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Osaka is a city of contrasts. A place where the old and the new blend together seamlessly. 

        

         Where the Eastern and the Western live in peace

                                  

 

                   and the ugly and the beautiful abide in harmony.     

  

                                 

 Where else you can find you find a monster truck parked in a Hello Kitty spot,

or an cannibalistic octopus about to eat a fried piece of octopus meat and fish on a stick?

In few places you can buy very expensive milk, cheese and eggs in the "Daily Foods" section,

and also find one of the best tasting gyros, cooked and served by a kind man willing to hand feed your child. 

Here you can find super heroes...

and villains' minions.

Lots of different kinds of socks 

and underwear.

Where art can be found sticking out of the ground,

on the side of a building,

under a building,

and even underfoot.

Where friends come in all sizes

and loved ones show up in unexpected places.

This is my home.

Getting my health care feet wet

A little background first. One of the many reasons why we left the United States was the high cost of health care. After my somewhat lucrative career at the bank abruptly ended and with the loss of private medical insurance brought by it, I signed our family up for the Oregon Health Plan (OHP), created under the Affordable Care Act signed by President Barack Obama.

Even after finding full time employment, we still qualified for full coverage, due to loss of income and because my wife was working part time while also going to school, and the insurance provided by my new employer was the equivalent of 1/3 of my monthly pay, which made it unaffordable. This carried us for over a year for which I'm grateful, but the moment I were to receive a 4% raise in pay, we would exceed the OHP income cap and would have to purchase private health insurance. As a diabetic and with the private insurance options available in Oregon, the two types of insulin I take would've totaled $800 each month, or roughly 40% of my income. That's prescriptions only, not counting premiums, doctor's visit copay or deductible. Without any health insurance the monthly out of pocket cost would have exceeded $1400 each month. With the change of federal policy, a legitimate threat of losing health insurance arose and I just couldn't risk jeopardizing the financial future of my family. Thus the need to take advantage of our ability to migrate and leave the country as soon as possible.

The process of finding and moving into an apartment and getting enrolled in the Japanese universal health care system took two weeks and 30 minutes. To be honest that's lightning fast and not how it normally goes for most immigrants. But now that I had my brand new shiny insurance card it was time to go to the doctor to get examined and get my prescriptions filled.

I had done my homework looking online for English speaking doctors before leaving for Japan and decided to take a chance with the Nakamura Clinic. It's centrally located and I felt I could easily access it from anywhere we settled in the city. When I did my research, I learned that the majority of non specialists don't make appointments. It's a first come, first serve system so I got up bright an early and somehow, still arrived at the clinic about an hour after it opened, which put me 10th in line.

In the US, the opponents of universal health care loudly proclaim that the wait times to see doctors in countries with national insurance are endless. Not one of them has produced evidence of their claim, but I was still hesitant. Being 10th in line probably meant that I would not be seen by the doctor until that evening and it was roughly 10:30 AM. My wife had brought snacks and sweets in case the wait was so long that my sugar dropped. But that was not the case. About an hour after arriving, the doctor called my name and we sat down to chat. He apologized profusely for making me wait, but he felt that my case would take longer and decided to finish the easy cases first. We spoke for about 40 minutes, he ordered lab work, which was done at the clinic, and after that he asked me to return to the waiting area until the results were ready. In the meantime, he continued to see other patients, one after the other and very quickly.

After about another hour, he called me back to his office to examine my results. He looked at how much medication I had left from what I brought in the trip and determined I still had enough for a few weeks. He thought this was good and gave him time to come up with a treatment plan. He apologized for the almost three hour doctor visit and asked me to return the following Monday because he wanted to talk about my prescriptions and if they were available in Japan and if not, which ones he considered to be good substitutes.

