Our Apartment

We are now living in a five-room apartment, not counting the three little bathroom rooms. All five rooms are approximately square and approximately the same size—between 8 X 8 and 10 X 10. Three of the rooms have heat sources. Two of the rooms have heat sources that we think can also become air conditioning sources. The two rooms without heat or A/C function as a closet and a food storage room.

I don't know what we will name this room. It's really a bedroom, but for us it will be a walk-in closet. A chest of drawers on the left. All of our clothes in the rear, and a little vanity on the right. Not in view, a closet big enough for clothes, but with one shelf horizontally designed to hold futons right in the middle. It could use about four more shelves. All of our clothing is hanging on those metal bar stands like they sometimes use in department stores. We have three of them. There is another tiny vanity with itty-bitty drawers that we haven’t started to utilize yet. We have some of our smaller suitcases in there. Our larger suitcases won’t fit.

The food storage room has shelves. The Oldroyds left quite a bit of food as food storage but warned us to try to have it all used up by the time the warm weather hits. Otherwise, the food in there will be cooked. We will do our best. And I’m sure we will be doing the same for the next couple who follows us. The Oldroyds were very generous and kind with us, in so many ways. This room also has a small convection oven that we can use.

This is our bedroom. The bed was old when the Oldroyds got here two years ago, and now it is quite broken down. We have been given permission to buy a new one. I had hoped to have room for a king-sized bed, but if we got one, it would be wall to wall. So we will probably buy a queen-sized. We already got new pillows. My pillow the first night had some spots that were soft, with nice smooth padding. Other spots had these little hard things I could feel. Sister Oldroyd wondered what was in the pillow, so she unpicked it a little to look. It was plastic drinking straws, cut up into small pieces. Go figure!

Our kitchen has a narrow refridgerator, a stainless steel sink and counter top, and a stovetop (no oven) all on one wall. There are metal shelves hanging below high cupboards, and they are filled with miscellaneous kitchen utinsels. It looked kind of cluttery, so we bought baskets to put the utensils in. That made a surprisingly huge improvement. The low sink gives us motivation to do dishes often. Otherwise we would have back ache from bending down.

There is a table that sits four (six if you cuddle) and a washer and dryer that came from America. Not so great in the main part of the house, but very functional. The washer in the bathroom is tiny and the dryer doesn’t work well. Doing laundry in the heat of summer will be fun, though. But I guess we won’t be spending that much time in our apartment.

The living room has a sofa, a small desk, a chair and a kerosene heater on the floor. There is a place where they had sliding doors that would close the room off from the kitchen, but the Oldroyds took them out because Sister Oldroyd felt claustrophobic. I think we will leave it. It would be easy to get that way. The ceilings are low and the doorways are barely above Lee's head. Japan is just built in miniature!

All of the windows in the house are frosted glass. There are no screens on the windows. So if I want to look out, I have to open a window and let the cold air come in. Spring and fall will be nice. I'm praying that Japan doesn't have flies.