This occurred two weeks ago.

At no point did the irony or effort of moving across town yesterday escape me. Last night, the air was cool, almost to the point of requiring a sweater, and the humidity was low. Yet, despite this, my entire body was covered in sweat. My balance was thrown off by the immense bag on my back. It may have weighed more than 120 lbs (54 kg) which, though heavy, was only a piece of the weight I was toting about. It was certainly taller than me once on my back, and that required me to duck (which, when wearing a pack is more like making a deep bowing motion with a corpse's weight while trying to maintain good posture) through most openings. In all, I was probably close to 7'6" (229 cm) tall.

In addition to the pack was my bicycle. In a box. In a box with a bunch of other stuff. In a box with a bunch of other stuff that probably weighed close to 50 lb (23 kg). So, there I was, on a cool Sunday night, dragging close to my own body weight partly in a large, awkward box, several kilometers to and from multiple stations, in an attempt to get the second half of my things to a new apartment of my own.

Where's the irony? Well, in Japan, it's common for there to be a bicycle crossing parallel to the pedestrian crossing at an intersection. At one point, I briefly resorted to dragging the bike box across such an exchange. I was walking in the pedestrian lane, dragging my bike in the bike lane. Such efficient machines, aren't they?

Other ironies/points of amusement include knowing that if I had waited until next Saturday my things could have been moved for half the cost and in a car, that I didn't have hot water until this morning so I had to take a cold shower last night, I don't have any soap or shampoo (to be fixed later today), my food pantry consists of Ramen, potatoes, salt, and half of an onion, and that, while on an hour bike ride this morning in a country that doesn't openly acknowledge that it has gays, I was listening to a BBC feature on a pro-gay Christian effort in Chicago.

Life otherwise seems pretty happy with me. I've discovered that there's a park less than two blocks from me, and possibly a hole-in-the-wall restaurant across the street from my apartment.