My Not-So-Tiny Japanese Apartment

Despite my worries that I would be cramped into a tiny Japanese apartment, in which the kitchen, bedroom, and living room would be all one room, I was pleassantly suprised at the size and state of my apartment. In fact I have 3 rooms, a bedroom, living room, and kitchen! Furthermore, it is impressively clean! I have heard countless horror stories about the apartments other JETs moved into... junk, cockroaches, etc all seemed to be the standard. Sunny Heights, the apartment that many of the Tanabe JETs lived in prior to their current apartments, sounds especially horrifying. Within the first week, my predecessor had already caught over 30 roaches in the roach traps at her old apartment. So needless to say I am feeling especially lucky to have the apartment I got. I think my predecessor may have been so traumatized by her old apartment that she bought every variety of house cleaner and bug killer she could find. (It took a few days of asking fellow JETS, and guessing from katakana words, to figure out what even half of these products were.) That said, she has left a lot of really useful stuff.

As you can see from the picture above and the one to the right, I have pretty much plastered my kitchen with pictures from home. Though it may look really plain, I feel more at home now that I have removed the fuzzy, baby blue rug that said "My Home" in cursive and other such items. They were a bit too cutsie japanese for me to stomach. I am sure my predecessor got them for a phenominal deal-- maybe at the 100 yen shop perhaps. (The Japanese equivalent of the dollar store- with a more more interesting and plentiful selection.)

My other rooms are tatami style, with sliding doors and lots of storage space. (Most of which are filled with futons and extra heavy blankets, I hear it gets realllly cold in the winter. For now I call it the sweat lodge. Within about 15 minutes of being in the apartment I am already drenched in sweat. It is often hotter indoors than outside, which means my apartment is often above 90 degrees. This is pretty normal for Japanese apartments. Even public buildings are quite hot. I can not imagaine how the Japanese women manage to care so much about their appearance in the heat. Even in the inaka (middle of no where) they wear jeans, style their hair, and wear loads of make up. I can not even imagine.