Day 16: Progress

Welcome to day 16, nothing too special today, but I did leave you with that teaser of the following picture, so I shall explain:

Including the kitchen sink, hehe

The long and the short of it is that that is how it has looked for the past 16 days. It is glorious. That is because my sink and kitchen generally looks like an absolute hole! And then after a couple of days of buildup I end up with something that looks like this:

Dare you challenge me at Jenga?

It would appear that I have no before pics, even I have more shame than that. So, my kitchen is either in a permanent state of being an absolute dive, or a pile of clean dishes so precarious I genuinely worry about losing them all if an earthquake hits in the night!

You see, I live alone, and living alone is something that took a little adjusting to. I started off living with my family, then moved into university halls with 11 other people and then into a flat of 5. Suddenly having all the time and space to yourself is a little daunting. It is also massively liberating and very revealing. I mean there are some glorious parts, like how you never have to feel that you must clean up after yourself if you don't want to. The TV is all yours, and of course, especially in Japanese sweltering summers, you can walk around naked, straight out of the shower, no need to be too hot all clothed!

Picture unavailable

But there is also the downsides. Mostly that you discover that your belief that you are a neat, tidy and motivated individual is not quite true. When all chores have to be done by yours truly, the motivation is a little lacking. Not to mention that there is more work for an individual to do. If you cook a meal for one, besides the extra plates and cutlery, you use just as many as you would when cooking for a family, and there is no one who didn't cook who's turn it is to do the dishes! (Or children. Lets be honest one of the biggest perks to succeeding in not killing your kids is that, one day, they reach an age where they can do all the crappy chores you don't want to!)

Also, everyone knows the rule, the person who cooks doesn't do the dishes. But apparently I don't know that, so I make me do them even though I am the one who cooked myself a delicious meal after I had a hard day at work!

And this is where a month of eating out is a massive blessing! Other than that cake I cooked, I have not had to cook, do the dishes or clean my kitchen since I began this adventure (Unfortunately it is now much colder so the naked perk has gone). So I really appreciate my ramen for that.

Is it just me or is that ramen looking at me,  possibly saying "Please kill me"

I felt a cold coming on, been sneezing all day. By the way,  Japanese people don't say "Bless you"
(I guess they don't care if my soul buggers off) so there is, even now, a little awkward silence just for me whenever Isneeze and no one says anything.

Anyway, I decided to hit up the spicy ramen, it was as always, delicious. Some of you may remember Day 6 when I had this and drank all of the soup (To maximise my meat intake), but the mixture between the super spiciness and the volume made me less than happy. I decided today I would learn from past mistakes and not eat to excess.

That my friends, is progress!