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Published: November 19th 2006
Hi there everyone! Thank you all for the nice, sweet comments about the blog and all the messages. It really means a lot to both me and Marc. I hope you will forgive me if this bores you, but I am going to respond to a few people quick.
Karen - I know you want pictures. I actually did take some of the two apartments. Marc and I just went to down load the pictures and found that the necessary card reader is not is the camera bag. That means that it got shipped with everything else and we won’t have it for a while yet. Consequently, you will have to wait a while longer. I promise I will post pictures just as soon as possible.
Anne - I was ROFLOL when I read about your mother bringing a Japanese Toilet home with her! That has to be the funniest souvenir I have ever heard of!
Ray - How on earth you and Helen traveled to and lived in all the foreign places you did with six kids in tow is totally beyond comprehension. Helen must be a saint!
Ok…. Now for the apartment stuff. A friend of mine sent me an email with several questions and I figured if she was interested, you all might be too, so for Andi, and anyone else who is interested, here goes…
1-Do either of these apartments have those cool toilets you mentioned? How do the baths differ from US baths? All of the apartments that we saw had them. We went over to Bill and Marge’s for dinner the other night and I noticed they did not have them, so maybe they requested “western” ones. The showers here are different too. There is a shower / tub room. It is usually separate from the toilet / sink area, but I have seen bathrooms with everything all in one room. The shower is beside the tub, but not a tub / shower combination. There is usually a glass door to the room and tiled walls and floors and the tub is on the far wall. The shower head is on the wall, but there isn’t a shower area as such, it is just there, open to everything. This is sort of hard to follow I know, but it is hard to explain. I have read that the Japanese clean themselves using the shower and then soak in the tub, but they never get into the tub dirty. This is because the bath water is used over and over by all members of the family. As I understand it, any house guests go first and then the father, mother and children. (I feel I need to clarify… any guests in our home can each have their own bathwater… I promise.) Another thing, the “powder rooms” here can be a little different too. The room is VERY small, sometimes with the tiniest sink you have ever seen. Almost more like a tiny “hole” carved out of the wall. Strange! I’ll try to get a picture of one some time.
2-Were there dishwashers? Yes, but again, you have to be careful when looking at apartments here. Sometimes they are so small that western plates won’t fit, let alone a casserole dish or pan. Otherwise they are the same. I will have to figure it out though (as with the stove, oven, washer and dryer) because all of the words such as hot, warm, cold, rinse, delicate and on and on are in Japanese characters. Another reason to have a concierge!
3-What are the cool refrigerators like? They are hard to describe. They have 6 compartments, 3 on each side. The top two compartments are quite large, and both are refrigerator compartments as opposed to freezer compartments. Then there 2 compartments that are smaller, maybe the size of meat or vegetable drawers. These 2 compartments can be either refrigerators or freezers; you can change it with a control. Then the two bottom compartments are freezers. They are just more modern looking than those in the states. They are the same size, but the corners are more rounded, and the controls are more involved. Again, hard to explain, just more modern some how.
4-Do the apartments have central air? Most do, some do not. Obviously we are looking for one that does!
5-What type of heat do they have and how are they controlled? The heat is mostly electric, and to be honest, I haven’t looked at the controls, so I can’t answer that question. If the apartment is new or has been renovated, and has wood flooring (as opposed to carpet) the floors are usually heated. None of them have been on when we were there as it is not cold enough yet, and I have no idea how the controls work. It is strange to walk across these floors though. They have a sort of bounce to them.
6-Do apartments have closets? How big are they? Again, some do, some don’t. In the same apartment even, some bedrooms do and some don’t. If they do, they are usually small, with the exception of the ones that have been built or renovated for westerners (with western appliances). Then the closets are sometimes bigger. We have decided that my clothes will be in the closet in one room and Marc’s in the closet in another, as most are just too small for us to share. In most of them the clothes “bar” is not more than two feet long and sometimes shorter. On the other hand what we would consider a “coat closet” in the hallway is usually very large, sometimes the size of 4 or 5 of the bedroom closets. Some apartments have a lot of these, so there is a lot of storage space, sometimes not. One thing I found sort of neat is that some of the doors don’t have door handles. They have a small “button” that is flush with the door, and a little smaller than a quarter. When you push on it a little “handle” pops out so you can open the door. This looks really nice in the hallways as it looks like just a long wall. Another thing we found in the closets next to the front door is that most of them have a clothes bar that is usually in the middle of the closet as opposed to at the top. We finally asked, and found that this is built in for umbrellas. Usually there is even a small metal pan built in on the bottom to catch the water.
7-Any other cool touches in the apartment that aren't like the US? Two… One is sort of a phone / door / security system. Most of the apartments have security doors so visitors have to be buzzed in. There is usually a big thing (maybe 3’5” by 2’) on the wall that holds that system and a built in phone. I think it might hold the heat controls as well. Usually it is in the living room (ugh) or right where I would consider placing the dinning room table. Kind of hard to decorate around! The second, and I forgot to mention this before is that almost all apartments have wallpaper throughout. It is always a very subtle, but you are not allowed to put any nails in the walls to hang pictures. Thus most walls have (or if not you can request them be put in) something called “picture rails.” These are a contraption, installed at the top of the wall next to the ceiling, and you hang pictures suspended on wires similar to the way museums hang them.
8-If the apartment does not accept a guarantee bond, how do you get this apartment? Pay totally up front? Or, is this guarantee only for expats? If you can’t get a guarantee bond you don’t get an apartment. This is for everyone, not just expats.
Well, that is it for now. Tomorrow I will work on another entry with more “observations”. I find something interesting to write about almost every time we go out. I have taken to carrying a little notepad with me for notes, so I don’t forget anything!
Stay tuned everyone, and thanks again for all the nice comments, messages and emails.
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McKeever
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Oh, Arlene, you can't imagine our excitement in all the details you are giving us. Stan and I agree that you are heros for doing what we would never have the courage to do. Go to it, Gal.