K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about the things I wish I’d known before moving to Japan.

C: Japanese.

K: (laughs) Yes. Japanese would be helpful.

C: But I think that’s not the most important thing. Well, and it’s an obvious one. So, I studied Japanese a little bit before moving here – and you can a little bit early to study Japanese – in an environment designed for that. So, both of us had some Japanese before we officially moved, moved.

K: Yeah.

C: To Japan. Because we were… fleeing the country but not under threat of death. Just under threat of “this sucks here.”

K: Yeah.

C: The thing I wish I had known – like as far as when we first moved here – is how to tell what a bad area of town looks like.

K: Yeah. Me too.

C: Because we moved into… a just horrific area of town, but it looks really nice.

K: It does. And it was like hardcore ghetto. Which is so… weird to me. Because where we live now – we’re in a thoroughfare, but like literally… a ten-minute walk from our house, there’s a brothel and a couple of strip clubs. And it’s a good neighborhood. And even – because my office is over, like literally a three-minute walk from a strip club and a five-minute walk from a brothel – and it’s a good neighborhood.

C: Yes.

K: There’s a couple of boutique businesses besides my own – it’s a mixed-use residential – and boutique businesses – but in between our house and my office, there is a busy thoroughfare. And all of the buildings are a bit ghetto and rundown. But the area itself is not a ghetto, which is so weird to me. Because when I drive past it, it’s like… visually, it looks very ghetto because most people don’t have dryers. And so, there’s laundry on everybody’s balcony drying. The buildings are old and dirty because they don’t steam clean the outside – power clean the outside of buildings, waste of water and all of that.

And so, for me, I’m like “the buildings are old, and there’s laundry on everybody’s patio” – which that’s just so American expecting people to have dryers. We had a dryer in our old place that didn’t fit in our new place, and now we don’t have a dryer. So… yeah. And our first neighborhood – so, when I lived here alone, I lived in Okazaki.

C: Right.

K: And I lived down the street – like around the corner from literally a cow farm that had five cows. So, that was bizarre. And

C: So, wait: if they have five cows, how is it a cow farm?

K: It was a dairy farm.

C: No, I get that. But shouldn’t it be a cows farm?

K: I don’t – are you making a not-funny joke again?

C: Yes.

K: Is this continuing on?

C: This is continuing

K: I feel like this is like the third week in a row you’ve been unfunny. (laughs)

C: We are going on more than 20 years of unfunny.

(laughter)

K: That is so just like – y’all give Chad love on his jokes. Like, if you’re laughing at them, tweet at him and let him know because I just – I don’t know what it is about your jokes, lately. But they’re just – like, outside of the podcast, you’re way funnier, but on air you just haven’t been – you’ve been kind of missing the mark, my love.

C: Yeah. I feel like… I just save it all up to make you laugh privately.

K: (laughs) I’m your private laugher. But I don’t laugh for money.

C: Yeah. So, you lived briefly in an apartment here in Nagoya.

K: Yeah.

C: Before all of us moved over.

K: And I loved that apartment. It was in a swanky part of town, but… I didn’t know that when I moved in that it was a swanky part of town.

C: Right because it’s like up a narrow road, and you didn’t have a car, so you were walking, and there’s a street fair down the street once a month.

K: Yeah. But it has like… one of – it has a really famous temple next to it, and you can open the windows and hear the monks chanting. And I really loved that place, but the owner was tripping when we tried to buy it.

C: Yeah, they were like, “I will sell it to you for twice market value.” No. We didn’t like love it love it.

K: Yeah. I feel like they were just trying to take advantage of us.

C: Yeah.

K: But it was really nice, and it had an international grocery store down the street. It was, like, really, really swanky and fancy. But it was also – now that I live here, live here, and now that we live where we live now, I much prefer this neighborhood.

C: Well, and our neighborhood has been gentrifying.

K: It has been gentrifying, and I don’t approve. I liked it better when we had the tobacco factory next to our us. When we first moved here, we were surrounded by factories.

C: Yeah. So, we live near the Mitsubishi factory. Which is like…

K: And it’s still there.

C: Yeah. Acres and acres and acres – it’s been there for 50 years, so

K: Yeah. It’s not going anywhere.

C: But yeah, when we moved here, we lived between like… a wood warehouse, a tobacco warehouse, a motorcycle repair shop… like, just industrial stuff.

K: Yeah. And a Kentucky Fried Chicken that’s gone now.

C: No.

K: There used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken across the street for like a hot minute.

C: No. That was never a Kentucky Fried Chicken. That was, and still is, a Kentucky Fried Chicken corporate office.

K: Oh, okay. So, I don’t look at that building.

C: That building

K: That building has been a lot of different things.

