Apartment Tour

Coming to Japan with a family, I was thrilled when my BOE sent me a list of three apartment options to choose from. My predecessor had a 1 bedroom apartment, and while it was new and very nice, 1 bedroom seemed a bit crazy for 3 people. The other 2 options were in a different apartment building and consisted of either 3 bedrooms or 5 bedrooms. 5 bedrooms was obviously way too crazy for only 3 of us (it had 2 floors!), so we went with the 3 bedroom apartment! My BOE sent us photos, which was awesome. Today I want to share some photos of the apartment now that we have been living here for a few months. In the first month we bought a lot of stuff to make the space work for us.

So, on to the tour!

This is the genkan, or entrance. On the left is a door to the sunroom. We have a tall coat closet on the right, as well as a shoe cupboard near the ground, a nice shelf, and another cupboard up top. We keep our shoes here to make sure they don't get the inside of the house dirty. By the way, this is traditionally considered public space. We keep our door locked, but if we didn't, it would be totally acceptable for someone to enter the house up to here. 

Here is a zoomed out view of the genkan, which leads to the living room. You can also see both the doors to the sunroom. No photos of inside the sunroom because it is an embarrassing mess of cardboard boxes and unwanted items right now. Its just a room with a window and some cupboards. My plan is to use it for drying laundry once I get it cleaned out. 

Let's zoom out a little more. This is taken from the hallway. That is my desk in the left corner. The door to the genkan is on the right. The phone there is our buzzer, so when someone rings the doorbell we can use it to shout "HAAAAIIIIII" at them. In the middle of the living room is our kotatsu, a table with a built in electric heater underneath. In the winter we can put a blanket on it to keep the heat in. Right now we just use it as our dining table.

This is the other side of the living room, where Justin's desk is. You can also see the kitchen and the hallway. The door on the left leads to the bathroom/washing area.

Here's a view of the hallway, approaching the kitchen and the bath/washing area. By the way, those garbages are for paper/cardboard, styrofoam trays, and plastic bottle caps.

This is the kitchen in its entirety. There are lots of cupboards, but they are either super high (I can't reach) or really low (killer on the back). So we just use them for storing stuff we don't really use. The sink is on the right and is really huge, which is great, but the whole counter is really low, so its a pain and I always get sprayed with water. Also, the tap pulls down to turn on the water, which I am still getting used to. In the far right corner is our stovetop, which uses induction heat. I actually don't really like it, as its difficult to cook with. The door leads to a very small balcony with our water heater. On the left is a large counter wagon, a small rolling pantry, garbages, and the fridge.

A better view of the sink and stove area. The blue lidded garbage is for plastic and aluminium foil and the brown lidded one is for burnables (food and paper towels mostly). In theory the garbage for cardboard and paper above could go in burnables, but I like to keep it separate to keep extra room in the burnables. And paper doesn't smell, so its kind of nice to separate smelly, decomposing stuff from not nasty stuff. Behind those garbages we also have 2 more for PET bottles (plastic bottles) and bin garbage (glass and tin cans).

This is taken over the half-wall in the living room (you can see the top of the tap). Fridge, counter wagon, rolling pantry. On top of the counter wagon is random stuff, our 10kg rice container, and our little convection/steam oven/microwave (yep, it is an oven and a microwave!). Inside the counter wagon we keep our dishes and cutlery. The rice cooker has a special slide-out space on the right (hidden behind the pantry). The counter wagon stays where is it, but the pantry we move around depending on where we need it, since the kitchen is pretty small.

So to the left of the kitchen is the bathroom/washing area. This is looking to the left of the room. The washing machine is on the far left, then the bathroom, then the toilet room.

And on the right is the sink. The door to the toilet is on the left. 

Here's the view looking out the door towards the kitchen.

Straight down the hallway is our closet room. Yeah...we use an entire room as a closet. Its partly because mold and mildew is a huge problem here, so having the clothes hanging up rather than folded in the closet helps reduce mold. Also its just convenient. There is also a sliding door which leads to the main balcony.

Another view inside the closet room. We use the closet to store blankets, suitcases, and futon.

A view from inside the closet room, looking down the hallway. Kitchen is on the left, past the garbage cans. Bathroom is on the right. Genkan is on the far right. There is also another hallway running perpendicular, which leads to the other 2 bedrooms.

This is a view of the balcony, taken from the closet room. 

You can see a bit of the view from our balcony here. 

 Back inside, this is the hallway leading to the left. 

At the end of the left hallway is the tatami room, a traditional Japanese room that even has rice paper sliding doors. Behind those are glass sliding doors which lead to the same balcony as the closet room. This is also the only room with A/C, but we've done fine without the A/C so far and we don't really use this room at all. It has a big closet which is currently housing our suitcases.

 And lastly, directly to the right of the closet room is the bedroom. We all sleep together because its more economical to share one room - in the summer we can use one fan and in the winter we can use one heater. Justin and I sleep on the mattress and Yana has a futon (which is folded up during the day).

A view of the doorway and the bedroom closet. So turning right out the door will be the closet room and then further straight is the tatami room. 

 And that's the end! Our apartment is cozy, but more than enough space for the three of us, since we don't even use one room. There are some things we dislike about it - there seems to be a lot of mold, the wallpaper is really grungy, the bath isn't too nice, etc. - but overall, its beginning to feel like home.