Category: experiences

I’m back – well, I didn’t go anywhere, but I’m back posting here. Golden Week was nice and relaxing, the temperature has picked up a bit even though it is raining now. There were several things I did last week that I had put off for quite a while, and it is wonderful to start with a clean slate, or at least, with a clean apartment again.

Finally, after all these months I have managed to unpack my books! It took me that long because there is no good spot to place bookshelves in my apartment. I did not want any tall ones in my bedroom, nor in that part of my living room I intend to use for guests – if there is a heavy earthquake, you don’t want to be buried under books. And the one livingroom wall where bookshelves would fit gets the full sunlight in winter, which is not good either. So I decided to have only very low bookshelves underneath a window, but it was hard to find the right size, and I ended up doing a significant amount of DIY there…

Anyway, I have now unpacked, catalogued, and stowed away my books – all 366 of them. Surprisingly, even though what is left is only one third of my library, there were only two books I missed (and will certainly buy again); and I do somewhat regret getting rid of my complete collection of discworld novels, mostly because the current covers are not that nice anymore. Other than that I did not feel too bad about what I kept, which is good.

Also, I have looked at furniture and lamps for the livingroom as well. As I said, I want the part with the tatami to be in Japanese style, but unfortunately, the really nice lamps I like are very expensive and the cheap ones are either ugly or plastic… I am still contemplating about some lamps that took my fancy. We will see – and I promise to post pictures once the living room is finished.

Besides that I enjoyed the nice days of last week by sitting on my balcony. Although the scaffolding is still there, the black sheets were removed from the south side of the building, so I have a (mostly) unobstructed view again. Now, people are busy on the north side, but it seems that they are slightly less enthusiastic about it there.

I also went to a special event last Sunday: The Kyoto State Guest House had open days. Everybody could go and have a look how state guests are housed and entertained in Japan – and I can tell you, it’s not shabby at all! I will write about this in depth in the weekend.

At the first day of each new month, I am always terribly busy – so I was today, and now I am very tired. I wish all the work I am doing would directly translate into money on my account, but it does not seem to do that…

Anyway, next week is Japan’s Golden Week with three holidays in a row which gives the country a reason to shut down. Well, so will I, even though I am not sure I will have the opportunity to take it very easy… But, my next regular post will be on Tuesday, May 10th. I hope I have something exciting to tell you then!

 

My accountant was here today and we finished the year-end taxes for the company. With “we” I mean that he did all the work producing all the documents for the tax office, and I signed a final document approving of what he has done. And this is why you need to have a trustworthy accountant: I have no idea, really, what I signed… Anyway, I assume he did the right thing since I will not have to pay taxes this year.

Okay, that’s a bit simplified: There are three types of taxes the company has to pay: Local/city, prefectural, and national taxes. The first two are – in part at least – taxes that are based on where the business is located, and you have to pay them regardless of whether you made a profit or not. This year it’s some 65.000 YEN for the privilege of owning a company in Kyoto.

National taxes are different – you pay them from company profits only. Since I am quite a bit in the reds, I don’t have to pay anything. In fact, I even received a tax return! And this is how:

The company owns a bank account, on which interest is paid, albeit very little. From this interest, I have to pay capital gains tax, which is automatically deducted by the bank and sent to the tax office. Now, the amount of national tax you have to pay “manually”, so to speak, is reduced by this capital gains tax. But since I don’t have to pay national tax this year, I have overpaid, and will receive that money back. Got it?

Long story short: I will receive a tax refund. The amount is a breath-taking 49 YEN (about 0.30 EUR). Yes, I know: the banking fees alone must be a multiple of this. At that rate, I can buy myself a celebratory cup of hot chocolate in about 7 years. Not that immigration will allow that, since I must make a profit in the second business year at the latest, or else… But that’s another story.

Apparently, it has been a whole year already since I went through the last visa procedure. The other day I received a reminder from my lawyer that we’ll need to start with the application again…

Hence, I have started collecting paperwork of my own, taking another mug shot for the new ID, and my accountant will have to produce some company documents, including my profit/loss statement. I am pretty much in the reds this year, which is not good for visa renewal, but my lawyer says that my visa will probably be renewed – for another year – regardless. I am a bit anxious about this, obviously, but I trust her; so far she has been right about everything.

She also remarked that I will have to give her both my passport and foreign ID during the application procedure, and again, the same helpless feeling from last year is creeping up my spine: “But how do I prove that I am me??” It’s totally irrational, obviously, but I’ll have to live with it.

Renovations on the building are progressing.For some reason they do the noisy bits on Saturdays, during the week there’s only painting. This week was especially productive in this respect. For a day or two my south balcony was covered in a thick water-repellent layer – in bright blue. I’m glad it has been painted over in a more standard tone of grey. In any case, it now seems that the south side of the building is almost finished.

