Government furniture!

First a little information- when you travel oconus, which means outside continental united states, often times you're given a very restrictive weight limit. When this happens, you are loaned some furniture from FMO (Furnishings managment office). Depending on your stay, your dependents, and your restricted weight, you are either given the furniture temporarily or it is loaned to you for the duration of your stay. In our case, we were given this furniture for the duration of our stay. Once our things arrive (tomorrow!!) we will decide what we will be returning and set up a pick up date for those things.

Here are some pictures of the furniture we were issued. All of the furniture arrived overly polished (very greasy!) but in decent shape. I'll expand more on that topic as we go on:

We were given a very nice dining room table that seats six but we were given 5 dining room chairs. One of which is apparently our "computer chair". I find this fascinating because The chair is not ergonomic nor does it quite fit with the desk. If I have my legs on the seat and I pull the chair up so I can have proper posture while using the computer, my legs hit the drawer underneath. I imagine Frank can't even get his legs under the desk. So there's alot of hunching going on in this house. Anyway, the table also came with a leaf for the center to expand it. Since we never have company I doubt we will actually use this leaf for anything other than taking up space in the closet. The table itself is very nice, albeit dinged in a few places.

The hutch we were given is super nice. It has plenty of storage with drawers and the shelves behind the sliding glass doors. I will say that this is a very heavy piece of furniture and that the top and bottom pieces are not connected. This mostly concerns me due to the fact that there are earthquakes out here. If one is strong enough do you think the top of this will come crashing down, taking whatever lovely dishes I decide to display inside along with it?

I also foresee the cat figuring out how to get on top of this in no time and sitting up there close to the air conditioner when its hot outside. We need to get something for the drawers. They are very musty smelling and I'm hesitant to put dinner linens in anything that smells less than clean. Other than that- this is probably my favorite piece of loaner furniture. I've never had one of these before and I can see how owning one now will probably spoil me in the future. Once we get our things I plan on filling the shelves with the new set of dishes we were given from the wedding. They are all snow white and square. I'm sure you all know how obsessed I've always been with square dishes. They are also the only matching set we have, haha!

Our living room furniture is very nice. We were given two end tables, a coffee table (Even though we asked them not to give us a coffee table), and two chairs. That's a whole lot of seating options for two people and one temporarily absent cat! I think it took us about a week to sit in all the seats in the house. I found it comical that I asked if we could possibly get two computer desks and two chairs and they said "No, there's only two of you." then dump living room seating for 5 and dining room seating for 4 on us.

Now before any of you start with the "They could have given you nothing at all!" Remember, this blog is Okinawa REALIST not Okinawa Polly-Anna. Moving along.. Those of you who know me understand that I sit in one place. The corner of any couch I sit on with my feet on something and a controller in my hands. This picture shows our living room furniture neatly arranged in the living room. At the time of writing this, the couch has taken up residence in our office until we get a second desk. We watch tv on the laptop and I play pspgo while Frank uses the computer. It's a handy set up. Kind of feels like a therapist's office with the couch and the desk.

Speaking of desks- here is the desk we were given. It's functional in terms of desks but not meant for the kind of hobbies Frank and I have. It's more like a writing desk than a computer desk. Like I said, there is the issue with the chair not quite fitting which leads to another issue. When we get a computer chair it will not fit period. The space for a chair is very narrow. The desk has lots of drawers, which is nice but they also suffer from the same condition as the hutch drawers. There is a musty, almost methane-like smell coming from their interior. Once we get something to take out that smell I will probably be more inclined to like this desk. At the moment though I have mixed feelings. More than an hour at the computer seated here takes a very nasty toll on my back but it's such a beautiful desk that it's hard to resist it's modern charm and darkly stained wood for long. The desk is also in immaculate shape. Not a single scratch or ding, not even the hint of a wobble or warping.

Our bedroom furniture is great looking. We got two nightstands, a dresser with a mirror, and a bedframe. All of the furniture matches.

