This is 'Kozuru House', as the folks at the Board of Education call it. Basically, my part of town is called Kozuru. This is my house. It is quite small, 33 square meters. In feet, that's still really small. But for just me, it's enough to try and keep clean... But yeah, it's kinda homely and dirty Carolina blue. You can see my gate (which is locked with a key I do not own), and my crappy 'charinko' bike. You can also see part of the house next door (not the big one behind it, no there's a clone of my house, just cleaner and with more flowers that's owned by these two Jehovah's Witness ladies with identical cars who work in a tofu shop in the next town. I really don't see how two unrelated people could possibly live in a place this small. I think they're lesbians.

Yeah, Phillip laughed too, until he went to my house.

The bedroom. Six tatami mats (12x9), two closets (I'm afraid to close them b/c it's so humid... and also I have an unnatural fear of closed closet doors. Well, maybe not a fullblown -fear-, per se, just a leeriness), the funfun clothesline that induces me to hang up -everything-, the longest, ugliest curtain ever (covering 9 feet of sliding glass door... always the best for keeping in air and sound)... and, of course, the Saiyuki Love or Sex poster.

Oh, I cleaned for this one! This is my sitting room, even if all you can see is my bed. (and don't think that other JETs aren't envious that I have a bed when they have a smelly, moldy futon they have to lay out every day. actually, I have a futon too, but my hang-out-bar doesn't actually see the sun, being adjacent to another house, so maybe I need to have a bed. Anyway, the sitting room is 4.5 mats. (aka 9x9). It has the (really small) AC unit, and the 'wall' between the bed and the TV room is actually sliding screens that you can close for privacy (aka when people come over and the bedroom is a mess). The hidden wall is a closet and sliding doors going to the hallway (to the bathroom and outside). The table is apparently a kotatsu, which is this table that you put a blanket on it and plug it in and it heats up. Winter fun! You can see the crap on the table (that's still there, four weeks later), and part of my tatami chair that I got Ohzeki-san to buy me. It really becomes uncomfortable after about an hour or so, but it was free, so. In the back that is my Onion calendar... something to keep me sane amongst all the Japan. Another fun fact about the sitting room is that it's the highest concentration of my hair in the house (excluding my head... possibly). You can find me here on Wednesday and Thursday nights, watching cartoons... actually, you can probably find me here every night, since this is the only table/desk in the house.

My kitchen, teeny tiny as it is, and the bath room behind. (aka room with bath; the toilet is actually by the front door, I took the picture sitting next to it.) There's sake and carrots in the picture, but neither of them have been used yet, four weeks later... you can see my 'gas table' (aka range), and I have an almost full sized fridge (super rare for JETs), a rice cooker, microwave, and toaster oven. I'd almost kill for a real oven though... (I'd kill for a party pizza. mmm... party pizzas...)

The bathtub (you can -kinda- see it in the corner of the room) is about 3' x 2', and you can pick it up and move it around the room. This is less convenient than one might think. Basically the bath room is a cement room with a drain in the floor. Then they put a bathtub in because they're Japanese. The shower head is one of those removable dealies on a hook, and it likes to use the force of the water to propel itself away from the bathtub, sometimes into the ceiling, which makes the ceiling flake off onto the floor. Fun! However, I do have a washer and dryer, and as one of the few people in Japan with a dryer, I can't complain -too- much. But I will anyway.

I bought that rug at the 100 yen shop. Isn't it cute?

Here's the view from my house. Rice fields, rice fields, and more rice fields. In the distance is school.

This is my car! It's a Subaru Vivio. It looks like a Hot Wheels or something because it is so small, and probably is beat out in power by a nice RC car, but what can you expect for under $1000? I -have- fit four people in it at the same time, but two of them were in love, so I'm not sure if that counts. We do drive on the left in Japan, which is something I've acclimated to surprisingly well. I have never pulled into the opposing lane of traffic. However, when I'm walking down the street, or sitting in the passenger side, I will randomly be struck by the idea that OHMIGOD WHAT IS THAT GUY DOING ON THIS SIDE OF THE STREET until I remember I'm in Japan, so it's okay.

Phillip calls my car the Wasabimobile, but it's really more of a candy/shiny toy tealy-green than a wasabi green, so I veto the name. From the kids at Sakuraoka, I got 'midori-green', 'yellow-green', 'emerald green' (ugly emerald tho..), and Taka said it was deep blue. But I'm not certain he understands what color 'deep blue' is.

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