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Published: November 8th 2005
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My Neighborhood
A view from an elevated sidewalk looking out over the neighborhood. So the dorm is a pretty cool. There are seven of us who live here, Charissa, Katherine, Thuc, Tiana, Carrie, Becca and I. We have gotten to spend a lot of time together because it is convenient and easy to travel since we are all based out of the same place.
The dorm is located near the Ayase station (our local station is called Horikiri Shobuen, but it is not very big) and we are really kind of in the middle of nowhere. We are still in an urban setting (Tokyo's urban landscape seems to spread to endless places), but we are in a smaller, more quiet neighborhood. The dorm is all girls and there are mostly students and young professionals. It's entirely different from living and sharing a hall with boys (and I have to admit that I miss male companionship... it was even fun sharing the bathroom with you guys!). We have "house parents" who manage the place, clean, cook, etc. They are very nice people, but communication is hard and kind of frustrating because they do not speak much English and I do not speak any Japanese (yet). So it is a weird thing to have these people
Laundry day
My clothes hanging by the window to dry one evening. looking after you, but not being able to know what they say at any time. There are very specific greetings when interacting with people here in Japan, and I think that I am getting the hang of it. You must say something when you come home and something else when you leave. There are special thank-yous for before and after the meal. And there are different kinds of hello depending on the time of day. The house mom has a very bubbly personality and the dad seems quite nice too. They are both pretty little (reminds me of grandma and grandpa).
When we first come into the building, we have to take our shoes off, put them into a locker (we each have our own little locker) and then put slippers on. At first this was weird to get used to, but it is very necessary and to wear shoes inside the halls is a big tabboo. Also, we must always flip our name tags to indicate whether we are in or out of the building. We don't have a curfew, but if we are going to be out all night we must leave the information (where we will be,
Some of the Ayase Ladies
Here are some of us on the train on the way to school. how long we will be out, etc.) with the dorm parents. We each have a little mailbox which you are all more than welcome to send mail to. Here is a little promotional address... all things (packaged food, letters, presents, money) are ok to send:
I have my own room which is pretty small, but I like it. I MISS having Lisa as my roommate so much, but it's been good so far. Apparently my room is the nicest of any of the IES girls... I have faux wood floors, newish furniture, and a fairly decent view. My room is at the back of the building so I don't have to listen to passing traffic. Basically my window opens out to look at the back porches of several houses. I always see a lady hanging her laundry. She has two cats that she keeps attached to the porch with leashes. Our beds are western style (so a frame with a mattress on the top), but we also have futons which go over the mattresses. They are basically like feather beds. I think the whole set-up is quite comfortable, but some people were complaining about the pillows (instead of
Ayase Ladies Dormitory
The front courtyard of our dorm... the building is a lovely shade of lime green. being filled with cotton or down they have little pellets which are pretty hard), but fortunately I have my own pillow (pays to lug it around wherever I go!).
The bathroom situation is interesting... my floor fortunately has western style toilets (the kind we are used to that you sit down on), but the other two floors have only traditional Japanese toilets (the squat kind - basically a hole in the floor that you must release into). And then there are three showers for the entire building and two enormous bath tubs. I have not yet taken a bath, but basically what you do is take a little shower with these hoses and then you hop into the tub with everyone else. I think I am too scared to be naked with all of the other ladies, but I think that one of these days I will have to get over it. Also I'm scared because the water is heated to 50 degrees Celcius (which is more than 130 degrees farenheight). But the showers are nice. It took us so long to figure out, but there is a special button you have to push to make the hot water turn
Typical Little Street
Here is a picture of a typical street scene. on... otherwise it is just cold water.
The food is also very interesting. We get two meals per day; breakfast and dinner. There is always rice and miso soup available (I have yet to get tired of either!) and then we each get a plate of prepared food. It is all very traditional Japanese cuisine, so sometimes we get really interesting meals. I have to admit that I miss food in America, especially vegetables. I think I will write an entire article about the food of Japan. So I'll write more later...
One thing that is quite different about living here is that there are no dryers for laundry. We have a linen service so we don't have to wash our bedding, but we wash our clothes and then have to line dry them. It was raining when I did my laundry last week, so I had to hang everything in my room. But usually we can do our laundry on the top floor of the building (for FREE!) and then hang the clothes on this roof-top patio. We all thought that it would be such a pain in the neck, but it really isn't so bad at all. And
Contrasting Structures
On the left: a huge freeway.
On the right: a Buddhist temple. it saves a significant amount of energy. It's so funny, everyone has to iron their clothes to get rid of the stiffness. Tiana has got us hooked on making a creese (spelling?) down the center of our pants. She even irons her jeans.
So the dorm is located in a very cool little neighborhood. It is such a "typical" asian neighborhood with closely packed residential buildings (independent houses as well as apartment buildings), tons of telephone wires going through the streets, lots of potted plants, laundry hanging from the balconies, convenience stores on every corner... I really like where we live. On the walk from the dorm to the train station we pass dozens of tiny restaurants and food stands, shoe stores, convenience stores (similar to Seven Elevens), bicycle shops, hardware stores, lumber stores, a casino, an arcade, a Denny's (but don't be fooled, there is almost no American food), cigarette stores, plant stores, a post office, clothing shops, etc. etc. Everything is very tiny, though. These store fronts are basically the front room of a residential house turned into a retail or restaurant space. Everything is so conveinent, though. Just before coming here to the computer I went to
Tokyo Prison
I think that this is the Tokyo Prison, although I'm not sure (according to the map, this building is in the right location). In any case, this building is ENORMOUS. a fruit stand and bought a grapefruit.
I have not explored the area really thoroughly, but I did walk around for a few hours one night and found a very industrial area with tons of freeways and factories... and the Tokyo prison. Kind of scary that our neighbors are criminals. It's so interesting, there is such juxtaposition between adjacent things here... directly next to a HUGE freeway is a buddhist temple. And in the middle of a block of big huge low-income apartments is a traditional wooden house with tall gates, beautiful gardens, and tile roofs. Basically Japan has everything in one place at the same time. It is quite a phenomena.
Even though we are located soooooooo far from school, I really love this neighborhood. It just is so calm and traditional. I will try to find some good pictures to post.
Ok more later.
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