Shout out and thanks to everyone who's been reading the blog! I write this mainly for myself to look back on so I can remember the little things that seemed big at the time, but it's awesome to be able to share our experience with everyone at home and beyond too! :)
So we had a big day yesterday -- we moved!
So we had a big day yesterday -- we moved!
(and what an embarrassing taxi ride that was with all our luggage!)
Our Monday started off with another trek through the PACKED like a sardine can 8 a.m. subways and main Sapporo station (we got lost in the crowds...) to get to our rendezvous spot with our friend who has been helping us with the apartment hunt etc. I didn't feel so bad about getting lost in the maze of Sapporo station after he told us that even he found it confusing when he moved here! Seriously, it's like three floors + a shopping mall...a maze!
We signed our papers and got a ride to our apartment from our "landlady" as well as a tour of the building.
We live in Sapporo's Social Apartments. From what I gather from their website, it's a kind of chain all over Japan and it caters towards the 20-something crowd looking for cheap living.
I think Kevin and I had assumed (always a dangerous thing to do), that the apartment itself would be newly renovated (as the website was very misleading...), but in fact, it's actually just the downstairs common rooms that have been redone. Go figure.
So we have a really small one bedroom (barely) apartment.
It's clean and decent but definitely from the older end of the spectrum of apartments we've lived in.
If you knew us in Savannah, think Anchorage Ct.
If you knew us in Tampere, think Rauhaniemi.
Honestly though, I'm just happy we have an affordable roof over our heads!
As some readers might know, we actually didn't have any place to live until this was confirmed less than a week before our flight left! Phew!
So back to the apartment.
When you walk in, there's a tiny space to leave your shoes and coat. Like in Finland, here it's rude to wear your shoes indoors.
Then on either side there are doors.
The right side leads to the smallest bathroom in the history of man.
Seriously, it's small!
When you flush the toilet, water comes out of the faucet into the tiny sink for you to wash your hands. :)
I brought our own moomin towel from home.
The other side leads to the shower room. There's no shower curtain, as you're supposed to first shower off, then soak in the bathtub. The tub is teeny weeny. I don't think I'll be soaking any time soon but I think bath lover Kevin might try it (with his knees bent).
To get hot water for our showers or even the kitchen sink, we have to turn on the gas powered water heater. Then turn it off after. Very different from home!
The space opens up to our "kitchen". I say "-" because there's no stove. Or oven. But there's a small counter top and a sink + cupboards so it's more than nothing! There's a hookup for a stove but we looked into buying one and it's out of our budget for only three months. We will be getting a refrigerator though (as well as some other furniture) on Friday though (yaaay!) when it's delivered.
There's an accordion style door, circa 1985, to partition the "kitchen" from the rest of the space. I don't think we'll be using that. So we basically just have one big room with a kitchen on the side.
Is this confusing? :D I'll take more pictures and with the zoom lens so you get a wider view this weekend after we get furniture and more settled in...
Our heating source is this gas heater which we are supposed to turn off whenever we leave the apartment. It's quite efficient, although it took some time to warm our apartment yesterday. Oh, and last night it turned off for some reason and when Kevin woke up cold and turned it on, the thermostat said it was 16C/60F! Hopefully not again tonight!
The great thing about this apartment is the huge sliding glass doors in each room. I love the amount of light that comes in! The bedroom has frosted glass doors which makes it more private, since behind us is another building with (frosted) windows as well. The apartment is really bright and sunny which makes everything so much nicer.
I can't wait for the leaves on this tree!
Our bedroom is separated by sliding doors and is big enough to fit both our futons and each have a little space on each side. So it's small. :)
But cozy!
Can you guess who has kitty cat sheets? ;)
Elisabeth sleeps in between us and we fit quite well compared to our queen size bed at home. And the added bonus is that she can't fall of the bed no matter how hard she might try! ;)
This closet is where we store the futons during the day to make room and allow them to air and dry (they get moist from the condensation between the cold floor and warm body heat). It reminds me of the grudge and I'll admit I'm a little afraid of the dark!
Thanks Japanese horror movies! :P
So maybe you're still thinking, "wait hold up, where are they gonna eat?".
Yeah.
Like I mentioned above somewhere, there are some common rooms here that we share with the other 50 residents. Mmhm.
We were a little bummed too since we really thought we'd have a private kitchen. Total game changer.
But the kitchen downstairs is large with all the amenities one needs, very clean, and has dining tables in both the western and Japanese style. There's even a little living room with a shared PC and GIANT TV and PS3.
The catch is having to deal with other people and clean up after yourself immediately.
I know, right. ;)
But we manned up and went downstairs last night with our modest groceries and cooked dinner with an audience. I say audience, because we were the interesting new people everyone wanted to know about, but mainly, because we had a BABY. She's the only kid in the whole building.
I tell you, people here looooooooooove Elisabeth. A lot.
She even was given 1000 yen (so about $10) yesterday from a stranger in a restaurant because she was so "kawaii" (cute).
So yeah. It was a little overwhelming at first, but a really positive experience nonetheless and we met some really nice people and hopefully we'll make some new friends and learn some Japanese. (the English is minimal for most)
In other words, I'm not bummed about not having a private kitchen and I really like living here. Heck, maybe someone will teach me a thing or two about cooking authentic Japanese cuisine?!
Oh, side note: there's a dry erase board downstairs with info on it, but also a list of everyone's name (in Japanese), birthday and blood type (!) on it. We were added last night and I should write down how our names are written in Japanese.
These pictures were taken today at lunch with Kevin's phone just for an idea of how it is downstairs. We also have a laundry room, a ladies only beauty room (with massage chair and makeup table), and a soundproof music room with instruments.
