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.

Japanese apartment shopping (2)

Here are some pictures from an apartment we looked at. . The rooms are smaller than most American rooms but the apartments themselves are very nice.

This particular place lacks a tatami room, which is okay by me. As much as I'd like to have one, the care for tatami mats and shoji screens would just be too expensive and too much work.

One of the largest differences between Japanese homes and American homes is bathing and the layout of the bathroom. In traditional apartments, which is what we have been shown- the bath and shower are separate from the toilet, as this is seen as rather icky. It makes sense to me. Who wants to step out of the bath into toilet dusties?

Next to the tub, which you can't see very well in the photo, is a place to rinse and wash yourself before using the bath. As you can see, there is a drain in the floor. This is so that you can fill the tub nearly to the rim and get in and also so that you can wash before entering. Japanese baths are not for washing but soaking and relaxing. A nice deep tub is a bonus for me since my back is always sore.

The kitchen is much smaller. This one had lots of cabinet storage and a very small convection style oven. The door in the kitchen led to a large wraparound balcony. All in all it was a very pretty place and very well kept. This isn't going to be our apartment. It was too far away from town and in a nice residential area. We wanted something more walking distance.

The place we looked at today was amazing. The girl who showed us the apartment was very nice. It was kind of funny though. There was another girl in the apartment and they oooed and awed over my hair and said I was kawaii. I was so flattered I just kept saying "Oh oh! Thank you thank you so much!" and giggling. We've picked our apartment and pictures will be soon to follow once we move in. I'll give you guys a little teaser though:

In other news, we went to a 100 yen store today and I found what I've been seeking for a very long time. Those of you who know me know all about my obsession with the anime Nana. So of course the first thing I look for at the store is the famous strawberry glasses. Well... I have finally aquired them!!

Squeee! I also got a cute cellphone strap and some cappucino flavored cookies. Just as I had hoped and dreamed, 100 yen stores are the coolest place I've ever been. I plan on visiting one with a good chunk of change once we get our place so that I don't have to buy all the expensive stuff at the exchange.

That's all for now! I'm going to go get start some laundry and go outside and read. It's a beautiful day!