C: That building has been a lot of different things: it was a bike shop, it was a shooting gallery – I don’t know that it was, it looked abandoned for a while, but

K: I’m really happy that the pachinko parlor down the street from our house is closed.

C: Yeah. So, we had the pachinko parlor. But I find it interesting that our neighborhood, despite even when it was industrial, was not a dangerous neighborhood at night.

K: Yeah.

C: And the one that we moved to in 2007 before we moved here

K: I’m gonna call it out. Chikusa.

C: Yeah. Chikusa.

K: Chikusa – I’m sorry, if you live in Chikusa, I am so, so sorry. But for my lived experience

C: Well, so Chikusa ward is big.

K: Yeah. Chikusa ward is big.

C: We’re talking about Chikusa area.

K: So, we were across the street from the Chikusa station.

C: Right.

K: And so, across the street from the Chikusa station – around the corner, the nearest grocery store gets all of like the day-old stuff that the other grocery stores don’t sell.

C: Oh, it is more than a day.

K: Yeah. It was, like, almost all of the produce was always rotten – like half of it was rotten. It was super cheap food.

C: Yeah.

K: But it was like the worst of the grocery chain. I’m not gonna say the grocery chains name because they’re a good grocery chain. We have one of them down the street from our house now, and it’s night and day from the one that was over in Chikusa.

C: Yes.

K: And the reason why I’m calling out this neighborhood is because it’s the neighborhood where that dude tried to hit me with his car.

C: And this was

K: To abduct me.

C: Yeah. And this was the interesting thing is that… in the U.S., I so strongly associate dangerous with poor, and I forget that that is now a natural dynamic that always exists.

K: Yeah. And it’s not always true.

C: That’s what I’m saying. It’s not like… it’s inherently true. It’s something that is made true by particular policies that either are present or are not present, and at least in Nagoya, I have never felt in any kind of danger in going to neighborhood with very low rent.

K: Me either. But I lived in… public housing in the United States when we first met. I’m not ashamed of it.

C: Yeah.

K: On 10^th Street in San Jose.

C: Yup.

K: And… one of my neighborhoods… two of my neighbors sold drugs. And three of my neighbors had done long prison stints, but it was like the most mellow… and calm area – like, nothing ever went down. Everybody was looking out for each other, like… I don’t know. I was really protected. There was just like… there were gangs – I wasn’t in any of the gangs – but the gangs, like, didn’t really fight with each other. And they really looked after the street and kept a certain level, shall we say.

C: Yeah.

K: And so, that – I’m sure people who haven’t experienced it, it probably just sounds horrific, but… it was ghetto, but it was safe. I mean, there were certain things that happened that I didn’t like, like if anybody was on a bicycle, I knew to move away so they don’t grope me. But here in Japan, I get groped on the train, so like groping has been

C: Yeah, by people in expensive suits.

K: Yeah. So, groping has just been a part of my life, my entire life. Which I think a lot of women can relate to. It’s a sad fact that I’m just like, “eh, I got groped.” It’s annoying, it pisses me off. If I could – like a person on a bicycle, if I was by myself, I would kick them off their bike if they groped me.

C: Mhm.

K: That was like one of my funnest things to do. (laughs) That is not making it sound like I was in a good neighborhood.

C: So, I think it’s interesting because I met your neighborhoods, and you told me, “these ones are drug dealers, don’t talk to them about drugs because I know you’re not looking to buy any.”

K: Yeah.

C: But I think that more of my neighbors when we met were drugs dealers than your neighbors, percentagewise.

K: Yes.

C: And

K: And you lived in a swanky, new, like fresh building.

C: Right. So, I think that the association there – I hadn’t realized until moving to Japan it had been made for me by… what people said. And it didn’t even match my lived experience because, growing up, I was – for my entire childhood – in some kind of government housing. Or dormitory housing or something. Like, I lived with my parents at the student housing in BYU, which was mostly… poor people.

K: Yeah.

C: I lived in military housing for most of my childhood, and… but I still associated, like, government housing with… danger and poverty.

K: Yeah.

C: Despite having grown up in very dangerous neighborhood where people got jumped on a regular basis, and I myself was held up at knifepoint, and…. It’s weird to me to realize how… the narrative I was telling myself didn’t fit reality. And coming to Japan and seeing it so differently

K: Yeah.

C: Really alerted me to that fact.

K: so, for me, like the fact that there’s… three – between three to five – homeless people that live at the train station

C: Yeah.

K: One of the train stations is a ten-minute walk from our house. There – they don’t cause trouble.

C: No.

K: And they’re not soliciting for money. Like, if you try to give them money, they won’t take it, but that was weird – but then I thought that was really presumptuous of me to assume that they would want money.

C: Yeah, like that scene in the movie where people come by and drop money in somebody’s coffee.

