So, now that I've finished, come home and had some time to digest it all, I wanted to reflect a bit on my whole six months at GenkiJACS, coming back to my feelings in the half-term update. I'm also looking at the evaluation form I completed at the end of my stay, although I won't post specific extracts.
While I will mention various negatives, it's always easier to pinpoint problems than things that were good. The latter tend to be vague and diffiuse, the former are often specific.
The cramped inconvenience of my kitchen space reached a sort of natural zenith today when it led more-or-less directly to disabling my hob and rendering me unable to cook or make hot drinks.
I wanted a nice suppertime herbal tea, so I picked my kettle from the floor of the genkan (porch) where it had been sat, there being nowhere else in the building where I could put it down, and filled it up. Placing it on the hob and switching on the gas, I was briefly startled by a smell, but since this regularly happens due to the combination of stray hair (I shed a lot) and fire, I paid no heed for a few seconds. By that time, something odd was clearly happening and I turned it off to discover some waxy substance running over the hob.
As far as I can reconstruct events, my best guess is that at some point in the kettle-arranging process it touched a plastic lid left on the tiny, crowded sinkside, and this somehow stuck to the base of the kettle where I didn't see it. Certainly, it wasn't on the hob to begin with. This then must have melted horribly all over the place. Having no better ideas and being averse to toxic fumes in a small, ill-ventilated room, I immediately turned off the flame and tipped water over it. Once all was over I pried off the plastic as best I could.
Despite my efforts, the hob now refuses to ignite, and I'm strangely reluctant to tinker with unfamiliar appliances that use poisonous gas and electricity to produce fire, in the room where I sleep, last thing at night when I have basically zero idea what I'm doing. It seems safe enough; the gas turns off alright, it just won't light. I have a gas alarm and the vent fans on, so it should be fine.
Technically this isn't the room's fault, just a weird and unfortunate accident caused by bad luck and clutter. Trouble is, the room doesn't offer any alternative to clutter, bar adopting the hermit life and owning nothing. There's just not enough places to put things down, and a lot of things are hot, dirty or wet and need to go somewhere 'safe' - which means the sinkside.
Tomorrow being a Sunday, I can't do much. I imagine utilities and landlords alike are not available, and in any case I don't think my Japanese will stretch to explaining this, so I'll need to rope in the school. Oh joy.
This all seems like great fun and I am thoroughly looking forward to paying for a new hob to be installed in this wretched hole of a kitchen.
I've just about finished packing for tomorrow. A few things (like this laptop!) will need to be tucked in first thing tomorrow, ready to head out for breakfast at delightful Manchester Airport. I'm taking one 20kg suitcase, one day rucksack and a laptop bag, which has caused a bit of consternation in some circles. The thing is though, 6 months is a slightly odd time to be going for. It's long enough that it makes sense to buy a few things in Japan if I need them, rather than carry them over (with hassle and extra cost) just on the off-chance. I need some new clothes already, so it makes sense to take a week's supply and supplement it in Japan, rather than trying to buy stuff here and then needing to transport it. On the other hand, it's not long enough to make it worth sending over large amounts of stuff that I can manage without - and let us not forget the expected titchiness of my room.
Speaking of which, a bit of research has turned up some hopefully-handy info. I discovered that the Delco Homes apartments listed by GenkiJACS here look very, very similar to the ones listed by Fukuoka YMCA here! And more importantly, while it's clearly not the exact same rooms being discussed, some of the photos on the YMCA site help clear up the GenkiJACS photos.
Above: Image from Google Street View of the address from GenkiJACS
Below: Image from YMCA of the Delco Homes apartments
These are clearly not the same apartment, but, from looking at the YMCA photo with its better angle and without a box in the way, it seems pretty obvious that the thing in the back is a kettle resting on a hob. While obviously not a guarantee, this suggests that there may actually be a hob in my apartment, rather than just a microwave and rice cooker, which would make a massive difference.
On the downside, it would seem to make getting a cuppa much more hassle than it needs to be, but swings and roundabouts, right?
The plan for tonight is to get a few hours' sleep with the hope that I'll pass out on the plane for at least a little while. I just heard today that GenkiJACS have changed a couple of arrangements, which is just slightly unnerving: the apartment manager is actually going to meet me, rather than leaving a key in a deposit box, which has upsides and downsides. Also, they want to hold placement tests on Sunday avvy rather than Monday morning. Neither is very serious, but I find it a little jarring to have last-minute changes like this.
