Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Move day. Rob-san only person to actually turn up to help. Others all on trips, washing their hair etc. To be fair, I was fairly slack about making phone calls and reminding people of the plans in good time. The plans were taxi based. Actually, there were many non-taxi based parts to the plans, but they all went smoothly. The idea was for me to load up the taxis and send them off to the new flat, where Rob would receive and unload them. I felt I had prepared well, copying and marking maps and brushing up on relevant expressions in Japanese, but I was unprepared for the extreme conservatism and unhelpfulness of the drivers. Conservative and unhelpful taxi drivers - surely not.
Driver #1. Initially reluctant, but after seeing map, having position and role of Rob explained, taking down both my and Rob's numbers, and checking they were genuine, did all that was required. Even allowed the back seat to be loaded up with stuff. Not too bad. 4/5
Driver #2. Refused to move car from where I'd hailed it to closer to my house. Refused to allow anything other than me on the back seat. Worst, refused to go alone. So I had to go with him, and he chose a route through the slowest traffic. My Japanese isn't yet up to sufficiently foul abuse, so I fumed in silence. Awful. 0/5
With an estimate of 2 more loads, Rob returned with me to the old flat.
Driver #3. First attempt at evasion was to tell me the boot was full. Two can play at that: "Just one or two boxes" "The boot's totally full" "Can I put some stuff on the back seat then?" "Well...." "Look, there's not much, just a couple of duvets" So he moved the car round to receive the couple of duvets. They turned out to be three complete futon sets, manhandled by Rob. But, at the sight of Rob helping me with vast amounts of bedding, the driver immediately understood the nature of our relationship, and broke into a knowing, confidential, but broad and humourous grin. It turned out that the back seat could accommodate lots of stuff, and the boot only had a small tool kit in it after all. Rob spent the trip telling the driver about his girlfriend. In the end, ok. 4/5.
Driver #4. Appeared to agreed to take boxes, but then zoomed off when I went indoors to fetch them. This one could be a communication failure, rather than unhelpfulness. I was getting a little complacent in my ability to instruct taxis. Jury's out. 2/5.
Driver #5. Business-like and polite, but would definitely only take neatly packed boxes in the boot, and nothing on the back seat. This leaves a couple of scruffy bags to be picked up on Sunday, when I'm going to go and do the cleaning. Not really a problem. 3/5.
Driver #1. Initially reluctant, but after seeing map, having position and role of Rob explained, taking down both my and Rob's numbers, and checking they were genuine, did all that was required. Even allowed the back seat to be loaded up with stuff. Not too bad. 4/5
Driver #2. Refused to move car from where I'd hailed it to closer to my house. Refused to allow anything other than me on the back seat. Worst, refused to go alone. So I had to go with him, and he chose a route through the slowest traffic. My Japanese isn't yet up to sufficiently foul abuse, so I fumed in silence. Awful. 0/5
With an estimate of 2 more loads, Rob returned with me to the old flat.
Driver #3. First attempt at evasion was to tell me the boot was full. Two can play at that: "Just one or two boxes" "The boot's totally full" "Can I put some stuff on the back seat then?" "Well...." "Look, there's not much, just a couple of duvets" So he moved the car round to receive the couple of duvets. They turned out to be three complete futon sets, manhandled by Rob. But, at the sight of Rob helping me with vast amounts of bedding, the driver immediately understood the nature of our relationship, and broke into a knowing, confidential, but broad and humourous grin. It turned out that the back seat could accommodate lots of stuff, and the boot only had a small tool kit in it after all. Rob spent the trip telling the driver about his girlfriend. In the end, ok. 4/5.
Driver #4. Appeared to agreed to take boxes, but then zoomed off when I went indoors to fetch them. This one could be a communication failure, rather than unhelpfulness. I was getting a little complacent in my ability to instruct taxis. Jury's out. 2/5.
Driver #5. Business-like and polite, but would definitely only take neatly packed boxes in the boot, and nothing on the back seat. This leaves a couple of scruffy bags to be picked up on Sunday, when I'm going to go and do the cleaning. Not really a problem. 3/5.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Amazingly wasn't called out to work. All packing is now done. I came to Japan with just a suitcase and a laptop bag. I now sit surrouned by the rubbish accreted over 18 months. It is as follows: a suitcase, a rucksack, two laptop bags, a small travel bag, 9 boxes of the 6 x 2 litre size, 5 assorted other boxes, 3 large plastic drawers, 3 futon and duvet sets, 3 sets of small cardboard drawers, a large department store bag soon to contain my ADSL modem and associated equipment, a microwave oven and a rice cooker. It's mildly depressing to see how quickly one acquires stuff.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Packing day. Got some more boxes and some thick parcel tape from the supermarket. Began the familiar job of putting my worldly posessions into portable form. I'm likely to have to work tomorrow, so it should now all be finished in readiness for Tuesday's move, but isn't. Tomorrow would usually be my day off, but I'm on stand-by. Since tomorrow is sandwiched between a Sunday and a two-day holiday, some swine is bound to phone in sick from the beach in Thailand.