K: Yeah. It felt very that. And then… there’s also a lot of street performers at that station, and they don’t want money, but they do sell their CDs. So, you

C: So, some of the – yeah, and I don’t know if that’s the rules about busking. Because I don’t know. I have occasionally seen people with a hat out for tips. Or a guitar case out for tips. But it does seem less common than in San Francisco, for example.

K: And so, that’s one of the things I wish I had known before moving to Japan – because it would’ve been a lot less awkward. You don’t tip in Japan. Like, you don’t tip your waitress, you don’t tip your pizza delivery person – there’s no one I can think of that you tip. And… it’s a really different culture. And I was always trying to shove money at people. (yawns)

C: Well, and we knew

K: Excuse my yawn.

C: We knew before we came that they said that there’s no tipping required in Japan.

K: Yeah. But it’s like… they will fight you to not take your money.

C: “Why are you trying to make me steal your money?”

K: Yes. Like, “I’m not a thief.” So, like, even like when you go to a hotel and… you get, like, room service or the bellhop. Any restaurant – just all of the traditional places where I would tip in the United States.

C: It depends because we stay at hotels that are mostly catering to Japanese guests.

K: Yes.

C: And I know that, like, the Oriental Grand in Tokyo – they say explicitly, “we expect you to tip at the bars, at the restaurants” and things.

K: But the places that – so, we had that experience in Kyoto, but it is not the way I experience it as an American.

C: Right.

K: As an American, I presume that I will choose and decide the tip. And they – no, that’s not how it goes. In Japan, if you tip, it is included in your bill.

C: Oh, yeah. Definitely, the gratuity.

K: It’s not – yeah, it’s a… worked in fee. So, for me, it’s not a tip. For me, it’s a tax or a surcharge or a usage charge. But, for me, tipping is just different. I think because most of my life, I lived off tips.

C: Right.

K: But it’s different, and you can’t decide to give more. They will not allow you to tip more

C: Right.

K: Than what’s already baked in.

C: But they will allow you to compliment them.

K: What?

C: They will allow you to compliment them.

K: Yes. But they don’t really know what to do… when you compliment them.

C: (laughs)

K: Like – because we have this – I had the experience of… going to a fused restaurant where it’s Japanese and Spanish food. It’s… fused that way. And it’s so, so delicious. The shrimp is just scrumptious; the rice is off the chain. And…

C: Are you talking about Bar Deco?

K: Yeah.

C: So, if you’re in Nagoya, Bar Deco.

K: See, that looks like a ghetto, but it’s not. It’s restaurant row.

C: Yeah.

K: But to look at it, you would think, “I’m gonna get shanked.”

C: Mhm.

K: “I’m getting mugged tonight.”

C: Okay. The only shank is lamb shank.

K: Yeah.

C: And the only mug is a mug of frosty beer.

K: Because it’s like… it’s almost like cartoony looking ghetto. Where, like, you have tons of electric wires that it’s not really clear where they’re going.

C: (laughs)

K: And the streets are super narrow… and you can’t tell, like, what’s a one-way street. What’s a two-way street. And it’s just jam-packed in this really small space that is surrounded by wide-ass roads.

C: Yeah.

K: It’s so weird to me in Japan. You can just be like cruising down a wide-ass road, and then boom. The road is like seriously cut in half. I don’t get it. That’s something I wish I knew before moving to Japan is… how narrow the streets are.

C: So, I think it’s interesting because you’re talking about the restaurants, and I’m thinking back to when we went to the Bahamas because we’re not gonna pretend we haven’t lived a little bit.

K: Yeah.

C: We went to… the Bahamas – we went to the main island; I can’t remember what the name of it is.

K: We went to a different – we went to a couple of islands.

C: Yeah. But we – we hired a driver for a day to take us around and show us… like, sights and… feed us and all kinds of things. And he stopped in the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie, and we had… conch salad.

K: Yes. Which is one of my favorite things. And we had just read the book “Because of Winn Dixie.”

C: Yeah.

K: That was part of the summer reading list that year, and like literally after… we read it, I was like, “a win dixie.” Because I had never heard of or seen a Winn-Dixie grocery store. And they were playing this song on a lute, “everybody wanna go to heaven, but nobody wants to be dead.” And they just kept playing that song on a loop, and it’s just like the funniest song for us – we’re atheist.

C: Yeah. It’s like 2 minutes long. We were there about 30 minutes, so we probably heard it about 15 times.

K: Yeah. It was hilarious. And the guy was just there in a stand with a bucket of conch. And all the ingredients. And we went up to the stand, and we’re like… we’re gonna eat conch salad. Which then led to the coolest thing ever: one of the favorite restaurants I’ve ever been to was the one that… I think our driver’s name was Cleve?

C: Cleveland.

K: Yeah. So, I called him Cleve because that’s what he said to call him.

C: Yeah.

