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Okay, so I’m finally back in Tokyo after vacationing for a little over a month in Bahrain. In Bahrain, I just spent a lot of time with my family, enjoying the warm weather and … that’s it?

Here are my latest stories:

1. I was flying out of Bahrain the day after the F1 race was held there. The F1 race in Bahrain was the first of this year’s races, which attracted a lot of trourists. As I waited at the boarding gate, I just was stunned by how many sunburnt tourists were there around me, all of which seemed to be very keen on the Formula 1 racing stuff, and I overheard a lot of them planning on making a stop at Malaysia, which is where the next race this season will be held. The flight between Doha (Where I transitted) and Kansai International Aiport in Osaka was only 8 hours, which is 4 hours shorter flying the other way round. Not much of an adventure I guess. At least I made it back in one piece, lugging 32.5kgs of luggage from Haneda Airport to Kunitachi, passing through Shinjuku (a NIGHTMARE if you ever think of doing). By the way, 80% of my luggage was just FOOD my mother made me carry back here; Spices, Sweets and what not. When I first got back to Bahrain, my mother said, “Hasan! You lost weight! Don’t they feed you there?!” and at the same time she says, “I’m so happy you lost weight. Don’t eat too much in Japan, alright?”. The result? I come back with nearly 30 kilograms of FOOD. Sheeeeesh! (I gave most of it away already, as gifts). When I arrived in my dorm room; the electricity wasn’t working. Woops. I forgot to pay the bill.

2. Just this morning, I finished all the procedures to get a new appartment. I will be moving to a single-room appartment in the same town I live in, Kunitachi. The appartment is actually less than a 5-minute walk from the dormitory I live in right now. It’s funny, I returned to Tokyo on Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, I went to a few real estate agencies, and they drove me around to the different appartments that were available, and I really liked the appartment I ended up deciding on. It’s a 20-square-meter, 1 room-1 kitchen appartment. In general, all the single-room appartments in Kunitachi are built almost EXACTLY the same. You walk in, to find yourself passing through the kitchen, with a door leading to the single room, and another leading to the bathroom. The room has a relatively large closet (big enough to hide 6 people in there!) and a floor covered in Tatami Mats. The appartment is also different from the others, because on the side of the room, there is a study desk fixed into the wall, with a wooden panel underneath, so that if I use a chair, I wouldn’t damage the tatami mats. All in all, a good room for a single student.The appartment I chose is on the second floor of a two-storybuilding called Cattleya Hights (Cattleya, by the way, is a type of Orchid). The landlord, Mrs. Nakayama, lives in the first floor. Her husband is a famous dentist in the town I live in (Hmmm.. that reminds me that I have to go to the dentist sometime soon). I had a lot of running around to do, I had to go back and forth between the Real Estate Agency and my university’s International Student Department, and had to get some papers approved blah blah blah… This morning, I was out of my room by 10am, to pick up some papers from my university and then made another stop at the Real Estate Agency, and agreed on the details of the contract and paid a hefty down payment, which wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, and I was told that I can pick up the keys to my appartment on Monday morning, I have an entire week to move everything out of my dorm room and into the appartment, before the contract with my current residence is over. Oh, and at the Real Estate Agency, they gave me some Green Tea while I was listening to the contract; I think it helps digesting all the legal terms in the contract that I couldn’t complete understand, given that it was all in a foreign language I am not really fluent in yet. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about my appartment in the future.

3. My toilet, which has been clogged for a LOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGG time was FINALLY fixed yesterday afternoon. I went down to the office in my dorm, asking them to do something about it (in my two previous attempts, they only gave me a few plungers and said, “Do it yourself”), but this time, they actually called someone to come and take a look. The first guy who came was an elderly man, who plunged like there was NO TOMORROW, but to no avail. He then tried inserting some wire into the toilet and trying to figure out a way to open up the pipes, but again, nothing could be done. He then told me in a very old accent, in Japanese of course, “Sorry, son, there’s nothing I can personally do. I’m going to ask the PROFESSIONALS to come.”. At this, I thought to myself, “Professionals?! Yikes! Must be serious!!”. Anyways, later that day, I came back to my room after going to my sword class, to find my toilet flushes very well. HORRAY FOR MY TOILET.