually can`t really remember where that is. Pre-apartment, definitely.

Well, apartment woes, then.
It has taken up until yesterday to finally get into the apartment that we have been looking at. This apartment has sort of been in my/our radar for months, and we have had all sorts of difficulties getting it. Finally, after many trips between the school and the realtor, we paid the money, got our keys, and were able to move into our apartment.

Which is great, and completely amazing.

There have been a FEW problems, though. None of them too big.
The first one was getting our luggage moved from our hotel in Tsurumi to our apartment in Okazawa. The train ride from Tsurumi to Yokohama station is about 15 minutes, which isn`t really a problem, and then the subway ride back to Mitsuzawa (our closest station) takes only about 5 minutes, so there was no problem with that. The problem was trying to haul all of our luggage from our hotel to our apartment in the crowded Yokohama trains and subways.

The person from the Tokyo Gas company was coming sometime between five and seven on the day we moved in, which meant that one of us had to stay and wait around while the other had to get the luggage. Since Kim weighs about as much as one of her bags, let alone having to carry my bags with hers, I decided that I should go. So I took the train from Yokohama station, where we were getting our phones (YES!) and went back to Tsurumi for what was to be more than just one trip. I grabbed my big backpack and one of Kim`s suitcases and headed out, back onto the train to Yokohama AGAIN, and then to Mitsuzawa.

Did I mention this was during RUSH HOUR?

So I get into a train... and so do five million other people. I get pushed by the sheer momentum of all the people, which makes me lose my balance, along with the already precariously-balanced baggage, which falls over into some poor man`s leg. I apologize (sort of because I actually didn`t care because it wasn`t REALLY my fault if you really think about it) and then waited patiently for my stop at Yokohama.

So me and the five million other passengers get off at Yokohama, and we all head down the stairs into the crowded main area of the station. I start looking for the line that should take me to the apartment (I had only been there once, and that was by car, so I didn`t know where the line was). I ended up giving up after about two seconds of looking, because the heat and weight of the bags was killing me, and took a taxi. I got a little lost finding the apartment even after the taxi driver dropped me off, and then I had Kim meet me at the hospital nearby, but actually ended up finding the apartment before that.

ANYWAY

We finally get the bags into the apartment and are on our way to do it again. We buy some futons to sleep on (which add to the baggage) and go through everything one more time. It`s definitely easier with three people (and a little less embarrassing), so no real problems there. We get back to the apartment and are STARVING, but exhausted so we decide just to go to the nearest conbini and get some food.

BUT THEN

Kim sort of shot up (she was sitting in her room), and said she saw a big bug. I thought that she didn`t really mean a very big bug, and so I was shocked to come face to face with THE BIGGEST COCKROACH I HAVE EVER SEEN. I mean, I`ve seen bigger ones in movies and stuff, but that was the biggest I had seen in real life. THEN, a SECOND HUGE ROACH comes running out of her closet. We high-tail it to the conbini and try to find some cockroach traps. There aren`t any. So we walk to the supermarket which is actually a good 15 minute walk (which felt like HOURS to our poor feet), and got some little traps. We laid the trap and after a little while (and a lot of mini-panic attacks from Kim), we finally saw one make another appearance in the BATHROOM. I found it particularly gross because I had showered and completely not noticed it. We set a trap by it and it was stupid and had crawled in really quickly. We thought it was caught so Kim took a shower.

BUT

IT CRAWLED IT`S WAY OUT OF THE TRAP. That little cockroach RIPPED its body off of the paper that BIRDS CAN`T GET UNSTUCK FROM and just sort of hung out around it. That`s when I decided that it MUST.DIE.

So I grabbed my handy converse (green kind) and had a good 30 second power struggle with the roach, in which he ran around really fast and I yelled a lot and slammed my shoe against the floor. My shoe finally made contact with the roach, and that did it in. One cockroach DEAD!

Kim and I decided to sleep in the same room and with the lights on, just in case. The next morning when we woke up, there was one more cockroach in a trap. After that we went to a home shopping store and got some roach traps and bug bombs and stuff (along with BIKES! And cleaning supplies), and spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and spraying.

Hopefully they are ALL DEAD. Hopefully.

We also met with a fellow IUC student of ours for dinner, which was really fun. Lots of meat and few vegetables were consumed, and I became a member of one more thing. Great.

I will keep you all updated on the bug situation!

Bye!