K: We met his – his daughter and his wife and his family, and his daughter… came and hung out with us one night. And we went down this long road that the tide came in and disappeared, and we were on this little island full of shack restaurants. And I had shark for the first time, and it was so good. And you ate the spine of the conch, much to Cleve’s daughter’s dismay. She so wanted that. I was like, “no, thank you.”

C: (laughs)

K: Long… it was long and thin and transparent.

C: Yes.

K: What’d it taste like?

C: It was more a textural experience than a taste one.

K: Yeah. And I was just like not into it. And I – I didn’t eat any conch. I was having different grilled fish. I love like grouper and shark and just like – all locally caught fish, and I was also listening to a Raider’s game on the radio. We turned up our radio loud.

C: Yeah, back then they were in Oakland. This was like 2001, I think.

K: Yeah. When they had returned to Oakland before they left again

C: Yes.

K: I don’t know why the – like, chasing money is so sad. Because, for the team, the Black Hole for the Oakland Raiders and playing in the Oakland colosseum – that was such a unique experience for the players. And they loved it and they felt so… at home there. It really felt like home for them. All the players said it.

C: did they?

K: Yeah. All the players said it in all the interviews.

C: Okay. So, you’re not just like, “most players say.”

K: No. I’m just – I’m not, they said it.

C: Yeah.

K: I’m saying I’ve watched interviews of players, and they would talk about the best feeling was after you scored a touchdown, jumping into the Black Hole.

C: Mhm.

K: Because, like, you could run past the endzone and jump up, and the fans will catch you. And it’s kind of like a weird wave in that they don’t – you don’t go body surfing over the top of the crowd, you go body surfing over the front row. Like, they just pass you along the front row. You start at one end; they drop you off at the other.

C: Okay.

K: You saw it happen.

C: I did see it happen, but I’ve never been a player, so I’ve never experienced that.

K: And we never, ever sat in the Black Hole.

C: No.

K: Which is so weird because it was one endzone, not the other – not both endzones.

C: Yes.

K: And… at the Oakland Raider games, almost every game we went to someone got stabbed.

C: Yeah, that was…

K: Which was so bizarre and weird. So, like – which kind of ties into the fact that an Oakland Raiders game on the way there, it’s not a ghetto experience. But on the way back, it’s a very ghetto experience because everyone’s wasted, and we’re sober, so…

C: Yeah. That was sometimes worrisome. Just the amount of crowd. And I found it interesting that, like

K: Because mostly home games sold out.

C: Yeah.

K: We had season tickets.

C: Yeah.  But I find that interesting here, that the other place we lived the rent was quite high.

K: Yes.

C: And everybody’s rent was high, but at night… it was just like people roving the streets looking to rob people and…

K: Because it was a gated community. So, that was even weirder. It was a gated community, but it was also next door to a trailer park. And… people would hop the fence from…

C: No, I was talking about here when we lived in Chikusa.

K: Oh, okay. So, yeah. So… I think I told the story before about how the guy tried to hit me with his car.

C: You did, yeah.

K: So, after that, I didn’t go walking at night.

C: Yeah. But it was like… strange because prostitution’s legal here in Japan.

K: Yeah.

C: So, the brothels and strip clubs and things down the street from us – down the street from your office – are legal, taxpaying businesses.

K: Yes.

C: No issues with that. But in the other neighborhood, there was a lot of illegal… prostitution going on.

K: Yeah.

C: Which brought a whole crime element, but not the yakuza.

K: No because the… the yakuza are actually very orderly. They’re not like… the… gangs in the United States. And they’re not like… the mob in the United States. At least, in my lived experience. Like, they don’t mess with foreigners at all.

C: Right.

K: Like, at all at all. And… because there’s heavy penalties for messing with foreigners if you’re in the yakuza. And… we’ve seen, like, yakuza members that have the tattoos. And it’s interesting to me when they choose to show their tattoos. Because you have to work to show your tattoos if you’re…

C: Yeah.

K: Because you have to wear a short-sleeve shirt where the sleeves are shorter than your sleeves. And I just wonder why they’re like advertising that they’re yakuza.

C: I don’t know. It’s been years since… I last saw somebody that you pointed out, “look at that person’s tattoos.” And that’s when we were taking a fairy in Nagoya Bay.

K: Yeah. And they had specific – a specific cut to the yakuza tattoos.

C: Yeah.

K: And then I remember seeing a guy from Thailand that had, like, 15 piercings in his face and was covered in tattoos and just… a law-abiding citizen not involved in any crime. But… people were terrified of them. And I just thought that they were beautiful living art.

C: Yeah, I find that interesting – and I think it goes back to the perception to me because, when you were on 10^th street, I was not concerned about any of your neighbors because nobody wanted to start trouble at home.

K: Yeah.

