Continuing on with baths and toilets

Following on from my bathroom post the other day, I thought I'd get a better shot of the deep bath. I even roped in a (fully clothed) model to give you something a comparison for depth. I don't post photos of my kids here, so our nearly 8 y.o. is looking at his feet. The bath is 56cm deep (not quite 2 feet).

Well, I cleaned my toilets yesterday too, so I might as well show you them too. You'll pick an interesting trend in coloured tiles...

 The first is our downstairs toilet. Also known as the "yellow" toilet. The window opens out into our carport.

This is our front door on the right and yellow toilet on the left.

 Upstairs we have the "green" toilet. Did you notice that the toilet seats are plugged in? They will be warm in winter (if we choose). The yellow toilet will do other mysterious things too, but I'm not sure I'm game...












My biggest concerns about the toilets is that the floor tiles are cracking.

This is just inside the door to the green toilet. Someone is going to cut a foot. So, for the time being we've covered it with cardboard.

Storage is something Japanese in general are good at. This cupboard is built-in above the door in both toilets. It is kind-of cool. The bottom bit operates like an aeroplane storage facility. You press upwards and it opens downward. The reason why I'm not totally excited about it is that I cannot reach in unless I go and get a stool to stand on. Sometimes it is just inconvenient to be short - even in Asia.

Just a blip

I'm back. Survived the blip with a couple of quick strategies. Shopping and focussing on what we have here that we don't have in Australia.

Have I mentioned 100 yen shops before? I did a quick search and couldn't find anything. Anyway. There are shops here called 100 yen shops. Everything, or almost everything, is 100 yen (if it isn't it is a multiple of 100 yen and labelled accordingly). Actually 104 yen including sales tax. Anyway, from the very first time I entered one of these shops I've loved them. They have many bargains. They have many things you would never believe you can buy for 100 yen. Many general household needs, stationary needs and even hair care, first aid etc. needs can be met here. They are also good places to buy less expensive souvenirs.

This afternoon we took the boys to a nearby 100 yen shop to redeem some of the points they've earned from doing jobs around the house (another post). Bonus was I got to go and shop too! Here are just some of the things we bought.

Candles (we eat dinner with candles occasionally, nice for a change), stapler, tape, tongs, money boxes. Not pictured are small rubbish bins, various stationary required for starting school, a wind-up crocodile (5 y.o.'s choice for a reward), a plastic imitation gun that shoots foam thingies (7 y.o.'s choice for his reward) and an imitation Rubics Cube (11 y.o.'s choice). We also bought small workbooks for the boys to bone up on their Japanese basic characters. We're tired of answering questions about basic things the boys could figure out for themselves - like, "Which is the start button?" When if they could read these characters, they could figure it out for themselves. This is a start in the right direction towards them being a bit more self-sufficient in this country.

It wasn't just that it was retail therapy that cheered me up, it was the strategy I've tried to get my kids to do when they wanted to come back to Japan before our time in Australia was up. Trying to get them to focus on the now and what we CAN do/experience/enjoy about the place where we are rather than long for a place we are not.

My husband did the same thing with my menu planning woes. He suggested a Japanese meal that I cook fairly regularly. Perfect - I knew I could easily (and cheaply) get the ingredients for it. I didn't know that the boys would enjoy eating it because I've had plenty of complaints in the past, but in the end two out of three did. So that is a victory.

A touch of homesickness.

Oh dear, a touch of home sickness this morning. As I sat down to write the evening meal menu for the week, I could only think of what I didn't have - and things I could easily have bought in an Australian grocery store. Made writing a menu difficult.

I've also found myself missing a few Australian TV shows (can you believe?!). Time for some re-orientation.

We're getting to the boring end of school holidays and it also hit me during the night that David returns to full-time at-school work next week. A week before the boys go back. Oh no, how am I going to cope?

Yep, having a pity party this morning. Quite uncalled for. Instead I should be counting my blessings, which are many.

Just to remind myself, here are some (in not particular order):
Our new car arrives today (not that we can drive it yet - still waiting on paper-work).
My husband is currently vaccuuming the fly screens.
I've had my husband around the house almost full-time for more than 12 months. He is a wonderful person to have around. Terribubbily helpful (you can tell we've been reading The Muddle-Headed Wombat stories).
Our boys are now helping around the house more too (another blog story in this one).
I am sitting in a house that is unpacked. A miracle in itself!
Today is cooler.
I have health (mostly) and lots of people who love me.
I have money to go and buy groceries and a fridge to put them in when I come back.
I don't have to take the boys shopping with me!!
I have heaven to look forward to.

Japan photo #4

I bought this the other day. Can you guess what it is?

It is a cockroach bait. A cardboard cockroach bait. A cardboard cockroach bait that looks like a house. There is a picture of a cockroach waving out of an open window! There is are pop-ups in the middle that add to the 3D effect.

Our main concern is that it is so large. Where around the house are we going to put all ten of them?

My secondary concern is that children who found it would want to play with it, because it looks like a toy!

