My Apartment in Kawanishi

Hey! Some of you may have noticed you haven’t seen or heard from me for a while now; that is because I have moved to Japan to teach English for the next year. I won’t be able to get internet access in my apartment until the beginning of September, so I’ll likely be pretty detached from the outside world until then; but in the mean time I figured I could write a Blog to keep you all posted on life across the Pacific (i.e. I can write a blog while I’m at work and it looks like I’m working [not that I have any work to do anyways {its summer vacation here, and everyone else pretends to be working too, strange and hard to get used to}]). BUT that’s a cultural discussion for another time. Anyways, I took some pictures of my apartment yesterday so I could give you a little taste of what I come home to over here. First off, I live in a town named Kawanishi, it is very small (apparently not large enough to warrant a Wikipedia page), hosts a single grocery store, a train station, and a beer vending machine (I’m told these only exist in the boonies these days). But it is walking distance from many really interesting and historically significant sites of Japan, due to its existence as a feudal lord’s territory at the end of the samurai era, such as: Kantai-kyo bridge, Iwakuni Castle, a Shinto Shrine, many historical residences, and is also home to an albino snake which apparently exists nowhere else in the world, Japan or otherwise. I’ve been running up the mountain to Iwakuni Castle a couple times a week and exploring Kawanishi very thoroughly, but haven’t yet figured out a means of getting out and exploring the rest of Japan (working on it though). Here are a series of pictures of my apartment (it’s not as dark and dreary as it looks, my camera flash wouldn’t go off):

My bedroom. Notice the tatami mat floor and rice paper sliding doors, yes these things are still widely used. I did however manage to get an actually bed which is pretty lucky.

The Living Room. Inherited a nice couch, table, and TV/DVD… TV even works if you hit it hard enough. Channels however are all in Japanese, so I’ve been relying on my predecessors’ taste in film for entertainment; highlights include: Bad Boys 2 and Xena (i.e. I’ve been reading a lot of books).

The Shower Room. People don’t really have water heaters in Japan, not in the American way anyhow. So, the thing to the right there is my gas powered water heater; you have to light it when you want a hot shower or bath. The whole setup takes some getting used to, but it’s really energy efficient and actually kinda cool.

The Kitchen. Simple, but not too many notable differences other than the size of the fridge (left) and there’s no oven, just a gas stove (right).

Bathroom/Toilet Room/Laundry. All in a compact little package, my drier consists of a pole on the balcony, haven’t yet figured out what people do during monsoon season.

Here’s a close up of the washing machine. Can you read the buttons? Yea…. me neither, but if I push enough of them it fills with water and starts spinning, so that’s good.

Guess Room. I also have a large guest room (family sized apartment) just in case someone feels so inclined as to visit (highly recommended).

The Little Room. I have no idea what this room will be used for, I can’t even figure out what it’s supposed to be used for (tea room?). For now it’s the little room with the coffee table in it.

The train going by from the balcony; this is the train I would normally take to work.

Here’s another one that has me stumped. This is the microwave…. And there are no numbers!

The view of Kawanishi from the train station, my building is on the far right.

That’s all for now. Hope everyone is doing well, I will do my best to keep you posted on my life on the other side of the pond. Email is still the same (conroyna@whitman.edu) , but they kick me off the that in a year so I phasing into my new address (conroyna@gmail.com). Thanks for tuning in.

nate.