April 8th, 2006

So many people fussed about the boxes in the second tatami room that I cleaned. So no more asking me where people will sleep! I fixed it and its all clean. The boxes have been thrown away, the 2nd kotatsu has been dismantled along with my puzzle. I also boxed up the books Im going to be sending home soon and reorganized the futon closets. Then, my cleaning frenzy moved to the rest of the apartment. So its all really clean right now. Took me TWO days! Well...Probably a total of four hours because I get distracted easily. Lets see how long we can keep it clean though. BUT!! I took pictures for you guys. I was going to give another tour, but we thought that might be boring since you already saw the apartment. Also, I was going to show the balacony and outside a little, but its weirdly foggy today, you can't see anything. You can't even see any of the mountains. So once again, you will have to wait until its a prettier day. If you want to compare, or in case you missed it, here is the link to the video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5337374904092321696 . Ok, now for some pictures!


This is the area above the washer and to the left of the shower. I cleaned it! It doesn't look THAT much cleaner, but I straightened up the top shelf and put the towel rack back up. Right under the plaid towel where you cant see, is a HUGE mound of laundry. In my cleaning frenzy, I found some clothes that we had been missing so they need to be washed. Made a big pile even though I just did laundry yesterday. The hanging bag that looks like a shower cap, is a bad that you put delicates in. Our washer doesn't have an agitater so it tends to tear up the more delicate of clothing. So thats what that is.


This is the tidy living room. I cleaned off the kotatsu table and actually wiped it down. Those boxes on the table are speakers that we plug into the laptops when we watch American DVDs. If we want to watch Japanese DVDs we use the Playstation 2. Chris is playing a game called Burnout 3. It's a racing game and really quite fun. That yellow dot on the kotatsu futon is just a camera flare spot thingy. Its really all green and really soft. I like it.


This is the kitchen table. We are using Chris's laptop today and using it at the table. Its actually cleaner than it looks but we keep our jackets on the chairs so it looks slouchy. To the left of the table in the background, you can see our badminton rackets. We've been going every Thursday and slowly we are getting better. This week was fun, but I got hit in the eye with the shuttlecock (birdie for those who don't know). It hurt. It gave me a headache for all day friday in that eye. But today Im better. The hazards of badminton are FIERCE!


This is our kitchen. Its also more tidy than it used to be though you can't really tell All the dished are put away and the weird stupid shelves we have are neat and organized with teh food staples. Part of the clutter of the kitchen comes from the fact that we are American and used to doing things like Americans do. I.E. we are used to buying food for a few days instead of buying food for only a day like Japanese people. That's why they don't have much storage or a cupboard in Japan. They don't keep as much food in the house. In fact, the shelves that I keep food on are supposed to hold pots and pans, but oh well! Thats the kitchen.


This is our fridge. I realized that I never showed people our refidgerator. There isn't a lot in it because I cleaned it out as well on Thursday. The eggs here are tan colored instead of the white that we get in america. The shells are also a little thicker so they are easier to break. That can is under the eggs is a kan of beer that Dustin left 8 months ago. We haven't touched it. I guess we should throw it away, but who knows. Maybe the person after us might enjoy it! If you look on the middle shelf (the shelf without the water bottle, relish, and ketchup) you can see a very traditional Japanese snack. Its the weird green thing on top of the tupperware. Its a rice ball! Called Onigiri in Japanese (which means squeezed because you squeeze rice balls into their shape). Its just pressed rice that is squeezed into a triangle shape. It usually has something in the middle (this one has tuna and mayonaise) and its wrapped in seaweed (nori). I always pull the seaweed off before I eat it though. It's made to come off, unlike sushi seaweed.


This is our bedroom. The futon are up to let the room air out. I also vaccumed and picked up random clothing that gets thrown around (I tend to wear socks to bed and wake up without them. Every week I have to wander around the bedroom and pick up my socks...I have no idea how they get all over the place). This isn't a very interesting picture, but you can see the tatami really well. Remember, tatami are just straw mats. They are kinda neat but sometimes they smell like hay if they get too hot.


This is momotaro (peach boy). He is our light pull and its really cool. During the day, momotaro goes inside his peach so we can walk around the bedroom without running into the light pull (in theory). When we put the futon down, we pull him down out of his peach and he hangs about a meter off the floor so we can reach the pull when we are lying down. The leaves of the peach glow in the dark so we can see it to turn the light on if its dark. Thats a peach, by the way. In Japan, they always show peaches upside down (with the leaf side down). It confused people to show them an american drawing of a peach because its wrong side up. Now, Momotaro is a legend in Japan. He was a little boy who was born inside a peach and then he went on many adventures and eventually defeated the big demon. Chris and I (and two other students) did a play in Japanese class about it once. So it is kinda a neat little thing to have. Kinda an inside joke thing.


