moving

take a long, long time to finish the song

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I’d like to get down to working on our next song soon, but before that, I need to set up my studio all over again in my new apartment. So far, piles of cardboard boxes have occupied my new place. To make space for a studio, I should unpack those cardboard boxes and sort out their contents. Then, I’ll take measures to soundproof by myself.

As I did to the walls of my old apartment, I’ll fix folded cardboard boxes to all over the wall, cover them with soundproof polyurethane, put more cardboard boxes on it as a sandwich, and add soundproof sheets over it. That‘ll be done with only one side of the wall. I should repeat this for other sides of the wall and the ceiling. I’m a little frustrated at this cumbersome process to start arranging our new song.

The melody and the words of the new song have been completed, so that makes me want to start working on the arrangement soon all the more. I know it will only take a long, long time to finish the song once I get down to it after all…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

a shopping mall

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I found out that there was a downtown area in the region of my new place and went to look around. It was a twenty–minute train ride from my apartment. According to an online map, a shopping mall building was right next to the train station, but further information wasn’t available anywhere on the Internet.

When I actually got off the train and stood at the station, my jaw dropped. A shopping space that had been called a mall on a map was a one-story shabby building with few stores. It was like a swap meet, rather than a mall.

The main street in front of the station seemed to be caught in a time warp. I felt back in time walking through the old, forlorn shops. Murmuring “Downtown? Can’t be!“, I decided to try another shopping mall about a mile off. After I walked for 25 minutes through rice paddies and vacant lots, a huge suburban shopping center appeared. It was what we called a mall. I felt greatly relieved that I found a place to shop for my life in a new town. The shopping center had the free shuttle from the station. My long walk was totally lost labor…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

Tokyo

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Moving to a new place reminds me about the time when I first left home. I had always longed to live in Tokyo since childhood, watching modern high-rises or cool apartments in TV dramas. I knew that would never happen to me because I was a firstborn in a family succeeded from generation to generation and was destined to finish my life in the country family house.

But music provoked me to throw away everything – my family, friends, college life and, above all, secure life – and to move to Tokyo. As almost all Japanese record companies were in Tokyo and there were many musicians as well, I thought it would be easy to promote my music and find good band members. In actual fact, I only found bad musicians in an unsightly city with too many people, and the record companies picked trashy songs by ignoring mine. Except that I was so happy to have left the place where I was born, things in Tokyo weren’t as good as I had expected…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

new apartment

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Since I moved in my new apartment, I’ve occasionally felt a sense of homesick. Only I’ve seldom felt it for my old apartment. What I miss are shops and restaurants that I often visited, characters and mascots that were standing by the roadside or painted on signboards, and the memories associated with them. In my case, homesick isn’t for home to be exact.

I’ve moved for six times in all both domestically and internationally in my life, and the first one was when I left home where I was born and raised, and started to live on my own for the first time in Tokyo. Although it seemed like a perfect occasion to feel homesick, I was too happy to feel any. To date, I’ve never missed my hometown nor wanted to visit the house.

Recently, I’ve seen many people on TV who live in the shelters after the earthquake eager to return their hometowns instead of moving to new places. For most people, home is such an important place. I wonder if my new place here can become my home…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

the day before the move

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It was the day before the move. Time for packing everything including basic necessities. I unscrewed the table legs and removed the drapes and the venetian blind from the windows. After packing the stereo, inside the apartment was weirdly quiet and I heard my own voice reverberate.

When I had the last dinner at this apartment with my partner on a small folding table and remembered many good things that had happened or come in here, tears suddenly rolled down my face and I couldn’t stop crying owing to the beer and a spell of lack of sleep. But I knew I couldn’t afford to be sentimental. I had to evacuate this apartment by noon the next day. It seemed undoubtedly impossible to finish packing and cleaning the place by then. A hectic, sleepless night awaited me…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

move out here

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I have only three days to go before I move to my new apartment. I’m already exhausted from packing. Once furniture is moved, the dirty wall or mold appears and the thorough cleaning is also necessary.

