Our Swanky Digs

Since the last time we were in Japan we didn't post--or even take--any pictures of where we were staying, we decided to make up for it this time. So this post is devoted to showing off our guest house. It'll be informative and interesting, I promise.



Here's the doorway when you first walk in. The area with the shoes is called the genkan, and since, in Japan, you don't wear your shoes indoors (so you don't drag in all the dirt from outside), you take your shoes off there before walking inside.



If you're standing in the genkan, this is what you can see. On the left is the door to our room. In the middle is the bathroom, and the door on the right leads to the toilet. 

In this picture, I'm standing in the doorway of our room, looking straight across. You can see the genkan on the right, the door to the toilet on the left, and the kitchen/common area and the other two rooms there in the middle. Both our roommates, Thomas and Frederick, are from France. They're pretty much always in the common area.

You've already seen our room, so let's start with the bathroom.

Obviously, on the right is the sink/vanity area. To the left of that is the washing machine. (In between them, you can see the hose of our little vacuum cleaner). And to the left of that, you can see the corner of our shower curtain. We'll check that out in a minute. First, we'll take a closer look at the washing machine. Fascinating.

Look at all those buttons! They tell you (from left to right) the water level, which cycle it's on, and how long of a cycle it is--90 or 30 minutes. Then there's the start button, and which course it's on. The last button is some sort of "auto off" thing. I'm not sure.

See that word right below the arrow? The one that says ドライ? That means this washing machine is equipped with a drying cycle! So you can wash and dry all in one! I definitely prefer that to hanging laundry to dry, which we had to do last time.

To the left of the washing machine, this is the entrance to the shower. You've got a shower curtain outside, and a door with frosted glass inside so no one can see you while you're bathing.

When you step into the shower, this is what you see. It looks pretty complicated, but it's not. That long, metal bar toward the bottom has a dial on the left to control the temperature, and the dial on the right controls which spigot the water comes out of. Turn it down, and the water comes out of the bottom. Turn it up and the water comes out of the shower head (which you can't see in the picture, but is at the end of the long cord). That little thing on the wall tells you the water temperature or something. I like to think of it as the shower's own thermostat. I honestly have no idea, but it looks to me like it'd be dangerous to have an electronic gadget so close to water. In the bottom right corner of the picture, you can see the other shower curtain.



This is what's behind it. You have a little cart (on the raised portion of the floor... the shower part is lowered so the whole floor doesn't get wet) where you can put your towel and clothes for after your shower. The curtain is there so they don't get wet while you bathe. Pretty clever.




Obviously, this is the toilet. That's all that's in here. On the back of the toilet is a sink (which doesn't work here). Normally, when you flush, the water that goes to refill the tank will come out of the faucet and you use it to wash your hands. Yes, obviously it's clean water. I don't know why this one doesn't work. 





Here we have the common area (with a small TV) and kitchen. Pretty self-explanatory.

 

This is the fridge, and a little cart with the microwave and toaster oven. Next to the cart are four trash cans. This is because you have to separate your trash when you throw it out. Burnables (paper products, mostly) go in one can, non-burnables (plastic and such) go in another. Recyclable PET bottles (anything with a number 1 or 2, basically) go in one, and cans and glass bottles go in the fourth. And they all have different trash days. Burnables go out twice a week.

And lastly, here's the rest of the kitchen. As you can see, we have a set-top 2 burner stove, but no oven. Those are hard to come by around here, as most Japanese people (at least in Tokyo) don't do a whole lot of baking.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our place. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures, like our harrowing trip to Nippon Seinen-kan Hall! (And if anyone can tell me why the white background of our layout keeps messing up--and how to fix it--please let me know!)