C: Everybody was very chill. And I feel like… the standing police presence does something to… I’m not arguing that we should let gangs run things, but I think that

K: But in my neighborhood, there was no standing police presence.

C: Yeah.

K: It was down the street. It was at a crossroads, but not on my road – there were almost no police on my road ever.

C: Right. Yeah, so there was one way that if I went that way, I was guaranteed that there was gonna be police cars and random stops and things.

K: Yeah. On the other side of this major thoroughfare, there was a really heavy police presence. But on my side, there wasn’t. It’s really weird because 10^th street is really a block-by-block experience.

C: Yes. Like, one block is San Jose city – San Jose State University, like okay. Rocking.

K: Yeah.

C: Another block is…

K: And it’s all just like frat houses and stuff.

C: Right.

K: And that’s just really ghetto.

C: Yes.

K: The frat house row is really ghetto. There’s always stuff going on – like negative stuff going on.

C: Yeah, so… it’s interesting to me because I think that… the neighborhoods here where rents are low tend to be neighborhoods that are far from train stations and that are more traditional housing.

K: Yeah.

C: Which is often code for… higher proportion of elderly residents… people who work at, like…

K: And also, traditional family homes that have been passed down generationally.

C: Yeah.

K: Really weirdly marked out plots. Like, I don’t understand how Japan plots its land. I don’t understand Nagoya City planning – I don’t understand any cities’ planning. Just to be completely transparent. Because I didn’t get how things were zoned in California. I don’t get how things are zoned here in Japan. I do not understand… how zoning commissions make their decisions. I know that there’s like gerrymandering and gentrification and a lot of socio-economic stuff worked in to… U.S. zoning.

C: Right.

K: and I’m not sure if that’s the case in Japanese zoning because it’s so… homogenous that… it’s not – there’s not the racial strife baked into zoning. There’s not racism baked into zoning in the way that there is in the United States.

C: Yeah. I don’t know much about Nagoya’s, but I know more about Mie prefecture’s because the governor of Mie came and talked at an event that I was at.

K: Yeah.

C: And he was talking about, they have areas zoned that they are trying to attract eco-friendly businesses. So, everybody is allowed to build there subject to the rules, but if you’re an eco-friendly business, it’s like 5 times cheaper, and the government will pay you money to build there to bring jobs and things. So, it encourages certain kinds of businesses.

K: Yeah.

C: So, I do find it interesting that… Japan… builds its cities around its train stations.

K: Yeah. Everything is like – like, your rent is based on how far you are from a train station, how – everything is based on minutes walked – minutes’ walk from the train station.

C: Yes.

K: And that’s something I wish I understood before moving to Japan. I wish I understood the Japanese minute. Because the Japanese minute is like… literally 60 seconds. But what they can do in terms of moving their body from one end to the next in 60 seconds

C: (laughs)

K: Is not what I can do from end to the next. So, like, a 10-minute walk – so, I was – I remember being told that it was a 3-minute walk to a station.

C: Yeah.

K: And I believed that. And it was a 15-minute walk for me. Because I walk really slow. But now that I have my walking sticks, I walk a lot faster.

C: well, and the rules for advertising the minutes from the station are very specific.

K: Yeah.

C: So, you can’t just say, “oh, it’s about 5 minutes’ walk.”

K: No.

C: You could say that if you’re talking to somebody, but to advertise an apartment or…. An office or whatever, there’s a formula for distance that takes into account how many street crossings there are and all sorts of other things, so I wish that… we had known, like… be close to the train station, but not too close.

K: Yeah.

C: Because too close was Chikusa.

K: Yeah. Because we were right across the street form the train station, and right across the street from a train station is usually ghetto but not

C: But very expensive.

K: Yeah. But not – so, it was weird because, in Chikusa, we were right across the street from a train station, but we were also right across the street from an old folks’ home.

C: Yes.

K: And it was just still really dangerous at night. Like, as soon as the sun went down, the neighborhood got sketchy. Sorry. (clears throat) my voice is weird today. I call it thick. My throat is bugging me. Just really, really sketchy.

C: But no bars.

K: Yeah.

C: Maybe that’s why – the people who are out on the streets doing stuff should’ve been drinking. Like, be a good Japanese resident and go to the bar.

K: (laughs) And go to your local…

C: Izakaya.

K: Yeah. The name was slipping my brain. And so, another thing I wish I had known about Japan before moving in is that every place you live will have a tatami closet.

C: Yeah.

K: And the tatami closet was one of the most confusing things to figure out what to do with in life for me. The first ten years in Japan, I just could not get it together with the tatami closet. I tried to use it for clothes, I tried to use it for… odd storage.

C: So, wait, you’re saying you didn’t get up every morning and fold up your tatami?

K: Right? I don’t make my bed.

C: You don’t fold up your futon and beat it dry and hang it out and put it in the futon closet?