A mover came today to pick up some pieces of my furniture. To me, they looked like supermen. They carried heavy objects down the stairs so easily. One of them had been even determined to carry down my electric piano by himself until I begged him to do it with his co-worker. Compared to them, I’m nothing. Moving just a few things tires me out and makes my muscles stiff. I don’t know how unstably I’m moving, but I have bruises all over. After I settle in my new place, I’ll exercise and strengthen my body – that is, when I finish all the packing and cleaning and move out here in time for the deadline…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

Radiation has been leaked

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About two months have passed since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan. Finally, aftershocks have dwindled. Those atrocious scheduled blackouts have stopped being carried out so far. Food shortages were resolved.

Nevertheless, life is totally different from the one before the earthquake. Radiation has been leaked from the crippled nuclear power plants everyday and I can’t go outside as much as I like. At nighttime, stores and restaurants hold their signboard lights off and the streets have become dim. I don’t understand why they turn the lights off since the electricity consumption is low at night and electricity can’t be stored up for later use. As there’s no rational reason for that, I suspect they’re just promoting their gestures of trying to save on electricity. Their baseless savings of electricity make the whole town stale and depressed.

In Japan, people have consecutive holidays from the end of April to the first week of May, which is usually the lively, noisy and annoying time of year for me. But this year, the holidays were gone quietly. When I decided to move to the countryside, my biggest concern was if I adapt to living in a small town with sparse shops. But after the earthquake, ironically, the city I currently live in is as dark as the small town I’m moving to, and because my going out is limited due to radiation, the shopping experience here is nothing less than in a small town…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

an old watchmaker

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I removed all the magnets from the fridge to pack for my new apartment.

Moving those magnets is tricky because they must be separated from my wristwatches by at least 3 feet. It’s the rule for the wristwatch’s well-being that I was taught by an old watchmaker.

His shop was run by him and his wife and I used to visit it very often when I lived downtown Tokyo. My friend once gave me a wristwatch as a gift and she wore the one of the same design. The back of hers was taped up unsightly and she warned me that once I had its cover taken off for a battery change, it wouldn’t be closed again because the watch had a peculiar shape. When the battery was dead, I brought the watch to the old watchmaker’s shop. Although I had thought he would tape up the cover, he grappled with the cover for as long as 10 minutes with sweating and closed it beautifully.

Since then, the shop has become my favorite. Some watches didn’t start ticking even with a fresh battery and in that case, he took time and mustered various old tools from his tattered box and his unique skills to fix them perfectly. I liked to see him working on watches. I can’t count how many times he saved my watches in bad condition.

Years later, I moved to the suburbs and became unable to visit his shop. When the battery change was needed for the peculiar-shaped watch, which had been the old watchmaker’s specialty for me, I brought it to a clock store chain in a nearby shopping mall. I thought they would tape up the cover this time around, but they closed it with a special gadget right away. I wonder if my favorite watchmaker has already retired while I religiously obey his law to separate magnets from watches…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

how neat it looked without things

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Now that I have already submitted a month’s notice to move out this apartment in mid-May, it’s less than a month for me to leave.

Through my vigorous packing after the earthquake, my apartment is quite empty. I realized how spacious it was and how neat it looked without things. On the other hand, ironically, the destination of my things, which is my new apartment, has had less space and looked more and more like a storage room with numerous cardboard boxes towering to the ceiling.

I’ve often heard on TV that there is a strong possibility this 9.0-magnitude earthquake will trigger an earthquake which epicenter is the metropolitan area. That plausible story combined with daily fears of aftershocks and radiation makes my resolution to move out of the Tokyo area firm no matter how attractive my current apartment has become once again. While I want to move to my new place as soon as possible, thinking about those towering boxes there, I have no idea how many months it will take to unpack all of them. The completion of the moving won’t come so easily…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

easing my stress

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The region where my new apartment is located is famous for hot springs and my apartment building has its spa for the residents. For this trip there, I had looked forward to easing my stress from the earthquake’s aftermath in a hot spa by feeling relaxed and rich.

But when I went there, I found out that the operating hours were cut short due to shortages of electricity and oil because the nuclear power plants and some of the thermal power stations for this region had been damaged too and remained to stop after the earthquake. Also, to save on electricity, most lights in the spa were off and the Jacuzzi and the sauna were closed. All I could enjoy was to sit in the hot tub in a weirdly dark, silent spa. That easily made me downhearted. To make things even worse, a mother with a shrieking child came in and destroyed the remnants of peace. There is no way to avoid the aftermath, and a noisy kid, in Japan…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total