The mattress and boxspring were new in the plastic and they are pretty comfortable. Unfortunately, no bed will work quite right for me and hasn't worked quite right for me since we took down my twin bed at our first apartment. Mostly, my back is very fickle about the support level. Beds are usually too soft and I wake up feeling a bit like I've been run over by a bus. This bed doesn't do it to that extent. It's more like I was run over by a bicycle. I'll take it over the air mattress we slept on the first four days we were here. Also- we had to buy our own bed linens. These were on sale at the PX (Which is like Target but more expensive...Think Macy's and Target's terrible love child.) I really like the set but the sheets need a few heavy washes before they are malleable enough to be comfortable.

Here's our dresser with a mirror. The reflection in the mirror is our shoji screen windows, not it's actual design. It's pretty nice but it suffers the same fate as the rest of the furniture with drawers. All the drawers stink! This dresser's drawers are the worst of it to the extent that if we close the bedroom door the smell becomes overwhelming and makes me nauseated. At the moment it's not a terrible problem since we have a very small amount of clothes. The drawers are all empty. Who wants a bunch of clothes that smell like that? I'm sorry I can't offer up a better description of the smell.. I lack the words to actually define it. Not a big deal. It's a gross smell and will be remedied as soon as we get our hands on satchels of anti humidity stuff for the drawers. They sell them down the street. ^.^

That's all the furniture we were given. Some of it will be going back to FMO after tomorrow. I don't think two people need all this stuff. Either way, it's really nice that we get whatever we do want to keep for the duration of our stay here in Okinawa. Next time- Japanese convenience food experiments!

Our Japanese Home

For those of you who have been waiting a week or so for an update, I apologize for the wait and thank you for your patience. Most of the time between the posts was spent catching up on all my favorite American tv shows. I'm still in the process of catching up with Syfy's Lost Girl but I now am up to date on The Voice and Faceoff.

- A shot of our entryway and entryway storage closets. Welcome to our home!

Those entryway closets opened up! Three cheers for lots of practical storage!!

Today, let's talk about our apartment here in beautiful Chatan Cho. First, a tour:

This is the living/dining room of our apartment. It has a large wrap around balcony and very shiny floors. It's also very large compared to the other places we looked at. On the left you can see our double set of sliding glass doors which, much to my suprise, were airtight. We've lived in a place with sliding glass doors before and all the cold and hot air came drifting through little unseen spaces all around the frames. The day we looked at the apartment was a bit windy and cold so it was very beneficial to be able to check to see if any air was getting inside.

Next, a picture dump our of main bathroom. The entry to the anteroom of our bathroom is a sliding door with a window in it. Why? No idea. It's a triangle of frosted glass. The bathroom has three parts. A room with the tub and faucet to rinse off before bathing, the anteroom with a vanity counter, sink, and linen storage, and a separate room with a toilet and sink.

Our lovely 80's style bathroom door. Gotta love the weird triangle window for seemingly no reason other than to put a window somewhere.

The vanity counter in the anteroom with a bonus shot of me taking a picture and the linen closet. Both sides open, I just wanted to show the nice wood slats on the door.

Here is my much loved and much used soaking tub. It has a hose and spray thing for showers but I rarely use that part. It's more fun to wash myself off and then take a nice long steaming hot bath. This tub is much deeper than American tubs.

The toilet room. We have a bidet and seat heater attached but the idea of the toilet spraying my butt with water unnerves me so it remains unplugged.

On a side note, I now think that green bathrooms are following me. I've had a green bathroom everywhere I have lived since I moved out of my parent's house. Speaking of parent's house.. Here's a shot of the mom washcloth hanging out in the main bathroom.

The other washcloths were jealous. It got to be the only one on the towel rack.

Here are a couple of shots of the kitchen. Lots of nice storage for all my cooking stuff. We were also very fortunate to get American appliances. We have a fridge, stove, washer, and dryer. All without the need to figure out how to use them based on "Push a button, see what happens.

The office/bedroom 1

This room is right off the living room and kitchen. It's a bit smaller than the other two bedrooms so we decided it would be appropriate for our office. There's enough space for two desks and maybe a small area for a cosplay workspace. Nothing super duper big though. It has a great closet with lots of drawers that will be perfect for storing Frank's magic cards and my cosplay supplies. (One side has a place to hang clothes.)

