Archives: Treasure Hunting

Nah, we didn't go on a treasure hunt.
I just got bored and decided to root through one of the drawers in the back of the cupboard in my apartment. Sure was a treasure trove in there. I had a quick look before and took a few useful things, but after going through it properly (and noticing how far in the drawers go) I found a ton of stuff:

Stationary (books, paper, markers, pens, wrapping paper, gift wrap string, glue, scissors, rulers, rubbers, pencils, drawing pads)
Guide Books (too many to list, recent and useful ones, about 15 of them)
Japanese text books (the same ones they teach us with, theres a stack in here)
Dictionaries
CDs (compilations made by previous volunteers, and some random cds as well as a suspicious looking music cd with a naked woman on the front)
CD player
Travel adapters
Another hairdryer
A volunteer written guidebook to life in Takayama, with loads of photos, maps and teaching us how to use stuff in the apartment and how to get to places + a few other things. Wish we found this earlier.
Bags and bags full of books
2 electric blankets
3 duvets
2 huge blankets (ok, it gets cold here, we get the idea)
2 hot water bottles (...)
Spare pillow (w00t, it's now been demoted to my foot rest)
DVD player + various DVDs
Snow gear, and I mean heavy snow gear involving hooks and all sorts
Other random crap I can't identify
Various photos taken by previous gap people
Death

In other news, had a medical check up today.
Blood tests and the such.
Fun.

Japanese lessons still going well.

Also had a taste of what some of the more tedious tasks here will be like, ie. changing sheets, duvet covers and pillow cases around the hospital.
This hospital has 500 beds, go figure.

Went over to my partner's apartment earlier for food and to hang out. Had some pasta (his family is italian, so he's a good pasta chef), and alcohol. Usual stuffs.
Played checkers (got owned), chess (close win) and darts (another close win).

Throwing away rubbish here is the most tedious thing ever. There are 5 categories of trash, and you have to separate everything. Recyclable things need to be washed out thoroughly before being thrown away. Bottle caps go in a diff category to the bottles, and too much packaging here is all fancy with half plastic, half paper and a bit of metal, so you end up sitting there and disassembling stuff.
So far I've just put stuff into 2 bags (combustable and non-combustable), and I haven't cleaned out or taken anything apart *cackles*
I wonder if they'll moan at me when they come to collect it (theres also a complicated timetable describing what days they collect what bags, and you have to label the transparent bags with some stickers they handed us at the city hall).

If anyone wants a good idea of what it's like here (the atmosphere and feel, as well as what it looks like), then watch Beyond the Clouds (Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho). This place is really similar to the one in the movie, only slightly less rural. You'll know what I mean by the sky feeling high up and what not.