New Apartment

Tomorrow marks one week in our new apartment in Tokyo.  We love the new place - it's large, open, light, and has a lot of storage space.  Now, when I say "large" what I mean is, large by Japanese standards.  Our new place is 80 sq meters, roughly 861 sq feet.  Out last apartment was 64 sq meters/688 sq feet.  Added together they are still smaller than the home we left in the US.  It's amazing to me how much space we used to have - and how easily we filled it up.

Here are some photos that I took as I saw the apartment for the first time - we'd rented it sight unseen.

This is the living room.  Notice the paper curtains?  They make it look dark but in reality this room is very bright. The curtains were actually really nice to have for the first few nights before I could hang real curtains.

This is the dining area.  It's just next to the living area - great room style.  This is new for us, our last apartment didn't have enough space for us to have a separate dining area.  I cannot wait to get a dining table - no more sitting on the floor eating at the coffee table.  Proper chairs!  



The kitchen may not look like much to all you back home, but let me tell you, this is amazing to me!  In this kitchen I have 3 different places I can use as counter space.  3!  There is room for more than one person here, and I can turn around without hitting an appliance or the wall.  Not pictured (because I'm standing in it) is a wing of the kitchen where I've put the fridge.  



In Japan it is customary to shower, then soak in the tub each night.  Above you can see the shower/tub area.  The shower head is turned toward the tub for some reason but there actually is a separate space to stand and shower.  The tub comes with a cover to keep the tub water warm between uses - because the entire family uses the same water.

The next picture is the sink/washing machine area.  We now have a washing machine there. A huge improvement over Utazu - we have hot water plumbed to the machine.  Before it was only cold.  So happy!

This is one of the bedrooms.  It has tatami flooring - tightly woven grass mats basically.  They are soft to walk on and as they get broken in get even softer.  The challenges - they smell (most people like the smell, I could live without it), and they mold easily.  Also, Jaxon and I are both allergic to them, so sneezing, runny nose, scratchy throat, all just for being in your own room.  Fortunately, we have one bedroom with wood flooring that Jaxon gets to have. Outside the bedroom is a nice sized balcony for hanging all our laundry.

This is a closet in the bedroom.  The closets are huge - and very traditional for a Japanese style room.  We can fit a ton of stuff in them, except of course they weren't originally intended for clothes and things - more for the folded up fotons each morning - so there are no rods in them.
So, that's it.  Home for now.  I really like it so far.  One of my favorite things?  (You'll think I'm crazy...) The flooring.  Aside from the tatami rooms, the entire apartment has the same flooring.  Just the aesthetic continuity that provides is soothing to me.  (The last apartment had different flooring in almost every room).  Hope you enjoyed the tour.  It's the cleanest you'll ever see it!  : )

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