Back to the waiting room to see what the financial damage would be. Man, I was nervous. Lab work, two talks with him, plus the first time visit fee that doctors charge in Japan. This is the kind of stuff that breaks the bank in the States. The total for my visit? 3750 yen. That, my friends, is less than $35. I looked at my wife in shock. I haven't paid $35 for a doctor's visit since the mid 90s! But wait. Maybe things will change on my visit next Monday. Who knows, this next one may be the "big one".

So next Monday I woke up even earlier, went to the bank and took out a bunch of money to prepare myself for the charges. I arrived at 9:35 and I was still 3rd in line, but by 10:00 AM I was already sitting with doctor Nakamra. He had done his homework and had found out both my insulins were available in Japan as generics. In the States only one of them was available as generic and that was only since January 2017, when the FDA allowed it. He had two pens of my short term insulin ready and he gave them to me because he was worried I may run out. He told me to return in a month and by then he would have made a new treatment for me. He felt the care I was receiving in the US, although good, was only maintaining the status quo (he actually used that phrase) and was not doing enough to get me to reduce my insulin intake. Now that I'm doing more walking and my level of activity is higher he wants to adjust things, but wants to think about it first. I went to pay expecting a ton of money especially because he had insulin for me, but my total bill was 320 yen. Right around $3. Yes, you read it right, three bucks for a follow up visit.

Fast forward one month, to Friday before last to be exact, and once more I returned to the doctor. I arrived at 9:20 AM and the receptionist asked me to sit saying something I couldn't understand. I was 2nd in line this time. A few minutes later, Dr Nakamura came running into the office and exactly at 9:30 he called the gentleman ahead of me. Fifteen minutes later he called my name. He explained how he wanted to treat my diabetes and he started by drastically reducing my total insulin intake. He wants to start me from scratch. He said my sugar will be higher than normal for a time, but he wants to 1. stop the low sugar episodes I've been experiencing several nights a week and, 2. proceed with my treatment "the Japanese way". He told me he had my prescriptions ready to take to the pharmacy next door to his office and that his nurse would go with me to get everything ready.

HA! This is it! Now is when the financial drain will start. "These medications are not cheap" was what I thought. But first a description of the pharmacy. Pharmacies here are not department stores like they are in the US. They are tiny holes in the wall that serve one purpose only, to dispense prescription medications. They don't sell milk, bread, cosmetics or Halloween costumes. Those types are called "drug stores" and they also sell over the counter medications but rarely deal with prescriptions. The pharmacy was staffed by five ladies and the nurse went to one of the technicians, told her I didn't speak Japanese and gave her my prescriptions. Turns out they didn't have enough of of either one, so they called the supplier and told me, through a translation app, that my long term insulin would be there in 30 minutes but my short term insulin would not be there for a few hours. The entire staff apologized and bowed multiple times saying how sorry they were. I can picture this scenario at Walgreens or CVS... "Sir, siiiiiir! yes you! We don't have this one drug. We'll call the supplier but it probably wont get here until Tuesday. Your other one we don't have either but it may not be here until next Friday. You should go home now and come back then. NEXT PERSON!"

I was instructed to return to the doctor's office because he wanted to talk to me some more. After, I paid for my visit to the doctor, a whopping $20. Then returned to the pharmacy where they had part of the long term insulin and part of the short term one. The price came to just over $100. I called my wife and told her but she felt that was too much and that since the Doctor's office had held on to my insurance card when we brought the prescription, maybe they had charged me the price for uninsured. Either way, $100 bucks was nothing compared to what I would pay in the States, right? I let my wife speak with the pharmacy tech and everything was cleared up. The $100 price is for a three month supply of both insulins, another medication I take for my thyroid and two boxes of needles for the pens! So that's less than $33 a month for three prescriptions and hardware to inject.

The same medications that cost uninsured Americans $1400 each month, and up to $800 for insured ones, are less than $15 dollars each for a one month supply under the Japanese National Health Care system. The same exact medication!

I won't get political, but you know what? If there is one thing that reassures me that we did the right thing by moving to Japan, is that one fact. It's tempting to go off on the American health care system, but I'll refrain. The story alone tells the reality.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear...

