My apartment has 3 very small rooms plus an eat-in kitchen. It has 2 closets (just 2 shelves, no hanging bars or drawers) one of which smells faintly of smoke. The kitchen is about 1/3 the size of my last apt., also with less storage, but it's cute, and can be heated up fairly quickly with the portable heater - a huge improvement over last time - and I have a little table and 2 chairs which were supplied by the school. I will definately have to adjust my usual buying/cooking habits and be more like Peter and Lauren, buying only what I need for the week since there is very little storage. On the other hand, my refrigerator and freezer are bigger than the last apt. Not full size, but perfect for one or two people. I have a gas cooktop with 2 burners and a microwave on a stand that will also hold a rice cooker (which I desparately need) and probably a bread maker (which I don't really need but there are no bakeries around and I will get tired of the soft white bread in the grocery store pretty quickly). I saw a bread machine at the 2nd hand shop and I will probably pick that up - once I make sure I can find yeast.
There is a very narrow veranda off the kitchen and living room where I can hang my wash. Unlike my balcony in Tokushima where the sun and the wind made for quick drying, this one is blocked from both sun and wind by the next building so I think it will take much longer to dry my clothes. On the up side - no pigeons!!!!! When it gets a little warmer I'm going to try to grow some herbs but I'm not sure if there will be enough sun for them.
The living room is next to the kitchen, separated by nice sliding glass doors. It has one brown wall, which I haven't seen before in Japan, usually the walls are of a white speckled material. I like it. The heater/airconditioner unit was installed in the living room. It is also the only room that has a TV cable outlet. Which is too bad as I think it would be better to sleep in that room and use the bedroom as the living room. I have slept in both rooms for a couple of nights each and I definately prefer the living room. It is darker in the morning (because of the building next door) and MUCH quieter. I think I will move my futon back into the living room tonight. I can always pick it up and put it in a closet if I have company. If I get a bed though, which would be nice, I will have to put that in the other room. If there was a TV outlet in the bedroom I would just switch everything... I'll work it out eventually.
There is a small closet in the living room, again just with 2 shelves, a larger one (the smokey one) in the bedroom, and the 2nd bedroom has nothing. There is a shoe closet in the entry way, then the toilet room which shares a wall with the kitchen. There is a set-in kitchen unit with a large sink and cabinets below and above. I can only use the bottom 'above' cabinet without standing on a chair so the top shelf will have to be for rarely used items. I also have to fit trash cans under the sink, and next to the fridge (since plastics, papers and burnables all need to go in separate bags)... Another plus to this apt. - there are cages for the trash which means it can be put out the night before (without sneaking around and putting it into the cages of other apartments!). And, the papers and burnables go out on the same day which is nice as well.
Back to the apt. Off of the kitchen is a room with a sink and a washing machine and off of that room is the bath - shower and deep ohuro (soaking tub). There are no windows in the bathroom which means it stays much warmer while taking a shower but hopefully won't mean a lot of mold. There is a fan but it doesn't seem to work that well. On the otherhand the whole room is fiberglass rather than tile and grout so maybe it won't be a problem. There is also a mechanism to heat up water by pushing a button. It heats pretty quickly so I can have it off most of the time and just turn it on for bathing. I don't know how much more it would cost to turn it on for doing the dishes but I will probably save anything with animal fat - or dishes in the winter - for when I take a bath/shower since gas isn't cheap.
My apartment is in a building of 4 units that looks like a large house. There are 5 of these buildings in 'North Village' and the area is entirely residential with nothing more than 2 stories high. I am on the second floor (so not as much built in exercise as last time when I was on th 4th floor). The whole area between here and school seems to be fairly new and built like a rabbit's warren - in ovals with lots of dead ends. It's nice in that there are no big apartment buildings, but there are also no local shops mixed in so I am really going to miss interacting with people at small vegatable stands, tofu shops, fish markets and bakeries. There are many small playgrounds with old equipment tucked here and there, and gulleys that add to the problem of streets ending abruptly.
About a 5-10 minute walk from my house brings me to 2 supermarkets and a not so great 100 yen (dollar store) shop. The main street that houses these stores, plus many other shops, restaurants, banks, etc., is called Bell Rd. because it is lined with bells on lamposts like poles. Unlike Tokushima where you could find udon shops everywhere, Hikone has ramen shops all over. Personally I like ramen better - I don't know what style the ramen is but I'm hoping it's more like Tokyo's than Tokushima's (which was way too salty for me). I'll have to try it soon. I have tried a local Indian restaurant with one of the other teachers and it was good. I think the teachers go there often. On Friday, Kelly, the teacher who I will be taking over from, will take me to the 100 yen conveyer belt sushi restaurant. I don't know where it is, but hopefully it's close by. It's not Sushi Rou (my favorite) but it seems like that chain hasn't come to Hikone.
