Final Destination

I left work at 12 yesterday. No, not midnight. Midday! My shipment from the UK was scheduled to arrive at 1pm and I wanted to get home before it...

It all arrived in good order, and I spent much of the next few hours unpacking and setting up my living room (see the results below). Three guys brought all the boxes upstairs, cut off all the riciculous amount of packaging Stirling Relocation put on them, and brought them into the apartment. I had the pleasure of unpacking all the crates, but that was fine. I got to put everything where I wanted it. One thing you should know about Japanese homes is that you always take your shoes off at the door. If you've ever seen two labourers carrying a heavy desk and trying to take their sandals off then you'll know why I kept trying to help the poor guys out. It would have been funny except for the fact that this meant they had nothing to protect their toes from falling crates. Still, for experience movers they were pretty useless. I had to demonstrate how to put the tables and sound system together. Then when they couldn't understand I just told them I'd do it. Maybe that was their plan...

The unpacking itself was pretty good fun. Its the first time since moving from Falkirk I've had my own shelf space - so it was kind of annoying when I filled it in ten minutes with all the CDs, DVDs, books and games I seem to have collected over the years. If I'd brought the stuff from the Garage in Falkirk too then I'd never have had room for it all! A little shuffling and restacking meant I could fit in a bit more and I've even got room to spare now. And as long as I put the crap DVDs at the bottom of the stacks, I can pile stuff in front. As I unpacked, my mood gradually became nostalgic. Most of the stuff have memories attached. Usually I'm an advocate of the clutter catharsis and happily bin any old crap when I move. But since someone else was moving it for me I kept most things this time. It felt good.

So my place now feels like home, I put Monkey on the sofa with the cushion I borrowed from my parents house and suddenly everything was as it should be. There was still some tidying to do, and I still had to go to Shinjuku to buy a transformer for my PC but that was a welcome break from tidying. I eventually finished sorting the place out at about 9pm and sat down to watch 'Garden State' with a glass of wine. Its a pretty awesome film and I was in a nostalgic frame of mind (especially so, what with Monkey watching it too) which only seemed to heighten the enjoyment. In fact, seeing all my stuff again, and sitting in front of the projector, well, was almost like being back at Threecolt street.

I'll go to Don Quijote again tonight to buy some extension cables and maybe a chair for my desk. With the extension cables I'll be able to plug in my XBox! Oh, and I'll need to move my PC over to the other side of the room and set up my arial. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up some T.V. channels too! Thank god for the TV card in my PC.

ps, Steve - while I was unpacking, I found Gerald and thought of you.