K: Yeah, which the futon closet is lit if that’s what you want to do.

C: (laughs)

K: Like, it’s perfect for that.

C: but that requires a level of genki – of energetic-ness

K: Yes.

C: That is like… ugh. I can’t do that every single day.

K: I used to do it.

C: I know you did.

K: I used to do it – but I used to be a better housekeeper than I was. I think it’s like 6 years ago or 7 years ago, I just decided to stop being the one – the primary caregiver in terms of cleaning the house. Because I used to clean the house twice a day.

C: Yeah.

K: And that’s something I wish I had known before moving to Japan – at least in Nagoya city. It’s super, super dusty. And there are 4 types of mold.

C: Yes.

K: And so, in terms of our mold battle, that’s still on point. We’ve got our mold game down. We have our dehumidifiers that like – when we have to dehumidify my house, our electricity almost doubles.

C: There are certain months it triples.

K: They’re little, tiny units, but

C: They use more than all the rest of the electricity put together.

K: And we have to use it because our apartment is actually really well-insulated.

C: Yes.

K: And so, the walls sweat. And the front door sweats.

C: Enough so that it stripped the paint.

K: Yes. And that was shocking, gross, and alarming to me the first time I… because we moved her in Spring, so it was not an issue for Spring and Summer. But in Winter, I got up and there was a pol of water in our entryway, and the door was sweating.

C: Yeah.

K: And I was like, this is the grossest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

C: (laughs) I was like, “you liar. I know what things you’ve seen.”

(laughter)

K: And we have wrap-around windows.

C: Yeah.

K: In our apartment. And a wrap-around balcony. And all of the windows sweat.

C: We don’t have any wrap-around windows. We have windows on three sides of our apartment.

K: Yeah. Well, one side of our apartment, an entire wall is nothing but windows.

C: Yes. We have south-facing windows because that’s the direction your window wall should face is south so that sun doesn’t come directly in, but you get sunlight all day.

K: Yes. And so, opening and closing the curtains and figuring – it took us like 3 or 4 years to break down and buy dehumidifiers.

C: Yeah.

K: And that was because our friends were like, “everything you’re doing’s not gonna work, and your house is gonna be covered in mold.” I was like, I don’t accept that reality.

C: We had one person who said, “I just leave my doors and windows open all of the time even in winter.”

K: Yeah, I’m like I can’t do that.

C: (laughs)

K: I can’t do that.

C: It snows here. Not every day, but it’s cold.

K: Well, and I am so used to central heating, so adjusting to the aircon system where every room you want to have any sort of climate control, you have to have an individual unit for – which we’ve talked about in the past – that’s like shocking and traumatizing enough.

C: Mhm.

K: For me. Because I’m super pampered and spoiled, I don’t care. So, even though we were opening and closing our curtains, I didn’t realize that the curtains were getting wet on the bottom.

C: Yeah.

K: And so, our sheers – we went through a couple of sets of sheers the first year. I couldn’t figure out how to keep the – because we use double curtains – and in one of the rooms, we have triple curtains because… for black-out reasons because of my illness to the sun and all of that. and in the other one, we just have sheers and curtains because I like to open the curtains but leave the sheers closed.

C: Yeah.

K: So that we have privacy because you can see into our house during the day very clearly. And at night super clearly. But I like to be able to see outside. So, the… we were just going through sheers, and it’s black mold. And in the United States, black mold is like deadly and it’s really bad, but it’s a different variety of black mold. And then there’s white mold, which is really, really bad and… way harder to get rid of than the black mold. And the white mold is airborne, and I’m super allergic to it. And then there’s pink mold that, if you don’t wash your shower room every day – I love the fact that there’s a shower room. Like, I walk in, and it’s a huge, walk-in shower. In every apartment I’ve ever lived in, which is so awesome. Like… you get a shower room even if it means there’s no separation between your shower and your toilet.

C: Yeah.

K: So, we have our toilet across the hall from our shower room. But pink mold. And the pink mold will come every day. And so, I do use Fantastik. I’ve used it my whole life. And we have to get it from Tokyu Hands, or we can order it now from Amazon Japan and it’s not imported. And it has bleach in it. It’s the only place and the only way I know to find bleach in Japan.

C: We can buy raw bleach at the grocery store.

K: Could we?

C: Yeah.

K: But I don’t use raw bleach.

C: No, you don’t.

K: So

C: You like bleach-containing spray products. And those, you do have to buy specially.

K: So, for me, knowing that I have to clean – and then there’s like a yellow film that I don’t think is mold, but I’m not sure.

C: No. That’s not mold. That’s like weird ventilation from our cooking area. If you cook butter, it will

K: No. You’re thinking about the stovetop. I’m thinking about the sink in the bathroom.

