Once my friend and I had finished stuffing all the boxes we had brought in the apartment, we decided to go down to Pororoca and get some drinks and snacks. Of course, right then, the cable TV guy decided to show up. So my friend went down to shop for munchables, and I waited for the TV person–only it was just the guy who wanted to sign me up to the TV service. The technical guy came later. And while those guys were finishing up, the KDDI guy showed up and wanted to connect the Internet. And throughout this, the intercom was giving me some message that involved a graphic of a box. More on that in another post, though.

But that was the bright point of the day–I was still busy as heck signing stuff and had to stay nailed to the apartment, but everything was working. The first night we stayed here, we had Internet, IP phone service, and cable TV. Naturally, I made use of the Internet right away, but the cable TV, two and a half days later, is still not used. We simply haven’t had time.

Soon after the Internet was hooked up, my friend had to leave–just before Sachi came back. The KDDI guy was still working things out, helping us to try to figure out permutations of the system, and getting my email to work properly. As he was leaving, he happened to spot my dryer.

Let me go back a few steps and explain: my washer-dryer was delivered, but non-functional. The drainage tube was on the wrong side, and until that could be fixed, the dryer could not be placed on top of it. So it lay in pieces in the pre-bath area, where the KDDI guy spotted it. He must have eyes like an eagle, because he actually noticed the serial number on a label on the side of it, and immediately informed us that the dryer was under a recall order. He opened his keitai to check, and sure enough, it was under recall.

Now, his ability to spot this was even more impressive because that dryer is nine years old. But apparently there was trouble with hundreds of thousands of control panels on numerous units. So he called the center responsible for this, and made an appointment for us to have a service technician come out to us Tuesday (tomorrow morning) and fix it.

Now you may be wondering how the heck a KDDI Internet installer technician knew all this (we sure did), and it turned out that he had previously worked to repair washer/dryers. So I asked him if he knew how to fix our problem with the drainage tube, as I had already surmised that a fix was possible, but I didn’t know how. Sachi was looking at me and quietly mouthing “no, he can’t do that!” when the guy pulled out our washing machine and promptly fixed it for us. With much gratitude, we bade The Service Man from Heaven goodbye.

Soon after that, Sachi’s movers started to come in. Hers were a lot nicer than mine, probably because she didn’t tax them as much as I did, and they were working for a pretty girl and not some demanding gaijin. They were smiling and efficient, and soon had everything in. But by the time it was all done, it was late at night, and we just wanted to fall down and zonk out after a nice shower.

At which point we discovered that we had no hot water. The lady at the building’s Kanri office had helped me turn on the water the previous day, but she fell a step short. I asked her if we should turn on something called “Eco-Cute,” as per the instruction sheet, but she said no, that wasn’t necessary. Well, that was the hot water heater. At first, Sachi and I didn’t realize this, and spent a while looking at the voluminous instruction manual book that we got with the apartment. (I promise, I’ll have photos… as soon as I can take the time to take them!) But then I recalled the “Eco-Cute” thing, and sure enough, after we turned it on, the hot water started… after one hour.

That brings me up to Saturday night. Thrilling blogging, isn’t it? Well, scan past this if you’re not interested, as there’s more to come. I’ll at least see if I can condense Sunday and Monday into one post tomorrow.