Our bathroom

This previous post with our house plan on it includes a room labelled "vanity room". This is a somewhat confusing label that Caroline picked up on, so today I'm blogging some photos to clarify that room. The room is located part-way up the stairs. You can just see in this photo taken from outside our bedroom door its location next to the bay-window. The door to the right and up a couple of stairs is a toilet door. I'll let you see in there another day (got to clean it first!).

It holds the vanity basin and mirror (on the left of this photo) plus the washing machine and dryer (above the washing machine). It is also the dressing/undressing room prior to entering the Japanese shower/bathroom (which are the yellow tiles you can see through the open door), which is a total wet-area.

This is the largest vanity basin and storage above and below the vanity basin that we've ever had in Japan. It is wonderful. Two or three people can even use the area at the same time. In our first apartment in Japan the washing machine and vanity basin were in the kitchen. In our last house the area was so narrow that it was hard to even have two adults standing in the room together.

Behind the mirrors are narrow shelves that hold all the stuff you need in a bathroom - toothbrushes, hair stuff, deodorant etc.

These rooms even have towel rails - a novelty for us in Japan. Usually we've hung towels from long wall-to-wall poles that I'll tell you about another day.

The Japanese bath/shower room is something amazing to behold. It also is large. Larger than any bathroom we've had before. That is something of a disappointment to me. I'd hoped for a smaller bathroom, not just because it is easier to clean, but because these high roofed shower rooms are hideously cold in winter. And this room is 2.83m (more than 9 feet) tall! I have to admit I am not totally excited about the colour either, but it does lend a cheery feel to the house.


A small explanation of Japanese bathing is in order. Japanese wash themselves off in a shower and then hop in a deep bath to relax. No soap or dirt goes into the bath as it is typically used by the whole family. We don't use this area in quite that fashion. When the boys were younger we bathed them (yes, soap and dirt) in the bath (ofuro it is called in Japanese). We're minimising the cleaning that that calls for and they are all showering now, occasionally relaxing in the bath after the dirt and soap is gone.

Water is expensive here, so we tend not to indulge in the deep, Japanese baths ourselves. I am not a bath-loving person myself so that doesn't bother me. Though it is a lovely thing in mid-winter to sink into a shoulder-deep hot bath and warm yourself up down to the bones!

I hope that clarifies that piece of our house plan for everyone.

Rascal's Hill

Today we went to one of our favourite places to play. It is a large park to the south of here, a good 25-45 minutes drive depending on the traffic. Its name is Koganei. It is the second largest park in Tokyo. Here is a map I picked up:

The place we always end up is called Rascal's Hill (that is what the sign says). It has a large number of different things for the children to play on. Our boys have referred to it as the "park with the tunnels" because the back-side of the hill with all the climbing stuff is covered with 1m high bushes which have had decades of children crawling and chasing through them. It is a rabbit warren of tunnels.

Today we were surprised to find very few people there. It is often quite crowded. Obviously people went elsewhere on a day that got close to 35 degrees. However there was plenty of shade to be had (the trees are magnificent and large) and a gentle breeze kept us from dying too badly from the heat.

And when it got too hot we could stand in front of this cool-wet-airblowing machine or buy cold drinks from the ever present vending machine.

But our boys were game for everything. They even rode bikes around the bike course for half an hour (cost us about $1.20 per bike to hire them).

Of course it was another piece of nostalgia. We've spent many a fun day here. By ourselves and with friends. No doubt we'll be back another day. We still have much to explore, there is an architectural museum, a eucalyptus "field", plum and cherry blossom trees, a bird sanctuary and a steam locomotive. We usually don't make it past "Rascal's Hill" but maybe one time we'll get to see some of the other wonders of this park.

House plan plus bedroom photos

Here is our house plan.

You've seen photos of down-stairs. Upstairs our room is "Bed 1" and the flowers are on the landing and in the bay window half-way up the stairs.

Over the coming days I'll put up more photos of the house from various angles. Today I've posted photos from our bedroom.


 
Out the window on the left of the first photo is where we go to hang out our washing. It is not a wide balcony, but quite functional for washing.

The wall is like a loose sandpaper. Kind of annoying for housekeeping, because it tends to shed!

Can you see where things are hanging from? This board has a gap behind it at the top from which hooks can be hung. Very useful as you don't really want to stick things into the wall.

The window coverings are the same as the ones in the lounge room. Wooden frames covered in paper. Thankfully on the outside of the house there are large window-sized metal shutters that slide into place and help us to sleep past the early sunrise (before 5am at present).

This style of room is called a "Washitsu" or Japanese style room. We call it a "Tatami room" which refers to the floor, a thick rice straw matting. Below is a close-up of the floor. It has a distinctive scent that takes a little time to get used to.

Tatami matting (cannot be lifted up for cleaning)

Then we have the cupboards along one wall. Deep Japanese cupboards designed to stack the bedding in during the day, but we're not using it for that, so there is lots of room for other things. Down the bottom on the right is our new linen cupboard, or part of it anyway. We found this lovely set of plastic drawers at a second hand shop and they are very useful. Japanese houses don't come with hanging space, but thankfully someone had previously put up rails inside the cupboards that we can use. The cupboard on the left has them too. I've taken it over and my sewing machine is in there too.