it's not life that matters but the journey...

Sorry about my silly little FB rant yesterday. After your comments, and my own pondering on the subject, I realized that Facebook is what it is. Whatever that is for each person who uses it. And if that doesn't make sense, oh well. Anyway, I think what disappoints me most is that the people I really would love to keep in touch with on FB (family and my one or two friends who encouraged me to join), either don't post, or they don't comment or reply to my comments. So it's just frustrating. But one thing I do know is that I appreciate my LJ friends more than ever!!

And speaking of appreciation, thanks are due to deadwillwalk, dove95, bayareajenn and flyingichytho. I received your lovely cards over the last few days, and they have joined all the others under my tree. I'm keeping my x-mas tree up for at least another few days so I can continue to see all of my pretty cards! Heck, maybe I'll just keep it up until spring - LOL!

Anyway... without further adieu (is that the way that's spelled?), I decided I'd do a post about Japanese houses, since I'm sure that most of you are curious what it's like living in this crazy country. Also, I received several questions about what my house looks like on the inside, so I took some pictures.

I'll put this behind a cut to save your pages. If you're interested

I've stayed in quite a few Japanese houses besides just my in-law's house (where I'm staying now) and they have some features in common. Anyone knows that in Japan, you don't wear shoes in the house. Shoes are considered dirty, because you wear them outside, and you don't bring outside dirt into the home (a custom that some westerners and most Asians follow). So every Japanese home, and even schools and some businesses, have what's called a Genkan (entryway). When you enter a Japanese home, you must leave your shoes in the Genkan, and then you ask permission to enter the home. Then you are often given slippers to wear inside. Here's a picture of our Genkan:



Also common to all Japanese homes is the separate toilet and shower/bath area for washing. Having the toilet separate from the shower/bath is similar to leaving your shoes at the door, another issue of cleanliness (which is next to godliness in Japan). Japanese people wouldn't consider bathing in the same place where the toilet is, because the toilet is unclean. Our house has two toilets, and one shower/bath area, which also has a sink (and a washing machine). Here's a couple pictures of our bath/shower area (you can also see the edge of the downstairs toilet in the first picture - and see if you can spot the Japanese English in the first picture):





The Japanese bathtubs are also very deep, and when filled with hot water and some bath salts, it's so awesome!

Another thing unique to the Japanese toilet is the "Toilet Slippers", which are slippers that never are intended to leave the toilet area. When you enter the toilet, you leave your house slippers at the door, and you slip your feet into the toilet slippers (and make sure you don't forget to wear them outside the toilet!!!) Here's a picture of the inside of our upstairs toilet:



Oh, and it's now my job to clean the toilets - yay! I also wash dishes and vacuum stairs and hallways:)

Something else unique to Japanese homes is the tatami flooring, and most older homes have at least one or more tatami rooms. In case you don't know what tatami is, read this . Most traditional homes, ryokan (japanese inns), and restaurants have tatami - also, the apartment where I lived 12 years ago had only tatami, and no wood floor or carpet. Most of the more modern (aka new) apartments and homes are being built without tatami - instead they use hard wood flooring, which is nice, but not traditional. I hope that the traditional Japanese home doesn't disappear forever. My house has only two big tatami rooms on one half of the second floor, which is where my in-laws stay. I couldn't get a very good picture, since it's their space and a bit messy, but here's a picture of the tatami rooms:



Tatami rooms usually also have sliding shouji (paper) doors, like the ones you see in that picture. Of course in a castle like this picture they are much nicer.

So those are the typical features of Japanese homes that my house also shares. My home is unique perhaps in that it's three stories high, and sadly we don't have much of a yard. The layout is as follows: downstairs is the genkan, the bath/shower/dressing area and toilet, the kitchen area with a small dining and living area, and the dry cleaning business that my in-laws run is in the front; the second floor has the two big tatami rooms (where my in-laws sleep and where my father-in-law has a huge tv where we can watch DVD's if we want), another toilet, my classroom/study area (which you saw in a previous post), and another small room which is used for storage; and the third floor is where my husband, Leo and I stay (though Leo also uses one half of the second floor - he doesn't go downstairs so he won't get outside). My husband and I have quite a bit of space, which includes a bedroom and an extra space with our dressing table, a little refrigerator, toaster, and hot water pot so we can have toast and coffee or tea in the morning without going downstairs) and M's little guitar practice corner. Plus we have HUGE closet space upstairs. Overall I have my clothes in three different rooms in the house - storage is one thing we aren't lacking here.

Anyway, before I go, here's a couple pictures of our little bedroom. You can see our Kotatsu (which is a heated table Japanese people use to stay warm), where we have our laptops set up. We sit at the kotatsu at night and work on our computers. Leo also likes to go underneath the kotatsu to stay warm! Also that little sofa that you see converts to a bed, on which we put our futon and comforters and blankets. Japanese also traditionally don't have beds, they sleep on futons on the floor. You can also see my bookshelves, and my Kitty-chan collection!







So I hope you enjoyed your little tour of my home, and a hopefully accurate and interesting explanation of Japanese homes in general. Of course every home is different. For example, my friends, the Yoshinos, who I'm going to visit in a couple weeks up in Saitama, have a very cozy home with two floors, and with actual beds instead of futons. They also have very western amenities like big sofas and a carpeted room.

and before I go (wait I said that already!), here's some pictures I took of our little outing to Numazu, a nearby town, on Sunday.

The weather was gorgeous, so we went to the ocean, and watched people - as well as a bunch of huge crows and eagles that gathered because some stupid kid and his father were feeding them.







We also wandered on the beach, which is covered in rocks, and also sadly littered with so much garbage. One particularly interesting piece of trash I found was this little snowman:



It's hard to tell how long it's been there. but maybe recently someone put it there for Christmas.

I also found a little shrine that must have been erected for someone who died (?):



And this is some kind of fishing house from long ago, perhaps:



And finally a shot of the sun on the water:





I have some news, and some other pictures for New Year's (of my mother-in-law making mochi), which I'll post tomorrow or the next day. But this is long enough, so if you're still here, then thanks for reading.

Happy New Year everyone!