C: Okay, yeah. I don’t – I know what you’re talking about now.

K: Even if you wash it every day, if you don’t take the stopper out and wash the bottom of the stopper, this weird… yellow thing that’s like the texture of gelatin.

C: Yeah.

K: So, maybe it is a mold. Maybe it’s a type of mold? I guess there’s pink, white, black, and yellow mold.

C: Yeah. I mean

K: Now that I’m thinking about it. Because it becomes gelatinous. And I didn’t know that because it’s not my habit to clean my sink stopper every day. It’s my habit from just growing up, you do the deep clean once a week. And so, even though I was cleaning the house twice a day to fight the dust – because the dust is real, the struggle is real with the dust. And the struggle is real with the mold. I wasn’t taking out the stoppers, and I wasn’t flipping out the drain.

C: Mhm.

K: Because every drain can be taken apart in our apartment.

C: Yes.

K: And so… that’s – how to clean the apartment, I wish I had understood and knew how to clean the apartment because it was years and years of strife and confusion, and then not understanding that the vinyl floors, like you will damage them if you clean them with the products I like to use. And so, yes, damaged – our floor is jacked up.

C: Yeah. And if we want to sell this place, we’ll have to get it repaired.

K: Yeah. We’ll have to – and we’ll have to replace the wallpaper, and I wasn’t prepared for… the wallpaper to be white.

C: Mhm.

K: And I wish that we had chose a different color. But I didn’t like any of the colors they were offering.

C: Right.

K: Because the anti-mold wallpaper looks like moldy walls.

C: Yeah.

K: To me. At least

C: No, it did to me too.

K: At least ten years ago – I don’t know what it looks like now – but ten years ago it was pink and grey.

C: Yeah, and we talked about it, we were like, “okay. So, this is anti-mold because you just can’t see the mold?”

K: Yeah. I couldn’t figure out what it was about. And it looked fuzzy.

C: Mhm.

K: It didn’t look matte. And I like a matte finish on my walls.

C: Yes.

K: A smooth matte finish. And, too, having the white walls wasn’t… that big of a deal because we brought all of our art from the United States. All of our art and our masks.

C: Yeah.

K: We don’t have fancy, expensive art, but when we travel, we would buy from local artists. So, we have some really nice pieces that I really love by artists who aren’t famous.

C: Yeah, I think the most we’ve ever spent on an original was like… $100.

K: Yeah. And I think that was in the Bahamas when we got our painting One Love.

C: Yeah.

K: That’s our pet name for each other. And so, we were like, “oh, we have to buy this.” So, we bought several pieces from an artist and then, when we would travel in California, we have some wood carvings from an African artist that is based out of Sacramento, and we have a couple of masks. And we have a couple of – I don’t know maybe 3 feet tall carvings.

C: Yeah.

K: That fit perfectly in a nook in our apartment. Like, we couldn’t have planned it better. The two pieces fit perfectly. Like, almost all of our carvings have like the perfect spot to hang in our apartment.

C: Yeah.

K: And so, like, even the pieces that we got from Canada have – because we have a lot of Buddhist art. And so, we have one of my favorite pieces was given to us by a friend who brought us a little wooden Buddha from India in a red box. And it’s like really old and passed down through their family and has a lot of history. Their family’s not Buddhist. They’re Hindu. And so, she didn’t understand why they had this Buddha statue.

C: (laughs)

K: She didn’t know where it came from, and she was… just like very disturbed. But her father was completely obsessed with Rasta because he believed that Rasta was a reincarnation of a Yogi. And because Rasta had when he was younger, it’s dark now, but he had like blondish hair. It was like a honey blonde. And he was just convinced that Rasta was a reincarnation of the Yogi. So, he actually brought it back for us and gave it to us. It’s one of my favorite art pieces because of all of that connection.

C: Yeah.

K: so, I wish I understood the layout of Japanese homes. Because our kitchen cupboards are… full but have very little in them. And so, like, five plates and five glasses… that’s a lot for a shelf.

C: Yeah.

K: in a Japanese kitchen.

C: so, I wish that I had known before we moved to Japan how much less space we needed than we had.

K: What do you mean by that?

C: I mean that when we moved to Japan, our apartment now is less than half the size of our house.

K: Yeah.

C: And I think that… the way we live now is so much… smaller, physically, than the way we lived in the U.S., and I don’t know if we could’ve lived as comfortably there in the same space. There’s, like, a whole structure to support living this way.

K: I think, too, not having a small child because we threw parties.

C: Yeah, that is a big

K: Our house was designed for entertaining.

C: Yes.

K: And we entertained for a little while when we first moved to Japan, but I think we’ve talked about before that it’s just really odd to go into people’s homes.

C: Yeah, we have talked about it.

K: You have to – like, you’re really good friends with somebody to go into their home.