Bureaucracy and other fun forms of torture

In between trips to the furniture store and electronic stores etc, we had to get ourselves properly registered as residents of Osaka, sign up for the national health care system and enroll the children at the local school. We decided to put them in the local public school, because our daughter speaks Japanese fluently and our son is only in first grade and understands more Japanese than he realizes.

To accomplish these three tasks, we have to visit the local ward office. A ward is basically an administrative section of a city and Osaka has 24 of these. Our ward, Hirano, is the largest of all with a population of over 200,000 and they all seemed to visit the ward office on the days we chose to go.

This is how a normal visit to a ward office visit goes. You walk in and take a number, then proceed to the sitting area. After a few minutes, or hours depending on your luck, your number is called and you go to the window and state the nature of your business. The officer gives you another number so you can speak to someone else. On out first visit, we had to register as residents and enroll the kids in school, so my wife was given two numbers for two different windows. Thankfully they are in the same room so we don't run the risk of being skipped. After about four hours of paperwork and talks we were told to come back the next day. Since it was right around noon, we went to lunch and then shopped for furniture.

This process was repeated for three consecutive days with children in tow. Sometimes, things were taken care of in the general area, sometimes we had to go up to the third floor and back down and back up. I lost count of how many people my wife spoke with and how many forms she filled. Every morning at the ward office was followed by shopping for stuff we need to make our lives easy.

Finally, after four days, we received our certificates that show we live in Hirano ward and the kids were enrolled to attend the school located less than 100 meters from our home. The children will finally get a Japanese education! Uniforms were purchased and the following Monday they were up bright and early, all excited to go to school. Especially my daughter.

You will notice on the picture that we still had not received any furniture. Only our appliances had come in and the only place to sit was the little $8 wooden chair.

After sending the kids to school, my wife and I headed back to the ward office for the 5th time in six business days, this time to enroll the family in the national health care system. Based on our previous experience, I was expecting days of the same fun bureaucratic torture. Shockingly, we were finished in 30 minutes and my wife and I found ourselves outside the ward office at 10:00 AM with nothing to do. So, we went back to the store to buy ceiling lights because we've been living in darkness for a week.

I need to add this here. I have to be thankful once more for my wonderful wife. Since I can't read or write Japanese, all these tasks fell upon her and she took them on ferociously. She really causes me to fall in love with her all over again when she does these things. Those of you that know her are well aware this is true.

Next post: Trying out universal health care!

Settling in and making friends

On my previous post, I wrote about taking a day off and going out to have some fun. We decided to visit the Osaka Aquarium, which is built on a man made island on the Osaka bay. The island has the aquarium, Legoland and a gigantic Ferris wheel along with apartment high rise buildings and businesses.

On this outing, my wife heard a phrase that since then we've heard at least a dozen times: "your Japanese is very good!" I guess, the locals get confused when they hear us speaking English and assume she's a foreigner or they simply don't look at her very obvious Japanese facial features. I laugh every time I hear it, but for some reason my wife doesn't find it funny.

The following day, Sunday, we received the keys to our new apartment. Within a couple of hours, I had called a taxi company and loaded all our luggage onto a nice large mini van taxi and comfortably rode out to what tomorrow will be our new home! I dropped the luggage off and walked to the train station to return to the Airbnb we were staying at. When we first drove here with the real estate agent, I noticed a little store with an amazing amount of junk spilling out to the street. It really grabbed my attention. There were bikes, refrigerators, toys, shelving, a TV, I mean all kinds of stuff. It really looks like a disaster area. I just had to stop there to look at the place. It's on the way to the train station, so I had to walk past it to get back to the Airbnb. 

This kind of second hand store is known as a recycling shop. It's your basic thrift shop as opposed to actual recycling. This particular one is two floors of everything under the sun, jam packed to the point that the two halls to walk are no more than a foot wide at their widest point. The guy that owns it wears stylish white plastic frame glasses and seemed pretty friendly. He told me he closes on Mondays and that I had to return on Tuesday.

