2006-10-12 - 9:51 p.m.
some more observations on tokyo.
this place is expensive. No, I mean REALLY EXPENSIVE. Think american prices, and then add in about 20%.
We knew it would be expensive coming here, but WOW! i was not prepared for it.
food prices are about the same. We have been having a lot more veggies and fruit, and with every dinner there is either pasta, potatoes, or rice as fillers. Lots less meat (about 1/2 of what we were eating in the states). But when you think about that, it isn:t a bad thing to decrease the intake of animal flesh, so I guess it is ok, and we aren:t suffering so it works out.
Prices on veggies are similar to US prices, and so we are eating lots of broccoli, spinach, potatoes, asparagus, eggplant, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms, cabbage. Now if I could only learn how to make use of the leeks and lots of this "japanese" veggies. Oh well, i am trying to learn to cook japanese sytle, so we will see how it works out.
Seafood is another issue. I know how to deal with trout, and I can bbq squid, but there are SOOOOOO many different types of fish, i:m not sure what they are, how to cook them, can I eat this raw, etc??? And the price of the seafood is close to chicken, so I have just been getting chicken, and some seafood. You:d think it would be cheaper being closer to the ocean, but not where we are.
speaking of where we are, it must be a real pricy neighborhood. within our block there are 3 mercedes, 3 BMW's, a Hummer, a ferrari, and 2 porches. There are also lots of houses that don:t have cars, so i think it would be compared to a historic district in any major US city, and you have homes worth millions, but are using coupons to live there. not sure, but I will try to figure out more as time goes on.
Christine is trying to get me ajob teaching at an english camp over the winter break, you know english through film (basically teach what I taught at SIAS for 2 years and can rattle off the top of my head) and Geology of the planets (thank you dr morgan for the ppts with the images on them, they will be invaluable)
It looks like we will be sending the kids to japanese public schools starting around december 1. I am a little worried about them, because it is a very sink or swim culture. they do not do ESL classes in schools. the kids will have to try to pick up japanese by immersion. We will also be starting japanese classes next week, to try to help this transition.
I hope they don:t hate us for draggingg them around the world, and making them undergo these challenges. I don:t think they will, but you never know. especially after china, i am very gun shy about this issue.
oh well enough for now, I have homework that I am busy ignoring that i have to go back to work on. ttfn
Will
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