C: Yeah. People were like, “okay, this is the second time you were inviting me over. I thought that was a housewarming party.”

K: Yeah.

C: Like, “aren’t you ready to never let anybody into your house ever again?”

K: And it’s been that way for like 8 years, now?

C: Yeah.

K: No one’s come into our home?

C: Yeah, that’s right.

K: But before that, we had like friends come over and spend the night, and… your oldest friend besides me.

C: I was gonna say you’re my oldest friend.

K: (laughs)

C: In all senses.

K: And you haven’t known me that long.

(laughter)

K: So, yeah, would come and stay, but now we just – we don’t. But everybody knows we sleep in our living room now.

C: Yeah.

K: And we don’t use half of our house.

C: We are storing things that we also don’t use in those rooms.

K: Well, now we do because

C: Yeah because of quarantine.

K: Yeah.

C: The need for a physical separation.

K: Yeah.

C: So, before we just had the one office, but then we ended up needing two so that you could do work from home with privacy while I was also working from home.

K: Yeah. So, I guess… what you need to know before you – before you move to Japan, I would say… know how big a tatami mat is, so when you’re looking online at your apartment, you can know how big your apartment is.

C: Yeah.

K: Because there’s 5 tatami rooms, 6 tatami rooms. Knowing whether or not you want a tatami room or not.

C: Mhm.

K: Nowadays, if you have tatami in your apartment, it’s way cheaper in some neighborhoods, and in other neighborhoods it’s way more expensive to have tatami. Which I think that just has to do with the age of the tatami.

C: The age of the building.

K: Yeah. So, we talked a little bit before about how, if you tear down a building and rebuild it, it’s so – it’s a completely different experience. And the cost is so high. And so, families tend to just pass buildings down.

C: Yes. We did.

K: To each other.

C: But yeah, know how you’re going to live.

K: Yeah.

C: And where you’re going to live.

K: Know if you want to live in the country, you’re going to need to drive, so… you have a very short window where you can take your American driver’s license, get an international driver’s license.

C: Yeah. So, you have to get the international license while you’re in your home country.

K: Yes.

C: And then you can convert it to a Japanese license. Your home country license plus the international driver’s license.

K: And do it.

C: Do it. You have like a month.

K: Do it because it’s so hard to pass the test.

C: Yeah, I think you have a month after you get here to convert it.

K: Yeah.

C: And I think it’s six months if your country drives on the left.

K: And decide whether or not you want to have a car or live in a city that has great public transportation. Because the public transportation systems vary wildly from city to city. And if you’re living in a driving city, and you don’t have a car… don’t let the smooth taste fool you, the bike is not the same as a car. Because I lived in Okazaki, it was a driving city, and I lived up a hill that was so steep I had to walk my bike up it. I didn’t see anybody riding their bike up it.

C: Yeah.

K: And there was a portion of the rode where I was like… riding down the road. And I would get – I would tag people’s mirrors, get tagged by mirrors, every single day. It was just so treacherous.

C: Yes.

K: And it was not near… a grocery store at all, so I say… see how far your train station is. Also know how far away from a grocery store you are.

C: Mhm.

K: And… Yamanaka and Aeon are the two biggest…

C: Grocery store chains.

K: Yeah.

C: TrueValue is the Aeon one.

K: Oh yeah, and there’s also

C: So, Aeon… malls usually have a TrueValue grocery store in them, but TrueValue grocery stores sometimes live outside of Aeon malls. They’re part of the same brand family.

K: Yeah.

C: But they can be standalone.

K: And know that you will be paying twice as much, at least in Nagoya, if you’re shopping at Fronte – the international grocery store – so, find like a local grocery store. And also… like… google your city and find out what the events are and such and don’t be afraid to explore your city. Walk around your neighborhood and get to know it. And you can do virtual tours now on Google Earth. Just put in what your address would be, and you can take a walking tour of your neighborhood.

C: That is a great idea.

K: Yeah.

C: We should’ve done that before we came, even though Google Earth didn’t exist yet.

K: (laughs) There was no Google Earth when we moved.

C: No, there wasn’t.

K: So… yeah. So, we love it here. And… we hope you found this interesting. We’re going to be talking about – what are we talking about on the take two?

C: Yeah, I don’t remember.

K: My mind is totally blank.

C: We have it written down. We’re going to be talking about some book stuff.

K: (laughs) Yeah. I’m gonna have to check my notes.

C: I think we’re gonna talk about our anthology.

K: No. I think the anthology is next week. I’m not sure.

C: We’ll take a look. So, we’re gonna talk about something.

K: Yeah. So, 2 bucks a month, you can find out what we talked about.

(laughter)

K: So, thanks for giving us your time, and we hope to talk to you next week. Or, you know, talk to you over in the take two.

C: Bye.

K: Bye.