pinch me

As can be surmised from the title I picked for this blog, I still can't believe I now live here. Though the apartment feels quite homey despite the hideous furniture (okay, not all of it, but the bulk) and lack of all our personal items (our air shipment is supposed to arrive by the end of this week), I still feel like I'm on vacation in the coolest city in the world.

Today is Aran's first day at work and I'm happy for the break. We wore ourselves (or at least me!) out our first three days checking out various neighbourhoods around ours. We are really right in the heart of Tokyo, with hot/happening neighbourhoods surrounding ours in practically every direction. Ours is called Akasaka and it is not exactly quiet (in fact I don't think there's a dull neighbourhood for many many many miles!) but is more of a business/embassy one with some swanky shops and rich folk living here.

Our apartment is very quiet though, seeing as the building is sandwiched between a narrow one-way street (more like an alley really, which seems common for Tokyo side streets), the embassy, and a quiet walled park. The noisiest thing are these huge beetles that make a sort of chainsaw/car alarm sound (like a cicada that studied opera). Which makes me realize that I forgot to mention how hot it is. The humidity must be in the 40s. Anyway, that's another thing about Tokyo that suprised us; it's very green and jungle-like. There have been so many other surprises too but that's it for today.