On Monday, we left our Airbnb and moved to the our brand new "manshon" apartment. In Japan an apartment is a thin walled housing unit that gives you the privilege of hearing everything your neighbors say or do. We have chosen to live in a "manshon" or mansion in English. Now manshons are slightly larger and thankfully have concrete walls that keep you from hearing what happens next door. Or above and below. Ours is what's described here as a 3LDK. Three bedrooms, living room, dining room and kitchen. Of course it also has a sink room/laundry, a shower room and a little water closet where the toilet is. All that is just over 725 sq ft. Plenty of room for this minimalist family. Two of the bedrooms are "western" style rooms with laminate flooring and one is a traditional Japanese room with a tatami (rice straw mats) flooring.

We arrived there early afternoon and after a tasty lunch at a burger shop in the basement of the grocery store nearby, we traveled to the Hirano station to visit a furniture store we had looked at online. When we got off the train at Hirano, we realized this is one of two stations by the same name. This station is Hirano Osaka Subway station. The furniture store is located next to the Japan Rail (JR) Hirano station. There is no easy way to get from one to the other. They are about 3/4 of a mile away so we decided to walk. The weather was a nice and comfy 90 degrees with 80% humidity. By the time we arrived at the furniture store, we were a few pounds lighter and had spent $5 in water at several vending machines along the way.

We bought two futon, sheets and pillows and ordered a table, hutch and beds for the kids. We somehow carried the futon, sheets and pillows home because we need to sleep somewhere tonight. The rest of the stuff is to be delivered the following week. This is how the kids slept that first night.

That's right! On the floor. A real futon, is simply a thin mattress that you put directly on the tatami. This is the traditional Japanese sleeping way and how my wife and I will spend the next couple of years. It's actually very comfortable and I must say I like it a lot and it's been wonderful for my no longer aching back. 

The next day, Tuesday, we went to the Dotonbori section of Osaka to buy a fridge, stove and washing machine which will be delivered on Wednesday. Dotonbori is a cool and touristy area but we are on a mission and really didn't dedicate the time to tourist around. I didn't take any pictures of it on this trip. When we return for leisure, I'll add pictures because it really is a very cool place. Anyway, two more days of eating out. I've missed my wife's cooking.

Speaking of my wife's cooking. As you may know, I'm a generously sized man. Actually 6' and about 320 lbs. The average Japanese man is about 5'6" and 140 lbs. This has turned me into a very popular person. Old women reach out and touch my stomach. Children point or stare with mouths wide open. In 1999, when I first visited Japan, a man asked me if I was an apprentice Sumo wrestler. I've become a big (no pun intended) attraction in this community and patting my belly has become a local pastime.

On the way back home we stopped at the recycle store. The owner greeted me with a smile and my wife and him started talking. He showed her a nice large bike with solid frame, decent tires and a basket for groceries. I just stumbled all over the first floor of the shop and counted about 14 surfboards hanging on the walls. My wife said we would buy the bike the next day. He said he would remember and patted my stomach. I think he remembers me by my stomach. 

On Wednesday, before the appliances were delivered we went to 7-11 for some junk food for lunch. Once again we stopped at the recycle shop, this time because I've been wanting a chair. It's just not very comfortable to sit on the floor all the time when you are my size. The owner directed us to the second floor and there among all the stuff, even more than downstairs, my wife found a nice little wooden folding chair. 

Back downstairs, Rie found a scooter board that our son has been wanting so we added it to the purchases. We also got the bike my wife saw last night. It's purple. Altogether we spent about $75 because the bike is in really good shape. The chair and the scooter were $8 each. With the transaction finished it was time to socialize with the owner. 

This is when things got interesting.

