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Checkin to BIGMOTOR (γγγ°γ’γΌγΏγΌ ζ¨ͺζ΅ζΈε‘εΊ)
Goodbye Honda Freed. Thanks for all the rides. ππ» -
The Week #156
by James- This is post #156 of The Week, which means it's the 3rd year of posting this series! I'm happy that I haven't missed a week or been off schedule once during these 3 years, though there has been a couple of point where I questioned if I should continue. This series is the one thing that's kept me blogging regularly, I think. Each bullet point in a The Week post doesn't feel like enough to warrant a post, but combined they do. If you're wanting to blog / blog more, I highly recommend starting with this approach. Here's to the next 3 years π».
- I bought the Nissan Sakura. We picked blue and it's similar enough to our current blue that bystanders passing our house may think we've accidentally put our car in the wash and it shrunk. We won't get it August or early September. That said, I'm really excited to get a smaller, electric, car. If it weren't electric, I don't think we'd be switching. I tooted about it, but negotiations when buying a car is the part of the car buying process I hate the most. Especially when the car isn't having problems selling, because they give less ground.Β
In the end I managed to get Β₯75,000 off the top and take part in a campaign that doesn't start until next month. In the campaign you get 4 different things: Β₯5,000 in Yokosuka city voucher, a Β₯5,000 yen gift from a catalog, Β₯20,000 if gift cards, and pair tickets to a "famous amusement park" (probably Disneyland)...so probably around Β₯50,000 in value. Unrelated to negotiations there's also Β₯550,000 cashback from the government (will take a couple months after receiving the car for them to deposit) and Β₯80,000 from Nissan to support installing a car charging port on my house. After selling my car Β₯1,800,000 and including all incentives I'm only paying about Β₯1,000,000 for the car ($6,959.02 with today's horrible exchange rate). - As part of selling my car, I have to prepare a couple of documents for selling / buying my car. Theoretically I can do this now from the big copiers at 7-11, but I wasn't sure if I could get my stamp registration certificate or not, so I went to city hall. Either it's years of experience or city hall digitizing their systems or a combination of both, but it was completely painless. No long lines or anything. I was in and out in probably 10 minutes.
- I've been noticing more and more EVs on the roads lately, which makes me happy for air quality, noise, and climate reasons. Naturally since I've been looking at Sakuras, I've realized just how popular they've become (over 40k sold in a year). There's also more EV postal vans and postal bikes. The one category of transport I haven't yet seen electrified in Japan is the trucks that visit each combini multiple times a day to deliver fresh goods. I swear you can see the particulates in the air when these things pass. I hadn't seen one until this week when walking to the office and it made me really happy.
An EV delivery truck
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Checkin to THAI RESTAURANT PENTHAI (γΏγ€ε½ζη γγ³γΏγ€)
Been wanting to come here for years. Really good, but forgot to take a photo of my food π -
Checkin to Starbucks
Starbucks has for here glasses for cold drinks now as well. Niice -
Checkin to γγ« Jimmy θ ε ΄ηΊεΊ
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The Week #155
by James- We went to the Nissan dealer so Yumi (and Leo) could see the car and we could test drive it as a family. The main reason we're even changing cars is so that Yumi can drive and not be dependent on me. She tried the automatic parking in the big box electronics store next to the dealership. Driving around it seems like the right size car for us. We've decided to buy it (in blue) and next week I'll go to negotiate a price.
We also made a contract to sell our current car and our last day with it will be the 30th. When we were car shopping originally, the Freed, while nice, it always felt a little too big. But we wanted something with sliding doors that didn't look like a shoe and that was the option. There were also talks of being able to take everyone out, but those never really happened. We did use the seating capacity once or two to shuttle my sister-in-law and her family down from Tokyo to the family home during the pandemic...but really we had a 7 seater for 3 people + 1 dog.
Kei's are definitely easier to drive around these narrow streets. With an EV there isn't this feeling of betraying my beliefs each time I use it β especially in the middle of the ever hotter summers. - I joined Leo on his last "Oya-ko Ensoku", or Parent-child field trip of his kindergarten years. This time we went to Tatara-hama beach in Yokosuka.
Having fun at the beach
At the beach kids can play in the water, but mostly go hunting in the rocks for crabs, fish, and jellyfish. We captured a jellyfish that fit perfectly into his little bucket, saw some crabs, and even a baby shark. Unfortunately the baby shark got up into the rocks, I guess at high tide, and couldn't get out before the water receded and died.
After playing at the beach for a couple of hours, everyone ate our bentos on the beach, then we had 30 minutes to pack up and visit the museum next to beach. The museum had a lot of information about the local environment and the fish. And for some reason a section with a lot of Godzillas.
Godzilla over the years
On the bus ride back to the kindergarten the bus driver played some Tom & Jerry onΒ entertainment system in the bus to keep the kids entertained. - Our blueberries are starting to turn blue! Not too much longer and I'll have at least a 50 dollars worth of berries from this plant. Yum π
Blueberries turning blue
- We went to the Nissan dealer so Yumi (and Leo) could see the car and we could test drive it as a family. The main reason we're even changing cars is so that Yumi can drive and not be dependent on me. She tried the automatic parking in the big box electronics store next to the dealership. Driving around it seems like the right size car for us. We've decided to buy it (in blue) and next week I'll go to negotiate a price.
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Checkin to Kannonzaki Nature Museum (観ι³ε΄θͺηΆεη©ι€¨)
Quick run through before we have to leave. -
Checkin to γγγζ΅
Field trip with Leo and the rest of his kindergarten! -
by JamesGot a couple more quotes for selling my Honda Freed:
140 from Nissan π (dealer)
130 - 150 from Autobacs π
180 from Big Motor π
10 less than what he said as a potential last week, but weβll have it through the month. And 2 months sans car.
Exciting times in the Van Dyne household!
