Apartment Photos

Since we keep getting requests for "pictures of our place" here they are!

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Here we have the front of the building, the "Danger Stairs" upt he building, and the front door! Jolly fun we're having! (I am anyway, you'll have to roll with it).

Here's a blurry shot of the front entryway. Note that we're standing in the kitchen to take this picture. Since it's Japan, you have to take your shoes off and wear "inside-only" shoes. Now I (Brian) grudgingly admit this does keep the place neater, but it's kinda annoying. I guess we'll say "when in Rome" and that sort of thing that fails to reassure in anyway, it's just a nice way of saying "put up or shut up".

Here's two pictures of our very tiny kitchen. There's no real cabinets, nor any counter space. But we do have a nice rice cooker! Otherwise, it's a pretty sad kitchen, but it does the job, I suppose. We've found that cooking fairly easy Japanese food isn't too bad. We tend to do noodles or rice, with a meat and a vegetable, at least so far.

Here's some pictures of the bathroom area. We just have a washer, no dryer, so clothes end up having to hang up. We bought a laundry rack for 80,000 yen just yesterday, because we weren't sure that using the clothesline in the winter (when it's supposed to be cold) is going to work so well.

This is the living room. Maria's computer is hooked up to the TV, sound and video, so we can use it as a DVD player or for listening to audio books. We're soon getting TV, as long as we're close enough to the DSL server.

It might look pretty small, and it is, but for Japan it's not too bad. We're able to have a larger apartment because we live in a rural area.

Finally, here is out tatami room (tatami mats on the floor), this is where we sleep and where I do my research work.

We just got cell phones so we'll be taking pictures on those too now (getting a cell phone in Japan is more complicated than in America, I think. Everything has internet and 10,000 features). Hopefully we'll have some pictures of the festivals that we're going to and been going to soon, but our friends took those photos so we're waiting for them to get internet and then send them along. This weekend, the 22nd, might include a trip to Shibata, where they have a festival, and next weeekend will be a trip to Sekikawa for a festival that somehow involves a giant snake.