Elisabeth loves the low tables. We like eating on the floor Japanese style since we don't have a highchair. Our lunch was just from the local grocery store, ready made and pretty good. Noodles and chopsticks are still a challenge for me, but I'm getting there...
Kevin washing our dishes. I love that he smiles while doing so. ;)
Our back patio and garden:
Hopefully I can share soon the rest of the pictures from today and the stories to go with them but now, it's past my bedtime!
Good night!
Suomennos:
Muutimme pieneen 1h+tupakeittiö asuntoomme, joka on vanhempi kuin kuviteltiin, mutta onneksi valoisa ja siisti. Maailman pienin vessa ja suihku löytyvät meiltä! Keittö ei vastannut odotuksia, sillä hella puuttuu, mutta onneksi alakerrassa on siisti ja iso jaettu keittiö. Olemme tutustuneet joihinkin naapureihin ja Elisabeth on iso hitti meilläpäin -- talon ainoa lapsi! Täällä siis asuvat pääosin 20-jotain vuotiaita opiskelijoita ym. Lisään kuvia asunnosta ehkä viikonloppuna, sillä perjantaina tuodaan meille kaivatut huonekalut ja jääkaappi! Jee!
Toivon mukaan saan aikaa jakaa lisää tänään otettuja kuvia pian!
There's an accordion style door, circa 1985, to partition the "kitchen" from the rest of the space. I don't think we'll be using that. So we basically just have one big room with a kitchen on the side.
Is this confusing? :D I'll take more pictures and with the zoom lens so you get a wider view this weekend after we get furniture and more settled in...
Our heating source is this gas heater which we are supposed to turn off whenever we leave the apartment. It's quite efficient, although it took some time to warm our apartment yesterday. Oh, and last night it turned off for some reason and when Kevin woke up cold and turned it on, the thermostat said it was 16C/60F! Hopefully not again tonight!
The great thing about this apartment is the huge sliding glass doors in each room. I love the amount of light that comes in! The bedroom has frosted glass doors which makes it more private, since behind us is another building with (frosted) windows as well. The apartment is really bright and sunny which makes everything so much nicer.
I can't wait for the leaves on this tree!
But cozy!
Can you guess who has kitty cat sheets? ;)
Elisabeth sleeps in between us and we fit quite well compared to our queen size bed at home. And the added bonus is that she can't fall of the bed no matter how hard she might try! ;)
This closet is where we store the futons during the day to make room and allow them to air and dry (they get moist from the condensation between the cold floor and warm body heat). It reminds me of the grudge and I'll admit I'm a little afraid of the dark!
Thanks Japanese horror movies! :P
So maybe you're still thinking, "wait hold up, where are they gonna eat?".
Yeah.
Like I mentioned above somewhere, there are some common rooms here that we share with the other 50 residents. Mmhm.
We were a little bummed too since we really thought we'd have a private kitchen. Total game changer.
But the kitchen downstairs is large with all the amenities one needs, very clean, and has dining tables in both the western and Japanese style. There's even a little living room with a shared PC and GIANT TV and PS3.
The catch is having to deal with other people and clean up after yourself immediately.
I know, right. ;)
But we manned up and went downstairs last night with our modest groceries and cooked dinner with an audience. I say audience, because we were the interesting new people everyone wanted to know about, but mainly, because we had a BABY. She's the only kid in the whole building.
I tell you, people here looooooooooove Elisabeth. A lot.
She even was given 1000 yen (so about $10) yesterday from a stranger in a restaurant because she was so "kawaii" (cute).
So yeah. It was a little overwhelming at first, but a really positive experience nonetheless and we met some really nice people and hopefully we'll make some new friends and learn some Japanese. (the English is minimal for most)
In other words, I'm not bummed about not having a private kitchen and I really like living here. Heck, maybe someone will teach me a thing or two about cooking authentic Japanese cuisine?!
Oh, side note: there's a dry erase board downstairs with info on it, but also a list of everyone's name (in Japanese), birthday and blood type (!) on it. We were added last night and I should write down how our names are written in Japanese.
These pictures were taken today at lunch with Kevin's phone just for an idea of how it is downstairs. We also have a laundry room, a ladies only beauty room (with massage chair and makeup table), and a soundproof music room with instruments.
Elisabeth loves the low tables. We like eating on the floor Japanese style since we don't have a highchair. Our lunch was just from the local grocery store, ready made and pretty good. Noodles and chopsticks are still a challenge for me, but I'm getting there...
Our back patio and garden:
Hopefully I can share soon the rest of the pictures from today and the stories to go with them but now, it's past my bedtime!
Good night!
Suomennos:
Muutimme pieneen 1h+tupakeittiö asuntoomme, joka on vanhempi kuin kuviteltiin, mutta onneksi valoisa ja siisti. Maailman pienin vessa ja suihku löytyvät meiltä! Keittö ei vastannut odotuksia, sillä hella puuttuu, mutta onneksi alakerrassa on siisti ja iso jaettu keittiö. Olemme tutustuneet joihinkin naapureihin ja Elisabeth on iso hitti meilläpäin -- talon ainoa lapsi! Täällä siis asuvat pääosin 20-jotain vuotiaita opiskelijoita ym. Lisään kuvia asunnosta ehkä viikonloppuna, sillä perjantaina tuodaan meille kaivatut huonekalut ja jääkaappi! Jee!
Toivon mukaan saan aikaa jakaa lisää tänään otettuja kuvia pian!
Love looking at all the pictures and hearing how the days are going! It is definitely an adjustment, but you put such a wonderful spin on it with opportunities to learn a new language, way of cooking, and way of living. So proud and excited for all of you. And, what is there not to love about that little munchkin -- she steals hearts with her smiles :)
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