Be it ever so humble....

[shirenomad]

I've basically got a studio apartment here. As you walk in the door, first there's the usual "shoe deposit area" (I have no idea what its actual name is), then you step up onto the hardwood and head straight down a short hallway with the bathroom and toilet (separate rooms) on the left, and the clotheswasher and kitchenette on the right. Past that is the main room: the closet is on the wall behind you, to the left of where the hall connects, and the furniture covers most of both side walls. At the far end is a sliding glass window that leads out onto a small balcony; this is mostly for hanging clothes out to dry (notice I mentioned a clothes washer but no dryer) and it has a closet-like pole hanging there just for that purpose. I notice these "clothespoles" (instead of clotheslines) seem to be a common theme at residences around Japan, or at least this area of it... natural gas is expensive around here, and "wasting it" on getting clothes dry when you can do it the old fashioned way is a bit of a luxury. Same goes for heating water. Each apartment has its own hot water tank, with a small control positioned outside the bathroom: turn it on about five minutes before you want to take a hot shower, then switch it back off when you're done to conserve gas. (No one told me that my first day here, and I wound up taking the coldest friggin' shower I'd ever had that morning... thankfully, someone else was able to explain the controls to me before Day 2.)