Japanese Apartments

Happy New Year! Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!

I wrote a little about my apartment when I first moved in, but I have a few pictures I took when I was moving out (when it was actually clean!) so I thought I'd post those now with a note about Japanese apartments. Apartments here are generally very, very small but mine, at least, was well-designed. When you walked in you would be in a hallway with the shower and toilet on your left and the washing machine, kitchen, and cupboard on your right. At the end of the hallway there was a door into the living/dining/bedroom. The closet in the main room was designed so that the clothes hang in the top half and the bottom half is where you're supposed to store your futon in the daytime. The room was probably about nine feet by eleven or twelve feet, so it was cozy but it heated up quickly in the winter and cooled quickly in the summer.

Bathrooms are designed so you can wash yourself before getting in the bath, which means that there's a drain in the floor and you can just soak the whole thing when it's time to clean it. The kitchen was just a sink, a burner, and a mini-fridge below the burner. I attached two pictures of the main room so you can get an idea of the size. These pictures were obviously taken when all of my stuff was already gone so they make it look more spacious than it actually was. One big advantage of Japanese apartments is that they always come with balconies because almost no one has a dryer so you need somewhere to hang your clothes.

I enjoyed living in my wee little apartment and it was a good experience to live like many young Japanese people (although it's very common for young people to continue living with their parents until they get married, and sometimes after they're married), but now I'm living in a house with an actual kitchen and a bit more room to spread out, which is a treat!

Thanks for reading,
Cate