Here are some pictures of our apartment. We moved in on March 1, 2005. It's very spacious. It has three rooms, a kitchen/dining room, and also a bathroom. The above photo is of our "genkan", or entryway. Take your shoes off at the door and step into some slippers to keep your feet clean and warm while you are inside.

As you enter through our door, this is the view you will see. Our front hallway which leads back to our "den" area, the bedroom doorway to the right (can't see it in this photo) and entry to the kitchen on the left. Be sure to crouch down when you pass through the doorways if you're taller than 5'9". You'll smack yer head good.

These next two show off our "den" a little bit. This is the room that we stuff everything into to get it out of the way for when guests or students come over. Jonathan's Hamm radio is set up here along with a makeshift computer station and my piano is here as well.

Now step back this way and allow me to show you the kitchen. This photo is a bit dark. Sorry about that. We have a really nice kitchen table that we bought from some teachers who were moving back to Australia. Toward the back of the room, you can see our balcony through the sliding doors. The view from that window looks out over a small shrine where we can watch people pray at various times of the day. It's quite peaceful.

Off to the left of the kitchen is the bathroom. The sink and "primping area" are just inside that door. To the left side of the door is the toilet and to the right is the shower/bath area. Also our washing machine is back there. You can see a load waiting to be thrown in.

To the right of the kitchen area is our living room. We also hang laundry in there to dry when it's raining outside. We don't have a TV yet and we're not especially anxious to get one. So we don't have a lot of stuff taking up space in this room.

Two more views of our living room. Our green sofa folds down into a little bed.

May 5 is "Boys' Day" in Japan. Now more politically correctly known as "Children's Day". These windsocks are carp. The biggest one is the papa carp, the medium one is the mama carp and the small ones are the little boy carps. When the wind blows they look like they are swimming. This is a common decoration that's hung outside of homes during this holiday.