Whew. We've stayed in our new apartment for 3 nights now and things are getting better everyday. It also helped that we have had all weekend to make it feel like home. Just yesterday we unpacked our bags and went through the mounds of papers and books they gave us at orientation in Tokyo. The finishing touch is arriving today - our beloved air conditioner! This is probably the best investment I've made in my whole life. (That might be exaggerating a bit, but right now it's all I can think about.) In T-Minus 3 hours it will be installed and then our apartment will be perfect!
Our predecessors left us pretty much all the large furnishings we need, but we had to take a few shopping trips to get essentials such as toilet paper, towels, slippers, detergents, soap, hangers, food, etc. Thanks to the 100 yen store - which is the Japanese equivalent to the dollar store - we made it out pretty cheap. There is a supermarket just on the corner down the street so grocery shopping is really easy and quick. My school provides a refrigerator and washing machine to their ALT every year so that is really great. We have a few tables, chairs, a bed, some book shelves, dishes, vaccuum, iron, fans, and some other stuff left for us. It is such a relief! I can imagine how expensive and stressful it would be to buy all this stuff.
Despite the outward appearance of our aparment building, our apartment is really cute! When you walk in there is, of course, a place to take off your shoes and put on house slippers. Then the kitchen/main area is open with the sink/gas stove. There is NO counter space which sucks once we start cooking, but I guess thats what the tables are for. It's a nice size room. Then there are two other rooms which have sliding doors so you can parition everything, but we just leave them all open. One is the bedroom with a huge closet for the futons. If we were Japanese every day we would put our futon away so the room could be used for something else, but since we aren't, we leave ours out. Well, we also sleep on a mattress instead of futons, something we inherited. But we do have them for guests! So come on over :) The other room is our everything else room. Of course smaller than what we are used to, but definitely big enough and it doesn't feel too small.
These are some pictures of our apt. First, the Japanese style sliding door. So cool and provides very good atmosphere :)
And from the other side of the doors...
I'll tell you the one room that is definitely too small is the toilet room. Actually its more like a toilet closet. I kid you not, it is 3ft by 3 ft.
It is separate from the shower/bath area and when you close the door there is no room to put your knees. You have to sit diagonally to fit. Here is a shot to show the scale. The edge of the toilet seat is the length of my foot away from the wall. You can see how uncomfortable Shawn looks! :)
The depth of the bathtub is quite nice. Unfortunately with our dripping water pressure, it takes a looong time to fill up.
Also, our laundry hanging out to dry...how beautiful.
Sorry this is so rushed. I am on limited internet time and just wanted to give ya'll a picture of what our apt. is like. Shawn's blog has many more photos if you are interested: http://videoretirement.blogspot.com
Pictures of my school to come. We are off to help at an English Summer Camp tomorrow! It sounds like it will be really fun. There will be free time for swimming and games, or so I hear...
We are still really frustrated with being cut off from the world. For some crazy reason it takes about 3 weeks to get internet installed in our apartment! And we don't have cell phones yet so contacting other JETs in our area is super difficult. We are a little shut off, but at least we have each other. Awww....
1 comment:
I think Shawn looks a bit flushed. Are you sure he is ok????
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