The school, ABC Kids, is a 10 minute walk / 5 min. bike ride from my apt. It's in a 2 story building that looks like house and it only houses the school (unlike English Square which was on the lower floor of an apartment building). They are currently adding on as the kindergarten/nursery school, and the school itself, is growing rapidly. The school is decorated very nicely, bright and kid friendly. There are only a couple of adult classes, they focus mostly on children, but I will be lucky enough to have one of the adult classes and I've met 2 of the students who are at a very high English level and I already like a lot. I think there are 17 employees altogether - Americans and Japanese staff but not all of them work at the Hikone school. There is another school in Nagahama which is about a 1/2 hour drive away, I haven't met some of the people who work there.
I am definately the oldest. One of the Japanese staff is in her upper 40s and the manager is in his low to mid 40s but the rest of them seem to be in their 20s (all the American staff) and 30s. There are 2 young men from the US and the manager, and the rest are women. I will spend this month training with the teacher I will take over from. She will be teaching a different type of class starting in April. This is not a 'go do whatever you want' school and there is a set curriculum and method. As for my schedule - which might change come April and the new school year - the core workday is from 1pm - 8pm. With 1 - 2:30 or so being prep time but you have to be at school (unlike English Square where you were free to come in anytime so long as you were prepared to go when classes started - so we didn't have to be there until 3pm or so...). There are 10 - 30 minute breaks between each class (usually 15 min.) which is really nice. You can go to the bathroom, have a quick snack, get out your materials for the next class, etc. (At English Square each class was an hour with rarely a break in between). I will either have 3 nights with classes until 9pm or 2 night classes and one 10:30 am class. And I have Saturdays and Sundays off. Although most months have one event or test day on a Saturday or Sunday and all teachers must attend. We also have to clean the school. Teachers have 2 cleaning days/week besides vacumming and emptying trash in our own classrooms each day. My duties will be vacumming the hall and cleaning the upstairs toilet room - not looking forward to that.
Transportation. I had a bike for a couple of days but returned it. I was in a 2nd hand store when a bike was delivered and it looked great (I didn't know what to look for), so I bought it on the spot. I rode it a little between the rain and it seemed fine the first day. But when I rode it at night it was quite noisy (not a good sign) and the light was really weak. Then I noticed that the back tire was smooth. It would probably be fine for someone who will be riding once in a while but I will use it a lot. I didn't really think the man would take it back but I decided that it couldn't hurt to ask and I would be willing to take less money for it. It worked, and for a loss of $10 I returned it. But I'm back to walking and carrying things by hand. I saw some new bikes at a home improvement store that looked nice and were reasonable, but they are all silver, which seems to be the popular color here and would make it very hard to find in the rows of bikes parked everywhere. So I will try to find another store that sells bikes and see if I can get another color. If not I will get a silver one and tie a ribbon on it or something.
So between the weather, work, errands and not having a bike I have not seen any of the city. I have the weekends off but this Saturday I will go to Kyoto to meet Noriko and hopefully see the plum blossoms. I will have to take the bus to the station and a taxi home since the bus only runs until 5 or 6pm. But it does stop near my house. One day soon I will get on and ride the whole route to see where it goes. And I'd like to go to the station, which I think is 3 - 4 miles from here, and get some route maps and schedules, although since I seemed to have missed the worst of winter (but it does sometimes snow in March) I will probably ride my bike most everywhere. Although I don't start work until 1pm, I am still not confident enough about times, distances and schedules to explore much before work.
I also have to figure out an eating schedule. I think I will need to eat a big lunch before work and finish by 12:30 which I'm totally not used to, I've been eating late breakfasts and lunches for a while now. And with the differing schedule each night, it will take some getting used to. At the moment I have a late night on Wednesday and an early morning on Thursday which isn't ideal, but since we also have a weekly teacher's meeting on Thursdays at 12:30 it will be nice if I don't have to come in for that on a separate day. For the next two weeks at least, I will try ordering a children's lunch on Thursdays since I will be at school anyway. There is an hour lunch break though on Thursday and there are a few eateries (a nice sandwich/coffee shop, a MacDonalds, and rice bowl place and I'm sure some ramen shops) within biking distance if I don't care for those lunches or they are not enough. I'll work it out.
It's already 11, I'm not dressed yet and I've wasted the first sunny day. Maybe I can get in a quick walk before I have to come home for lunch... but then I probably won't have time to figure out how to post this at work...
Have you seen the Lake yet?
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