Guest bedroom/Bedroom 2

This bedroom looks much smaller in the picture than it actually is. There's enough space for a bed, one nightstand, and probably a small dresser. It also has a closet like the one in the office. We're going to turn this one into a guest bedroom. Of course, hopefully our efforts won't be in vain and people will actually come visit us. (I'm looking at you, Serenity and Sid.) Once we get our own bed, we will be moving the bed we have been borrowing from the government into this room so that it will be all ready for visits!

The master bedroom is amazing. It's so very large. For those of you who have visited, it's about the size of the living room in our last apartment. It has three sets of windows, all covered with delightful shoji screens. We will be investing in curtains for nighttime though, I think. The two sets you see on the right face an office building and anytime the night crew comes to clean it the lights shine directly into our room, bright as day. Like the rest of the apartment, it has beautiful hardwood floors.

Our ridiculous master bedroom closet. It's about twice the size of the other closets in the house. and has the drawers that I love so much. That extra door on the right of the closet leads to a smaller bathroom that's attached to the master bedroom. Protip: Don't try and open those sliding doors from the middle, the closet doors don't like that and will try to eat your hand. I've had to pry my fingers from between them a few times already.

Here's a close-up shot of our ridiculous in closet drawers that are in all the bedroom closets of the house. Oh how I adore them!!

This is *technically* our master bathroom. It's kind of bizarre because it has a place to stand up and take a shower but the sink and mirror you see there are INSIDE the shower area. We usually don't bother with using this bathroom for anything but it's toilet since anytime someone takes a shower the entire floor is soaked.

Move in day was interesting. We got the keys and on a Friday morning we moved in. Now by moving in, I mean we brought our suitcases and then we were technically moved in. It's not as if we were carrying tons of stuff. I did, however, put a bottle of ketchup in the fridge. That bottle of ketchup meant it was finally "home" for me. Home is where the ketchup lives.

Anyway- that day we were supposed to get a delivery of borrowed furniture from the government to get us by until our TMO (More on that later) shipment arrived. We gave the paperwork a once over and realized that the office put down the wrong address to our house. Usually this kind of error falls on the family because we should have pointed out that the address was wrong in our consultation. Fortunately for us, we provided them with a map that not only showed where the apartment was and how to get to it but also had, plain as day and written in very large romaji, our physical address. We were able to avoid the 80$ no show fee. Frank made a few phone calls and the end result was us not getting our furniture for four more days.

With that out of the way we went to the loan locker and borrowed a tub of kitchen stuff. Here is the list of what we got:

four plates

four bowls

four small plates

two coffee cups

four glasses

four sets of utensils

one santoku knife

one serated serving spoon

one regular serving spoon

(very) rusty can opener

a dull potato peeler

spatula

frying pan

three pots (Small, medium, and large)

Iron + Ironing board

We also got a coffee pot because as all of you know, coffee is a neccesary part of my existence. Without its magical abilities, I would be a witch every morning between the hours of 9 and 11. All these things (save the coffee pot) were given to us in a large rubbermaid bin. (More on that ahead.)

Since we were going to be furniture-less for the next four days, Frank and I went to the PX (Military term for Walmart with too many name brand things) and bought an air mattress, a bedding set, two sets of towels, kitchen towels, and some hangers. Then it was off to the grocery store where we got some relatively simple kitchen foods and snacks.

When we got back home Frank opened the air mattress only to discover that it was not the kind you can use a blow dryer to fill. It needed some kind of special pump OR your mouth. Guess which route we took?

So Frank set out to blowing up this full size air mattress and I got to work putting stuff away. I popped in now and then to assist and found that I got dizzy way too fast to help much. Plus I slobbered all over the plug and mattress as I tried to blow the thing up.. Attractive, I know.

Fast forward 4 hours later. Frank finished the air mattress and I made our first dinner in the apartment.

Unfortunately, we had no table so we improvised:

Yes, our first meal was eaten on the countertop in the kitchen. It was akward but it was very good. Nothing elaborate since we lacked a table. Just grilled cheese and tomato soup. Once we figured out that eating on the counter was somewhat uncomfortable, we moved on to using the plastic bin our dishes came in like a little table. Inventive, yes, but still uncomfortable. Either way we managed our four days and finally our government furniture arrived. I don't think I've ever been so excited to see a couch in my life. Anyway, more updates are on their way. I will post an article tomorrow on the arrival (and condition) of our government furniture.