Snow day

Hello from snowy Sapporo!

We made the mistake of trying to go for a walk in the snow... won't be trying that again unless totally necessary! 

I love our Peg-Perego stroller, but it's no Emmaljunga in these conditions and while Elisabeth fell asleep on our short wet walk (and is still sleeping!), it was a hassle and a half to maneuver! Too bad that Emmaljunga is like the Hummer of strollers, because it would never fit here. The Peg-Perego is definitely more compact, like an Alpha Romeo, but even still, not as small as some of the rinky dink strollers we've seen here (which I'd compare to ummm smart cars?).

So definitely an indoor day to update the blog and catch up on shows etc. 

Hmmm...so what to share... 

Well, for one, we got furniture! Woohoo! It definitely feels more home-y here! We have a fridge, which is super nice since now we can store our food up here and eat some meals up here if we want. Although, it's still nice to go downstairs and socialize etc. 

(our 5kg bag of rice in the corner of the picture...)

We have on the top shelf: yogurt, garlic, a carrot, bean sprouts, mushrooms, chicken breast.

Middle shelf: (eggs not pictured), Japanese cucumbers, small bag of shredded cabbage

In drawer: potatoes, bok choy, Japanese spinach

In the door (top -> down): a small jar of baby food that Elisabeth won't eat, a spicy condiment for rice, salad dressing, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, milk. 

Kevin says the milk here is the best milk ever. It's rich. Even the ones lower in fat. It just has a really rich flavor. 

We have a bed, which is serving more as a couch or lounge spot in the corner of our living room/kitchen.

And we have desk and chair. MUCH needed. Elisabeth is a fan of technology so you can imagine her delight at the laptops being on the floor within her reach all the time. Those were some rough days trying to distract her from them!

Yesterday, we bought some umbrellas (yesterday rained, today snowed), for 500yen (about $5) each at Tanuki-koji, the shopping arcade. Well, actually, we bought them in pole town which is under a part of Tanuki-koji. But anywho, mine is a light blue with polka dots and Kevin's is as adventurous as black. 

Then we went to Don Quijote, a little bit of everything store, also 5 floors of madness. We picked up a little water kettle for 1600yen ($16). Now we can make coffee up here in our apartment with our french press AND have milk in it from our fridge. :) It's the little things in life for sure!

After Don Quijote, we went back to Daiso, the big dolla-dolla store. We just got some small storage bins for Elisabeth's toys and some pantry items. We also picked up a little laundry basket. We really need to figure out the laundry thing. I have a mental block regarding it since it went poorly last time, as in did my clothes even get washed or did they just get wet and spin around for an hour? 

 Indeed, it's the little things that can make or break your day! 

I got a chance the other day to take some quick phone photos of downstairs while no one was there! Gives you an idea of how cozy and nice it is. There's also a huge heater that they turn on, so it's roasty-toasty. 

 This is the living room couch. You can see our "movie room" in the back... And our heater in the front...

 A note from the neighbors downstairs last week:

Last night, we ate yummy fried food ready meals from the grocery store. It's hard to resist, especially since they're about $3-4! 

Shrimp, chicken, rice, some kind of egg roll, pickled daikon, and sweet egg. Oh and shredded cabbage under the meat.

When we cook downstairs, we've made scrambled eggs (Elisabeth loves them), veggie and chicken stir fry & rice, and some instant noodles (much better than back at home!). I've also eaten salads, but Kevin's a fan of trying those instant noodles. All in all, minus the snacky food, we've eaten pretty well. 

And while we ate healthily-ish at home, we definitely have more portion control here. We might just lose weight on this new diet ;) 

That's all the pictures and stories I have for today. 

See ya around soon!

Our neighborhood

Ohayo! (Good morning!)

I'm sneaking a few moments while she sleeps to share some of what we were up to yesterday!

We went downtown to find Daiso, a 100 yen shop (dollar store basically), to find some cheap things to make this apartment more of a home.

We took the subway to Susukino, the shopping district, and went to underground Pole Town, which is a shopping mall. We took the stairs about midway through (it's HUGE!) and were at Tanuki-koji shopping street. It's a tourist spot but big with locals and there's a lot to look at!

We ended up going too far and made a wrong turn and ended up here: the tv tower in Odori Park.

Consult map. Turn left.

Then left.

 (not here though, just thought those bridges looked cool.)

Ah. There it is!

FIVE floors of dollar store stuff. :D 

Some of it is actually quite nice. There were a lot of people shopping there. It was actually quite busy on my standards.

 

After Daiso, we took the subway home. Kevin stopped in our Co-Op, our local grocery store, for some ready made lunches.

This is on the walk home on our street. I was hoping it'd be a cat cafe, where you can visit and pet cats while drinking coffee, but it's a karaoke place?!

 

Here's some of what we bought at Daiso.

A little money  pouch for me. This is a cash only kind of place mostly and their bills don't start until 1000yen (about $10), so there's a lot of loose change to contend with.

On the right is my new makeup pouch. Small and compact. Kath Kidston-y on a dollar store budget!

Below  is my new mug for coffee.

Center is a strawberry sponge for the kitchen. They had so much cute strawberry, apple, and cupcake stuff... 

On the left are my chopsticks for upstairs. They have the white lucky cat on them. 

 

We also bought Kevin a mug and chopsticks. Two bowls for cereal upstairs etc. A couple forks and spoons. A knife and cutting board. Soap for the bathroom. A small broom and dustpan.

Kevin picked up from the grocery store a bag of these:

 

They're daifuku, a candy here. It's white mochi (made from rice) which is really soft and chewy, filled with anko, or sweet red bean paste from adzuki beans. 

We had them in Kyoto in 2011 and it wasn't my thing, but this time around, they're actually quite tasty.

Want to see more of our neighborhood?

OK!

We took a sunset walk and this is why I love it here so:

Beautiful, right?

It's Mt Moiwa. You can go to the top and it's a lookout point. I want to do that sometime!

We walked along this busy road parallel to the Toyohira river (I think) for about 10 minutes just to enjoy the sunset and get Elisabeth to sleep.

In the blue railing, there's a decorative detail:

 

 This is the view looking back toward the city.

That park will be nice in the spring!

A lot of the small trees and bushes have these constructions around them. Apparently, they're covered for winter in plastic tarp or straw mats. I like them a lot. 

 

This building is close to where we live. I like the contrast.

 

Here's another busy street close by. 

 

Close by is also a soccer field. On Monday, we saw a group of boys shoveling snow and Kevin's friend said they're probably the junior high soccer team trying to make it melt  faster. They shovel it into little compartments to melt faster from all sides. 

My kind of people -- let's melt it faster!

:)

Eilen käytiin shoppailukadulla Tanuki-kojilla, sitten Daiso-halpiskauppaan. Ostettiin jotain pientä kotiin. Kuvia naapuristosta ja auringonlaskusta. Olemme daifukua syöneet, riisitaikinakuori ja makeaa papupastaa sisällä. Lähellä sijaitsee myös jalkapallokenttä, jotka nuoret palloilijat käyvät systemaattisesti kolaamassa pieniin pinoihin, jotta lumet sulaisi nopeammin pois. Miksei Suomessa tehdä niin?!

Our social apartment

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! 

(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!