gaijin kuma desu: New Apartment!

Yay, the Blogger image posting bug is fixed. Here I go!

So, finally, here is an introduction to my new apartment!
Here is the building from across the street (one of those balconies is mine!):

First off, some empty apartment pics! Just to show how empty the place really is when you get it - which is the norm here in Japan. This is the entrance area.

The main door is to the right. A little alcove on the left - so far unoccupied.

From a little farther in the apartment - you can see the entrance area in the front. the open area on the left is the bathroom area. The closed doors are of the closet.

A little bit more farther back. You can see half of the main room and the kitchen entrance. On the left is a nice window.

From the kitchen. The small main room showing the balcony. The airkon unit at the top (basically the only air conditioner/heater in the apartment).

Room view from the entrance hallway:

Different angle where you can see the side window:

The side window:

Entrance to the kitchen:

The kitchen is awesome! First off, it has a humongous sink. Then, it has 2 gas burners which cook really nicely! And overall lots of storage space (which is lacking otherwise in Japanese apartments).

Top cabinets in the kitchen:

Tiny space for the fridge:

The other side where I keep a garbage can and some bags:

There was no light in the main room, just the socket:

Now, onto the bathroom area. Here, you can see the bathroom hallway. On the left is a place for washing machine. The door on the right is the toilet. You can see the bathroom sink in the middle and on the right of it, the entrance to the actual bathroom/shower enclosure.

Close up of the sink - it is quite large and the faucet extends so you can wash your hair in it I guess.

Above the sink some storage space and on the left is a thin opaque window but it does give nice light.

Here is the window (and its reflection in the mirror - so only half is the actual window ;P).

The entrance doors to the bath/shower room:

Showering/washing is done in the main part - the water drains to the drain:

As in a typical Japanese bathroom, the bath is only used for soaking, not for washing. The bath is small but deep so it is quite a tight but comfy fit.

And above the bath is a window that I can open when I steam up the place:

Here you can see a light, the ventilator and towel rack on the right:

Here is the toilet room. It is quite roomy with a little ledge on the right for storing things. One thing you might notice is that there is a sink at the top. Basically, after doing your business, the water that fills the tank first goes through the sink so you can wash your hands. Although, I like to use soap for these occasions and the manual says not to use soap on that thing...so I don't really use it.

Here is a shot showing the bathroom hallway area with respect to the entrance area on the right.

Okies... and now lets fill in the place a little bit... Basically, I moved my big stuff using a taxi. It was like 3km and cost something like $17 so it was quite a good deal. Although I loaded up most of the taxi with my stuff. Apart from that, I did 2 or 3 trips with my bicycle with big bag in the basket and 2 bags hanging off each handlebar.

The fridge and washing machine arrived the next day. The smallish fridge fit nicely into the hole in the kitchen.

What is funny is that it is exactly the same fridge I had at my previous place!

The washing machine fit nicely in it's space in the bathroom hallway area - still leaving quite a bit of room. Actually, the area with the sink and washing machine is basically for changing your clothes, etc, and there is a curtain rail on the ceiling - I just have to buy some curtain for it.

The store person hooking it up did a horrible job cuz he couldn't get the output pipe fit properly so he just taped around it - tape does not seal!

So I basically had the thing leaking water the first time I used it. So I had to go back to the store, explain to them (in Japanese) what the problem is and they scheduled somebody to come see it. This person also didn't know what to do but concluded that something is missing so he called up the apartment maintenance and another guy came with a rubber seal and the problem is solved!

Inside this 5kg Panasonic washing machine. It works quite nicely and quickly.

So, the first night at the apartment, I didn't have a bed so I bought this futon set and brought it with my bicycle - which was fun since I could barely see over it while riding.

Everything inside was vacuum packed (from China):

Here is the 7 piece futon bed set all put together. It is ok but a bit hard on the hard floor (would be ok on tatami).

First night the place is already looking occupied!

The next day, the furniture arrived. I bought it all at this one (cheap) place - kinda like IKEA. They put together the bed and the table but I had to do the desk and other stuff.

There is not much room but the small dining table fit nicely like this. The chairs actually rotate which is pretty cool :).

I also bought a light - which helped with the putting together of furniture at night.

I didn't have any cups so I bought these two at the 100yen ("dollar") store:

Some time later, I bought a metal rod to hand stuff for drying - this is how it looks like and basically how the balcony looks like. To the left is the air conditioner.

I merged the futon with the bed and it looks like this:

The desk, chair, and small bookcase look like this:

Small but quite cozy!

Now for some scenery. View still from inside the room overlooking the balcony:

View from one of the side windows in the main room - can see one of the main streets in town which goes by my building and continues through downtown.

View from the balcony on a sunny day. In the far distance above the street you can see the peak of the Nagoya TV Tower (in Sakae). Slightly left of it, you can see 2 buildings which are one of the twin towers of the Nagoya Train Station and the Midland Square building (the tallest in Nagoya with the open air observation deck).