His name is Tsurusaki, but he asked me to call him John. He is a musician. He plays guitar and sings and once or twice a month he goes to a senior center to play for the residents. He also plays gigs around town. I told him I play drums and bass. His eyes opened wide and he grinned. Immediately he asked me for my phone number. Within minutes he had also added me to his contacts on the LINE app, that people are so fond of using here. He seems to really like me and honestly I like him back. He is a funny guy. 

I think I made my first friend in Osaka.

Osaka!!!!!

August 28 2017 was the date we arrived in Japan. It's hard to believe that it's been over a month already.

We flew from Taipei on a Japanese no frills, super discount airline called Peach, in a cute pink plane. If they could charge for the air in the cabin, they would. But the flight was nice and uneventful, like all flights should be, and we arrived on time at terminal two of the Kansai International Airport. My wife and daughter, being Japanese passport holders, went through as citizens without having at stop at customs, while my son and I had to go through immigration and customs. We brought everything we needed and were able to clear customs in about 15 to 20 minutes and we were giving our residency cards, good for five years.

Because of the kids, I like to lag behind and I don't mind being the last in line. I'm not in a race to anywhere and I'm never in a hurry. I'm also the least competitive person you will ever encounter, so if I'm last, who cares? I enjoyed the view while all the hares, rushed through. That said, we got to the baggage claim area to find it completely empty of people and all our luggage neatly stacked and waiting for us.

We stacked all 11 pieces on three carts and off we went to terminal one, to inform a second customs office that we needed to declare everything we shipped from the US. We walked the entire length of terminal one looking for this office, up and down elevators in pretty darn hot and humid conditions. After about 30 minutes pushing all that luggage, we found the "office" which was really a kiosk, where Rie promptly filled the necessary forms and we are now in full compliance with Japanese immigration laws. 

From there it was just a matter of getting minivan taxi and heading to our 2nd airbnb of this trip. We ran into a minor problem at the taxi stand. We arrived on a Monday, and for some weird reason, mini van taxis don't work on Mondays. So we ended up hiring two taxis. The family loaded into one with 4 pieces of luggage in the trunk, while I rode in the other taxi with luggage filling every corner of this thing. The driver asked me where I was from and in true proud American fashion I told him "Puerto Rico". He reacted with surprise and said "Puerto Rico! Good, strong baseboru!" and that's as far as our talking went. The total ride for both taxis? $290.  Ouch. Taxis in Japan are not cheap.

The apartment has an great location, close to the center of town and with subway access right on the first floor of the building. But when we got to there, we couldn't figure out how to unlock the door! It took 5 tries and when we went to leave for dinner, we couldn't figure out how to open it from inside!

Dinner ended up being Subway. We were so tired, that the dream of an authentic Japanese dinner in the place where it was invented went out the window. American comfort food it is! Once back at the apartment, the kids went to bed and fell asleep right away. Our daughter has always been a terrible sleeper. She simply refuses to sleep and fights it with all her might. She's been dong this since she was two. Not tonight. Head touched pillow, girl was out. 

The next day, the insanity started. We had a 10 AM appointment with a real estate agent not too far from where we are staying. We had looked online at a super nice HUGE apartment for $700 a month and we wanted to see it. He thought there was no way it could be that cheap, so he got on the phone to try to get more info on it. I was expecting typical Japanese horror movie drama. You know, the place had been a torture chamber, or someone had died in it, but he found out it was cheap because the A/C was broken and the owner was not willing to fix it. His plan was to increase the price to $2000/month once the weather turned cooler. 

No thanks, let's look at other stuff. After a few hours getting our "wish list" like House Hunter International Edition and searching with him online, we came across a nice three bedroom unit for $850/month, including maintenance fees. We drove out 45 minutes to see it and we liked it, so back to the office we went to fill up the application. 

To make a long story short, a few days later, we were approved even though we had no income, were new in the country and I'm an ugly foreigner. Having a pretty wife that speaks the native language, helps a lot!

For the next day, fun was in the plans.