This is the second tatami room. See! No boxes. It's all cleaned up. The puzzle is gone and the boxes have been thrown out. Well, there are two boxes left. One has a heater that we are going to take to the off house (used goods store) and sell it because we NEVER use it. The other has a bunch of my books that I'm waiting to ship back to America. But that's the clean room.


This is the bookshelf on the other side of that room (facing those closets). Ive organized it a little better so I can use it for when I start planning for classes (which start on the 18th before anyone asks). Its kinda cluttered with books and what not, but isnt that what a bookshelf is for? You can also see our new printer. I love the printer. It helps me plan for classes so much easier because I can print out flash cards or instructions in Japanese. By the printer is a white folder. This folder is full of maps and brochures for different places in Japan. Jane and Randy left it and Chris and I have been adding to it whenever we go somewhere. So when Abby and Jon come in about 4 weeks they can have some ideas of where to go and what to see. Mom and David can also peruse it as well (there is a really good Hiroshima map in it).


This is what the futon look like when they have been folded up and put in the closet. These are the extra futon for when people come visit. They are a royal pain to put up though because we don't have normal Japanese futon. We have futon that are actually just big matresses so they dont fold well. So I just tilt the futon up against the wall to get them out of the way and off the tatami to let them breathe.


This is Chris. Isn't he cute. He's making an annoyed face because he's still playing his video game and he crashed the car. The video game cheats really bad and it's annoying. I can't play without getting super mad at it. You can also see our cute bookshelf. The top left cubby has some of Chris's game books, Japanese language study books, and all of our Nintendo DS and PSP games. The shelf below that has some board games and some more of the game books. They are bigger books so they have to lay flat. On the top right shelf is all of our TV show dvds. Four seasons of 24, first seasn of lost, Dead Like Me, Fraggle Rock, Everwood, and my new favorite TV show, The West Wing. I love that show we have 3 seasons of it and I hope to get at least 2 more of the seasons if not all 7 seasons. If you look, you can see that we have 2 sets of season 3. The first one we got was damaged so Amazon sent me a second set free. How nice. Below that shelf is just some more random DVDs, our CDs, and a shogi board. Shogi is essentially Japanese chess. I am terrible at it. It's fun though. This is a begginer Shogi set though and it has all the moves written on the pieces so it helps me play. There is just random stuff on the top of the shelves.


This is the game Chris is playing. It's a brutal racing game. He ended up winning this race I do believe. On top of the TV is just random figurines I have gotten since I've been here. There are four mario figurines that I got from the convinience store (I was looking for peach, but I never got her). There is our second controller, a pretty red. The welcome kitty that Katie got me from disney world. The heart stuck to the TV is from Valentine's Day. I was bored so when Chris wasn't home I ran around and stuck little pink hearts all over the house. I think you can see some on the door I go through in the video we took.

Ok! That's it for the apartment pictures. Here are a few pictures I took at a cute little shrine in Izumo. It's just one of the random shrines that are scattered throughout Izumo. Izumo is called the land of 100 gods because there are SO MANY shrines around. I'm so used to seeing them that I always forget to take pictures.


This is the torii gate that leads up to the shrine. This shrine is on top of the hill up the stairs. We didn't want to go up there though because we didn't want to intrude. I feel guilty being a tourist at shrines sometimes. It woudl be like if people came into the sancuary when we were praying and having service just to gawk and take pictures of us. It's kinda rude and all that. Izumo-Taisha is a little different because it is a tourist spot as well as a shrine. Anyways, this is the torii and next to it is a little shrine pedestal thingy. Both the gate and the pedestal mean that you are walking on sacred ground once you pass by. The statue on the other side with writing is the name of the shrine. We can't read it though.


When you go to pray at shrine, you have to wash your hands first. This is the place where you wash your hands. You can see the water dipper and the dragon fountain thing. It was really neat.


This is a god-statue. It's a monkey. The rope and folded paper denote that it's housing a god (I could be wrong, but Im pretty sure thats what that means). I guess the rock that the statue is carved from is the sacred thing and the carving was just a way to show the god and worship her. Neato!


So thats all the pictures and today's update! Now no one can ask me about my messy apartment! You should compliment me on the cleanlyness of it all.

Much love!