finally did half the dishes. i threw out a bunch of stuff that i continuously don't want to clean, like the fish grill, an extra cup, a teapot (don't worry, it's all cheap stuff!). the more dishes we own the less i want to clean them; i said when i moved here i only wanted to have ONE of everything per person so that dishes would always seem managable, but for various reasons it didn't end up like that.

the sink-drain-cover thing here is really bad - so, in most countries (including sweden and japan) there's no such thing as a garbage disposal and you need to just like, not toss stuff down the drain, and then you have to clean out your drain-pipes once a year or so. in order to not have to clean them at all, you get a wire mesh basket thing (just like a metal strainer) that sits in your drain and catches all the gunk. the problem is the one that came with our apartment is IMPOSSIBLE to clean!! it's hard to clean a normal mesh, but the holes in this one are so tiny that all the food bits just get smashed into it when you try to rub at it with a sponge. i have no idea how japanese people clean them, i tried to google it and couldn't find anyone who had the same type as ours.

i burnt some stuff when using our pressure cooker and this time it just won't come out. i tried the baking soda + vinegar thing and it didn't work, so i either did it wrong or have to find another way... it doesn't seem to be affecting the taste of the food but just seeing that black stuff in there is really annoying.

our washing machine lid broke - it was broken when we moved in, but now it's broken to the point where you can't actually close the lid anymore. if you use the apartment complex's machines it costs 200 yen to wash, then 100 yen for 30 minutes in the dryer (an average load of clothes isn't dry even after 90 minutes, so on bad-weather days i break the load up into thirds and dry each third separately for 30 minutes then hang them up indoors to dry the rest of the way). i have no idea if using our own machine costs the same amount or not.

aaand my wife's been having freakouts and stuff as usual. first she gets super angry/upset when we're at the grocery store, and usually she wants to eat some kind of junk food (in today's case, mayonnaise-tuna onigiri from the convenience store). then later i'm waiting for her to finish using the computer or i'm sleeping or something and then i come out of the bedroom to find her crouched over on the floor in the kitchen sobbing. so i try to ask what's wrong and she doesn't say anything. an hour passes and she eventually moves to the bed, covering herself with the blankets but usually still crying. i keep trying to ask what's wrong and she still doesn't say anything. a couple hours pass like this and she falls asleep. the whole time not saying anything.

this happens pretty much every time after she eats junk food. if not a few hours after than a day or two after. the "junk food" can be onigiri, yoghurt, sushi, etc and i believe also from butter which she doesn't want to stop eating - basically she has some kind of reaction to the preservatives or sweetening agents in the food, and in the case of butter i think it's just because it's pasteurized. and based on my own experiences i think it gets worse 1. the more you have at once (ex. two onigiri, not just one) and 2. the more often you have them (1 onigiri per day but 3 days in a row).

i also have reactions to the food but in my case i get irritated... AND my reactions aren't as severe as hers, probably because i eat a lot more fermented foods and "healthy" foods in general than her (ex. i eat a lot of chicken-bone broth and then mix in some miso to it, or i'm eating squid guts or something - she's basically only eating mincemeat, butter, onions and sweet potatoes. no fermented stuff)

anyway i'm just like... ugh... i don't want to "waste" my vacation staying indoors every day and not going out except to go to the grocery store. which is what we've been doing for the most part. i'm gonna see if we can at least go to the zoo or something... i have one classmate who said she'd help me figure out how to get a SIM card at this one shop so i guess i should contact her and do that soon, otherwise we'll never be able to take a real vacation to like osaka or something...

got a book from the library about mistakes people make when writing kanji - i've only read one entry so far (about 達) but it seems really good. it explained that people usually mistake how many lines to draw (3) at the bottom of 達 and so accidentally draw 幸 (2) instead, but 達 was originally made up of 大 with 羊 underneath ("big + sheep"), not the modern　土羊 ("dirt + sheep"); owning sheep being a symbol of prosperity in China at the time. by the way, the dot to the upper-right of 犬 is supposed to be the dog's EAR (and that part of the kanji is called the "right-shoulder"), not it's TAIL as i had learnt...

i saw a booklet of local apartments that are specifically catering to students, and there are some super cheap ones in there - 20,000 yen a month, being one room + a kitchen and bathroom! currently i have 2 rooms and pay 30,000 a month (+ 10,000 in utilities). a lot of them also have tatami floors which are difficult to clean, but you can buy floor coverings at the 100 yen shops so you don't have to worry about spilling stuff and then smashing it into the tatami on accident. my wife's worry, she says, isn't about how small they are but how thin the walls are, and she assumes all cheap japanese apartments will have super-thin walls. i don't think that's necessarily true, but even so there might be apartment-hunting tips that say how you can figure that out. anyway, finding apartments when we need to seems like it'll be super easy so i'm not worried about that.