The "service apartment" is on the 11th floor, which gives us a nice view of lots of other buildings and little bits of green letting us know downtown Tokyo has trees. The view is, well, it's growing on me because it certainly isn't my garden. The apartment consists of a living room, dining room, the biggest kitchen I think I've ever seen in Japan, two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. Size wise, it is bigger than some apartments I lived in in Seattle. The master has a king sized bed (That is ROCK HARD! What is it with Japanese people that have beds? They don't have to be as hard as the floor!) and the spare has 2 twins. The kitchen has an oven and a dishwasher, both are quite rare in Japanese homes. There is lots and lots of built in closets, which I love. I made one into a pantry of all the food I brought from the states. By the way, if you come to visit me - please bring food. I'm serious. American staples are SO expensive here! $6-$15 for a package of spaghetti noodles?!? I digress.
So, what is my favorite part of the apartment - the bathroom, of course! Japanese bathrooms don't have toilets. That would be disgusting. There are toilet rooms and bathrooms. Our apartment is typically Japanese in this setup as well. So, the bathroom consists of a shower in the middle of the room because there is a drain in the center of the room, and the deepest, most wonderful tub. I can sit up in the darn thing and the water goes almost to my armpits! It is so relaxing to soak in the tub. So, why the shower in the middle of the bathroom? Japanese custom requires you to shower before you get in the tub. Tubs are for soaking, not for cleaning. This philosophy suits me just fine! But what exactly puts this bathroom over the top? It is the dryer functions! Yep, this room can be set to dry itself or any hanging laundry you deem needing to be dried. Oh, how I love the technology of this room. Usually I could care less about technology, but this is genius and right up my alley!!!
Overall the apartment is great. However, there's a couple weird things that will take getting used to:
- Housekeeping 2x per week. Doesn't sound bad until you realize they go through your garbage to make sure it is separated correctly. Weirds me out on multiple levels.
- Light switches everywhere, but only one per light and not all in one location. You have to run all over to turn off lights. For example, the master toilet room has 4 light switches in 3 locations.
- Automatic flushing toilets. Another thing that doesn't seem bad until you think of how long it is going to take me to break my son of the habit of leaving his poo unflushed.
We're getting settled. The bags are unpacked and we're getting used to the new layout. We've cooked a couple meals and I did the first load of laundry. But the one thing we aren't doing is sleeping! Jet lag has taken full hold of our son, and the transition is tough. Waking up at 3 am each morning, no matter how much we make him stay up the night before, is no laughing matter. Luckily for me, my husband gets up with him and lets me stay in bed until a blissful 4:30 or 5:00. Today my son had a couple melt downs - one at a park and we headed home for naps at 9 am. The other was on the subway when he wailed "I'm tired, why won't you let me sleep?" and continued to whimper for quite a while as people stared at us. I consider myself to be a pretty strong and patient person, but lack of sleep doesn't go hand in hand with maintaining a positive attitude. He's currently fast asleep. Here's hoping he stays that way for a good long night's sleep.
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