Our home

This is our tatami room. Truth be told, it was not this clean 5 minutes prior to me taking the picture, but this is what it looks like ideally. The phone is actually an intercom to let people in the building. Next to it is a control for our heated floors...we haven't tried this function yet. Every machine in our house has a ton of buttons, so we haven't gotten them all figured out yet.

On the table is my latest ikebana design. Our fishes, who were mentioned in an earlier blog, have all gone to meet their maker. Despite this turn of events, I ambitiously purchased 8 new fish. I love the fact that two have red noses and two have red bottoms.

This is our larger balcony. Erik bought me a greenhouse and I love it. What a wonderful husband, eh? My friend brought her children over and they helped plant beans, basil, and mint.

Erik put the pictures on the blog and for some reason had this picture first...I took the liberty of moving it a little further down the line-up. This picture wasn't the easiest to take because the room is so small. Anyway, just wanted to point out that you have two flush choices: big or small (you use your best judgement to determine which). Also, there is a bidet button, which my landlord kindly translated for us as "for sensitive place of the women," a "wash bottom" button, and a dry button. You can adjust the intensity for each button as well.

This was the only way to get the bed and the dresser in the picture. Can you find me? I'm in the picture twice! Most Japanese people sleep on the floor on a futon, so I'm a little embarrassed about our royal bed. I literally have to jump into bed each night.

Japanese bathrooms have a sink, tub, and shower. The toilet is in a separate room. Please read the following sentence with your most sarcastic voice: The washer is my favorite machine in the house. Actually, it's gotten 100 times better now that Erik and I have figured out the "child lock" function. Please don't laugh, it was really aggravating. Any time we interrupted the cycle, we couldn't get the door unlocked. And, seeing as we would start the washer and see on the display "5 hours remaining," we needed to learn how to interrupt the cycle. The machine is a washer/dryer in one, but this is a misnomer. It should be called a "washer/get my clothes hot and wetter" machine. Plus, the only way to get hot water in it is to fill the tub or sink and connect a hose. Okay, it's still way better than a washboard!

Here's the ofuro (bath). Whose toy frog and firefighter duck I wonder...? As a side note, if this picture included audio you would hear our fan that runs 24/7 (not by election). To the right of the tub, but not pictured, is a control pad. We can set the height and temperature of the water and it fills the tub automatically for us. There is an handy dandy intercom button on it to the kitchen "Eriiiiiik, I'm need more shampoo." The control pad also plays a very cute song to let you know when the tub is ready. It sounds just like "Santa Claus is coming to town."