Our House
One of the first things you notice about your home in Japan is that it is small. Really small. It's one of the most well-known aspects of Japanese life. Our apartment here is about half the size of our previous place in Melbourne.
A lot of Japanese houses are built cheap; since the country is prone to earthquakes, it's hardly worth spending the money to make something to last. Apparently 87% of houses and apartments country-wide have air-conditioning, and electricity usage spikes in summer with the heat.
It is virtually impossible to live in summer without an air-conditioner. Unfortunately, due to the thin walls, as soon as you turn it off for more than 10 minutes, you may as well not have had it on at all.
Conversely, winters are bitterly cold, with temperatures rarely rising above 10C between December and February. We have two options:
Japanese typically wash themselves sitting on a little stool next to the bath, which is reserved for soaking. Which is weird, because unlike a Western bath, where you can lie back and sleep, a Japanese bath requires you to sit with your knees tucked into your chin - probably one of the least relaxing positions I can think of!
The bi-lingual tv is fantastic. Unfortunately, it relies on the TV channel sending a bilingual signal, which is rare. The only shows that do are generally the news, a few American sitcoms and stuff shown early in the morning (around 3am). Even more unfortunately, recording these shows on the VCR records the original Japanese soundtrack, not the English one. So actually, the bilingual function of the tv is virtually only used when we watch the news.
andrewandkathleen was meant to be a place to chuck our photos and diaries of our time in Japan. Since then it's transformed into a way of letting our friends and family know what we've been up to!
We've been together since high school, married since 2005. We've travelled and lived in different cities and different countries and are now trying to work out whether we're settling down or having a rest!
