Here is the beautiful little backyard garden we get to look at from our glass doors. It's really rare to have a first floor apartment with lots of gardens and if we hadn't had help getting this apt. I'm sure we never would have been so lucky. Unfortunately, gardens and other prime real estate are EXTREMELY pricey and spots are tough to compete for when you are a foreigner. We got this as a free bonus to our student housing so we really lucked out.
The garden facing the other direction. You can see other apartments and houses in the distance. I think this photo is a good example of how lucky we are to have a garden behind us, because normally there would be houses and apartments RIGHT in front of our backdoor. Tokyo is very crowded! If you didn't know, there are about 12.7 million people living in this city which makes it seem pretty packed.
Some flowers are still present even in January, which shows to me how mild the winter really is compared to the northeastern United States. When I left the Boston area it was about -5 Degrees Fahrenheit while the average temperature here in Tokyo right now is around 40 - 50 Degrees Fahrenheit during the day. At night it rarely drops below 30 in the winter.
This is what our porch door looks like from our back "yard."
The apartments and houses in the distance.
The top of our television is graced with Zelda, Hammerin' Hero Figurines, a Tokidoki doggy, and Sumomo from the anime series Chobits. A lot of people complain about the somewhat sexualization of robots in chobits but I don't think it's as bad as people say it is. The series can be quite cute and entertaining to the non pervy anime watchers out there like me! So yeah, there is the question that Hideki finds his persocom to be attractive, but it's really more of a satire on that notion than anything else. Definitely an interesting series to watch and I recommend checking it out if you like a lot of anime.
Japanese style kitchen. And by kitchen, I mean kitchen unit on one wall of your hallway. Apartments are quite small in Japan but you'd be amazed how easy it is to make them feel like home. The small size seems very efficient to me and I kind of like these little kitchen units. You can see the sink on the right and to the left is the stove top. For cooking oven-type items you use a mini oven / sort of what Americans would consider to be a large toaster oven (which is located on our fridge). There are shelves and drawers below and above to maximize organization. The rice cooker (between the sink and stovetop) is a staple in Japanese housing because rice is what helps to complete every meal. It helps you to fill up and is why Japanese cooking often features smaller portions of meat and vegetables.
The stovetop. It is very important to remember to turn off your gas when you are not using the stovetop because if there was ever an earthquake there is the risk that your gas lines could cause a fire. Also, shutting off your hot water and gas when you leave the home can save on energy bills.
The top of our fridge door is currently housing blueberry yogurt, yellow mustard, and Caesar salad dressing.
The bottom shelf holds our green tea, milk tea and juice. The milk tea (second from left) is a very delicious drink but I find that a lot of Westerners I meet don't seem to like it. It's pretty much just tea with milk flavor added. Kind of sweet but I can see why it's an acquired taste. Japanese people drink some kind of hot or cold tea (depending on the season) quite often, and much more than Americans drink water or soda.
Tomatoes, Gyoza (Japanese dumplings) Lettuce, Milk, Fish Stock (back: for soup stock and the like) and Soy Sauce (front).
Ham and Cheezu (Cheese). Cheese is quite expensive in Japan. For only eight slices we paid about 300 JPY (almost $3 USD).
We haven't had time to do much shopping yet but we did get Chocolate ice cream snacks!!!
2 Kg bag of rice. Inexpensive, tasty and a true staple of Japanese cooking and everyday life.
Spaghetti, Sesame Oil (for cooking), 8 slices of bread (a "loaf"), Apple Tea, Canned Pineapple and Canned Mango.
Shoes off at the door! You don't want to ruin the nice floors!
In Japanese housing the toilet is separate from the wash area (bath, shower, and main sink). In this case our toilet is in a little room just across the hall from our bathroom. You can see that all we really have in here is toilet paper. Interesting fact: when you flush the toiled, the water that is coming in to re-fill the top of the toilet comes down through a mini sink that is above the toilet. This allows for great water conservation because you can wash your hands off in the clean water as it goes down to fill the toilet after you flush.
When you first enter the bathroom across the hall you see the sink area. to the right are the doors to the shower/tub room. Basically the room is designed so that the shower sprays out into an area (essentially what Americans would consider onto the shower-room floor). There is a drain on that floor to let the water out. This is also right next to a large bathtub which you can soak and relax in after you have cleaned yourself off in the shower half.
You can see here that the first part of the shower room is reserved for the shower nozzle and shelving for your soaps, etc.
Looking down, you can see the drain in the floor I was talking about, and the edge of the large, Japanese-style bathtub.
Looking down across from our sink you can see where we sort our trash. Trash is sorted into burnable, non-burnable, cans, bottles, and things like stacks of magazines and newspapers. Special care must be taken to dispose of electronics and other hazardous waste items properly and I believe they all have different fees. Different kinds of trash are taken to the curb on different days of the week. Sorting rules are quite strict.
Here is a little guide that our housing provided us with to help us recycle.
So there you have it! These photos perhaps make the apartment look much bigger than it really is, and it's hard to photograph our living room/bedroom area so I'm going to make a short video to give you a more accurate sense of the space. Stay tuned!
Lady Lara Jones
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