This means that the plastic coverings have been removed from my windows and were promptly reapplied onto the staircase; the stairwell is now being painted in several layers of particularly stinky paint. Especially Tuesday was bad when the smell entered my apartment from both sides. Nothing else to do than to seek exile again.

Some time next week the entrance doors will be painted, and I could even ask for the painting being done on the inside as well. Still, it seems that most of the things that are being done are strictly cosmetic and not really improving the substance of the building. But, since this is not my home…

There are elections again in Austria. This time it’s the presidential elections and they will take place on April 24th. There are six candidates for the post and I am eager to cast my vote. Hence, I have applied for an absentee ballot, which I have received today.

Of course, just like last time, the documents came too late to send them to the embassy which would take care of them, so I had to send them back to Austria myself per express mail service – and pay myself for the privilege. At least, if there is a second round of voting, I already received the documents for that one, so my vote will definitely be on time then.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. The documents I received were in a rather sorry state. Obviously, somewhere on the journey from Austria, the letter became wet and although dry by the time it ended up in my mailbox, it looked the part inside and out…

What I found very nice was the extra sticker the post office at Haneda airport put on the envelope, apologising for the state of the letter. Essentially it says:

This item was already received wet at East Kawasaki Post Office. We do not know how this happened. We did dry the item but we deeply (!) apologize that we have to send you your valuable letter in such a state.

At least I know now why the documents came that late. In any case, they are already back on their way to Austria. Let’s hope for the best for the elections…

Renovations on my apartment complex are progressing. Right now, the walls and balconies on the south side are being painted. This has two major drawbacks: One, that I cannot open any windows since the paint has a very unpleasant smell. And two, that my view has deteriorated even further: My windows and doors are covered with plastic, partially to prevent them from getting (too) dirty, and partially to prevent me from venturing out onto the balcony. The painting is scheduled for all week, so with a bit of luck everything should be over by Saturday.

Since I am working on the new page, I am very busy again, and since I have always been a night owl, I have gone back to my nerdy ways and do the best of my work in the middle of the night. So, I went to bed yesterday somewhere around 3 am.

And I was promptly awakened from my slumber at 9:15 sharp, by some person starting renovation work on the roof exactly above my head – with a jackhammer. What a joy! Yes, it could have been worse because they start officially at 8:30, but I am simply not functional after only 6 hours of sleep…

At first, I did not want to leave, but after only 30 minutes of jackhammering on the roof, my opinion had changed… I spent the day in exile in the KOKOKA, where I got quite a lot of things done, albeit somewhat unrelated to what I needed to do, because I did not want to send sensitive stuff over a connection that I know is unsafe…

Anyway, I guess I won’t be up much longer today since I am tired. And I hope they have at least finished whatever they needed the jackhammer for, even though they will be working on the roof throughout the whole month. I have an appointment with my accountant on Thursday, at least then I must be home, at any other time I can leave. At least it is hanami too, so there’s a lot of pretty trees to see outside. Hopefully the weather will hold out for a while.

As the last one of four, my building now also has a scaffold outside. The construction on this has finished yesterday, and this is the current view out of my living room:

It is not as bad as I thought though. When I saw the long black sheets being hung on the other buildings I almost despaired over the prospect of living in a cave for three months. However, as you can see, those sheets are surprisingly transparent even though the photo was taken when it was quite overcast. When I open the blinds and curtains, my apartment feels like in a light fog rather than in darkness. I am quite pleased by this unexpected turn of events.

So, I hope for the best for the following weeks with respect to noise. Just today I received the announcement that the walls will be repaired in the next two weeks and that roof repairs are scheduled for all of April. I already noticed that I can hear people walk on the roof, so I better make a list of cafes for emergency retreats.

Even though the renovation works have already been delayed by a week for some reason, the whole thing is extremely organised. At the entrance to our building there is a notice board where the main developments are documented. There is also a list of balconies where it is permitted to hang out laundry – updated daily in the morning. And for the really big things we receive a special announcement in our mailboxes, colour-coded depending on what will happen.

Two weeks ago we received a blue notice telling us that the scaffolding work will commence, and that we need to remove everything from our balconies. A special place downstairs was designated for each house so that any plants on the balconies can be put there as long as the scaffolding is up. Not that I could read any of this, but in Japan, nothing can be written without a little comic attached. This one essentially says “I can’t work like this!”

When I was a child, we had friends in another part of Austria. They had a small farm in the mountains with cows and sheep and this was pretty much the only place we ever went on vacation. Since they had six kids more or less around my age, it was always much fun for me. Unfortunately, we lost touch, and the last time we saw each other was more than 20 years ago.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email from the eldest daughter just the other day! After all these years it clicked immediately again, and we have been busy exchanging photos and our life stories ever since. It’s fantastic! I still have no idea how she found me on another continent, but I guess nothing is impossible these days…