I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, so here it goes. Here’s a brief tour of my apartment. I took these pictures during the first week so already it looks different. (more random crap on the walls, etc.) I am living at Takamori Town’s teacher housing apartment. Conveniently located between a department store and a home improvement store (think Wal-mart and Home Depot only smaller only higher quality) and a ~3 minute walk from a train station, while this apartment is a little ways away from downtown Iida City, the location in itself couldn’t be better.
My apartment has one main room, a bathroom and a kitchen. The main room is an 8 tatami mat room and the tatami is brand new. Except for the strip of wood you see here where the tv and whatnot is placed, the rest of the floor is tatami. The school provided the tv and vcr, I bought the dresser from my predecessor, bought the chair at Apita (the dept. store), and the closet/shelving/desk unit is the apartments.
My Apartment:Desk and TV area
My Apartment: Kitchen Area
My Apartment: Kitchen Area
This is a view from the main room facing the kitchen. The kitchen itself seems a little industrial, since it’s all stainless steel, but its easy to clean and won’t get dated looking. I ’stole’ the range from another predecessor who left it behind, but had to clean it for an hour. Except for the rice cooker, I bought and/or my predecessor gave me everything on the kitchen rack. I also bought a scale and kitchen/bath mats too. Also, you can’t see it but behind that little metal wall there is a washing machine.
My Apartment:Tatami Style
This picture was taken in the same location only facing the other direction, into my room. Since clothes dryers are rare in Japan, every apartment has a porch with a pole in which you can hang stuff on to dry. Right now there’s an American flag hanging there both to show my support for team USA and show where the American is living.
Lastley, here’s a picture of my closet area and of my bed and couch. This is what is left of the famous bed that I broke. I much prefer sleeping on the floor; makes my room look bigger so I’m happy. My predecessor gave me enough blankets for a small army to sleep over so I’ll have no problem when guests come to visit, and I bought the couch and chair from her so people have places to sit. Since I won’t use my whole closet for linen stuff, I threw the shelves up there to save space, along with my mirror, iron and ironing board, which literally is a small board. While there are a lot more posters and random stuff around my room, there is nothing on the sliding doors now. Trying to remove the blue and white info sheet, I found out that while the sliding door paper is slick, it’s only paper and tape will remove strips of paper from the door. Yeah. The wall paper is really durable though so no worries there. I feel bad about the door, but I guess when you build your house out of straw and paper, things aren’t suppose to last forever. I was told tatami has a life span of about 10 years before you should get new. Imagine replacing your carpet every 10 years.
I’m pretty happy about my apartment. While there are ALT houses available, they are not as new, as clean, or as conveniently located next to stores and a train station like this place. Plus, I think this place is safer; only teachers are allowed to live here and with several of the tennants being English teachers, I’ve got people to ask questions if any problems arise.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my tour. 
My Apartment: Closet area
My Apartment:Bed and Sofa/Table Area
Filed under: JET
With the opening ceremonies coming and going, the 2nd semester has officially begun. Since the Japanese school year starts in April, assistant language teachers not from Asia begin after a third of the school year has already passed. I’ve been placed in two different high schools, one is my host school, and one is a visit school that I visit 1 1/2 days each week. Prior to yesterday I’d only visited my visit school once. As a vocational high school, it’s pretty good school, but nonetheless, it does not cater to the same students as my host school. The students were pretty loud and obnoxious yesterday, talking out loud during the assembly and whatnot. Of course, being the new girl, I had to give a speech to both the teachers as a group and the students, and of course, they preferred me speaking in Japanese since I’d studied the language before. Being in an unfamiliar place with rude students, I was nervous and didn’t do that well on my speech. It didn’t really matter so much though. I wore a suit, I spoke Japanese, I tried my best. Some of the teachers told me afterwards that the staff was impressed, so I was grateful.
This whole ordeal was great practice for today’s opening ceremony at my host school, where I did a lot better. The students were a little chatty during the assembaly, but I guess I would be too if the teachers’ were enforcing the rules. On a whole, though, these students were much better. My host school is the 2nd best high school in Iida and with a strong international studies program, caters to students who are not only college bound, but have their eyes fixed on the better universities of Japan, as well as wish to study abroad. I’m glad to be placed in two different school environments, and see how these schools compare and contrast.