A weekend in Taiwan - Part 3: Food and departure

Our second day in Taiwan was pretty low key. We had to do laundry in the morning and there were some pretty serious thunderstorms in the afternoon that kept us indoors, relaxing and visiting with Dawn and Chen.

But in the evening Dawn took us to a non-touristy night market where we were able to eat real Taiwanese food with plenty of locals. Sing Ren Flower Night Market in Taoyuan City.

 Some stuff looked and smelled delicious.

Some others? Not so much...







                                                           

Unfortunately the next morning, it was time to say goodbye to Damn and Chen. We had a wonderful three night stay and we will return someday. They are life long friends.

Osaka, here we come!

A Weekend in Taiwan - Part 2: One tall building and a man of peace

Warning: Lots of pictures. My apologies if it uses up your data plan. Also, most of this was posted on my personal Facebook page, so it may be redundant to some. One of these days I'll catch up.

First full day in Asia. Like I said on the previous post, Taipei is brutally humid. Here's a summary of my first morning, from Facebook.

Woke up at my regular 6am after dying at midnight. No jet lag. 
Took a quick shower. Walked to a bakery down the street. 

Sweated 10 lbs. Bought a donut for son, melon bread for daughter, some sliced bread and a sausage sandwich for wife. Walked back to the apartment. Sweated another 10 lbs.
Had breakfast while sitting in front of the AC.

None of us had jet lag at all, hurrah for good scheduling. The wife and kids slept for eight hours and were ready to go after breakfast. At the Taoyuan City station there was some kind of super loud commotion going on but we wanted to get to Taipei, so we ignored it. It turned out to be a cooking competition that I'm sure my wife could've won easily, but we didn't find out until we got back home.

On the way to Taipei 101 we needed to change trains and not surprisingly we boarded the train in the wrong direction. Oops!

We finally arrived and went to the mall under Taipei 101 for some lunch. The food court is very large but has maybe 100 tables to hold 10,000 people. Most just walk around looking for a place to eat. I got some Mos Burger and the family went American with McYuck. We wandered around for half an hour looking for a place to sit I just said "forget this" and sat down on the floor between the Cartier store and a trash can. Oh the stares we got were priceless! Wife was not happy... But then, how often you get to have lunch on the floor under the 5th tallest building in the world and between $15,000 watches and a trash can? Bucket list item crossed out!

Up we go! The ride up the elevator to the 89th floor of the building takes 37 seconds. It was so quick that by the time I pulled my camera out to video it, we were there.  YouTube has videos of it, so check them out. It's pretty cool.

The views from the top are amazing...

... and vertigo inducing.

On the way back to Taoyuan City, we got on the train and an old man started speaking to me in English mixed in with a little Mandarin. His wife was with with him and she just said "hellooooo", like 100 times.

First thing the man told me was that he wanted world peace. Of course I heard "whirled peas" and wondered why he would discuss his dinner plans with me, but hey you just gotta roll with it, you know? He then proceeded to tell me how he hates all forms of government, that he retired 20 years ago from Phillips Electronics and that how he wants world peace by communicating with people in the train. He told me he's tired of seeing wars over religion and over oil and money, which he dislikes, but his wife loudly declared "I Like money!" and that led to a minor lighthearted argument in Mandarin that ended in laughter among them. I joined them even though they probably said I smelled like a dead goat for all I know.

He showed me his ID and pointed at his name and had me repeat it back to him. Unfortunately I only remember his last name being Hwuang. He also told me his phone number and said I must call him so we can continue his dream of world peace.

The train arrived at our stop and he shook my hand, called me his friend and said something about The Sound of Silence and Mrs Robinson, which I know to be a reference to Simon and Garfunkel, but also made me question the sanity of the hour long talk I just had with him, because for the life of me, I can't figure out what it had to do with anything. Maybe he's just a leftover Taiwanese hippie. 

Anyway, I made a friend and it made both of us happy. Maybe there is something to his dream of "world peace by communicating in a train" method.