Ice Cream and Birthdays

December 1 was my birthday, and I turned 22. According to Mel, I am officially “in my twenties” now – I am done with that year known as 21, which is known for one finally being able to drink legally in the United States. In Japan, the drinking/smoking age is 20, England and most of Europe is 18 and in Greece and other parts of Europe its whenever. So once your are done with 21 and begin 22 the fun is supposedly over – at least that immature-ish stuff. Probably. Most of my friends (except for one because she skipped a year of high school and in essence graduated college even younger than me) turned 22 when they were still in college; as they bemoaned the fact that they are becoming “old” and still in college, I snickered at them gleefully saying that I was STILL 21 and in college.

When I came to Japan people (both Japanese and non-US) would ask my age and would be totally shocked at the fact that I was 21 and already graduated college. My main reason was that I was born late in the year, and the NYC Board of Education doesn’t have a cut-off date for entry into kindergarten. So when I started kindergarten, I still wasn’t 5 but according to my mom I was going to be left back.

But now, I am in Japan and you all are probably wondering how I spent my birthday, if I haven’t told you yet. I spent my morning moving into my new apartment. It took about 5 trips to lug all my stuff from the house-on-the-hill-with-steps-that-will-make-me-fall-and-break-my-neck to ground level. Since I was going down as opposed to up a hill, it was pretty easy. After her class, Colleen came and helped me with the final two trips and saw what I had to go through every day when I wanted to use my bike. Pretty much I had to make sure that my bike doesn't fall out of my hands going down, and that it doesn’t fall on ME going up. And since the stairs aren’t paved, I really didn’t want to wear any of my “nice” shoes for fear that I will slip in them and that the soles will get ruined. I already need to get my navy-blue ones re-soled.

So now, I am in my new apartment and today, I am going to Nitori with Colleen to get some furniture for my room. Nitori is the Japan version of Ikea; there is an Ikea in Japan – two actually – but they are both in Tokyo. Sometimes, it’s just NOT fair at how most of the stuff is ONLY in Tokyo. I know that there is a Costco in Chiba (suburb of Tokyo) and I think that there is one near Osaka but still! Oh well, at least I was able to navigate the Nitori site without the Google translator function (yeah!) to figure out where Nitori is, and what buses I need to take.

After I moved all my stuff in – and left my apartment a disaster in the process – I went to class. In the middle of class, my landlord called me; I asked my teacher if I could go to the bathroom and practically ran out of there. Turns out, the gas company man is going to be at the apartment at 2:30 and can I be there? I thanked my lucky stars that there is a break in class at 2:30; I told my landlord that I might be a bit late. However, I finished my exercise early, told my teacher that the gas company man is going to be at my apartment at 2:30 – I do live right near Kyodai but I might be a bit late coming back to class. She said it was fine. My teacher is nice. And I get 100 % on the weekly quizzes anyways (but not this week, I was too busy with apartment stuff. Oh well).

So on the day of moving in, I have electricity, Internet and hot water. Very very lucky. Sometimes it takes maybe two weeks for the Internet and hot water, but the building is already wired, and my landlord called the companies for me.

After class, I went with Colleen, Chen and Estie (another Monbusho girl from Israel also doing Meiji history) to Ippo-do, a teashop. Unfortunately, the café part of the tea shop closes at 5pm so we couldn't have sweet; nonetheless, the road that Ippo-do is on is filled with little cafes, so we all went to one and had either butter or cinnamon toast. I had cinnamon toast with a cappuccino. Good stuff. No cake for me this year – cinnamon toast did the job quite nicely. Colleen treated my to a “kukki paafe” at lunch (cookie parfait) so I still had my sweets fix. I always make it a point to have ice cream on my birthday – I never had it as a kid b/c I am a “winter baby” so I always make sure I have it now.