13.10.06  mansion

We are finally getting a grip on our mansion-- only one or two more days of sorting and cleaning to go.
It’s taken a little extra work, but the place will finally be ours.  And I am beginning to like it.
Just as Canada’s dryness has left my skin, so too am I shedding the jet lag and lonely terror.

Weeks later, I still look at the place and shake my head.  We face the brown-green of the Ayase Kawa
from one window and the busy roar of some Tokyo intermediary drive from our balcony.
The tail end of a Soka summer was positively oppressive for two Canadians accustomed to wide-open space
and merciful heat waves.  Seeing our living conditions for the first time, I actually questioned Japan’s label
as a first-world nation.  I have since settled in and visited one too many Varie department stores
filled with impeccably bedecked women to ever follow that train of thought again.
The opulence of a nation is marked by the fashion of its women.  Not in Canada.

Ironically our pad itself is quite spacious though old and positively brown.  The washroom is all gadgety,
but we’ve figured out turning on the gas for a shower.  Unfortunately gas doesn’t quite do the trick
when it comes to heating water so bathing in winter will surely be a test of our endurance.  Once again
we owe this situation not to the fact that Japan lacks in comforts-- our friends have taps that emit hot water--
but to our own fortune of landing yet another old heap of an apartment.

Sturdy enough though.  Structurally sound if I don’t dwell on the cracks in the concrete wall in front of me.
Could probably withstand 6 on the richter scale.  “Not like the paper shacks they put up these days.”
My father’s positive views on modern architecture coming back to me.  Bells and whistles will come later.
But never the manicured perfection of a Japanese department store.
 

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