Japan Cribs BOOYAH!

This blog is unlike the blogs you are used to. Unlike every other blog I have ever written, I sat down to write this blog with a purpose. I mean a purpose beyond trying to salvage my native tongue, which I seem to be forgetting how to speak with any kind of fluency.

First up I want to apologise to my New Zealand friends and family. You’ve had to wait a long time to see the upcoming brilliance. But it’s not my fault! I’m about to do what I do every time something undesirable or unfortunate happens to me: blame my predecessor.

For example, once I tripped on some stairs and hurt my ankle, and goddamn if it wasn't my predecessor's fault. And don't even get me started on those times when my alarm has failed to go off in the morning.

The girl who lived here before us is pretty much a stranger to me. But I’ve read enough Batman comics to consider myself a master detective, and using my keen sleuth senses I have determined that she had two major hobbies.
They were: 1) avoiding cleaning, and
                  2) buying candles.
Seriously, we got rid of more candles than an 18^th century brothel liquidation sale. She must have been the easiest person to buy birthday presents for.

Oh my God, I love candles. How did you know!

Had we been sure the house was fireproof, it probably would have taken less time to just set the interior on fire and start from scratch. I hate candles now. Whenever I see a candle I just feel unclean.

Anyway, they’re all gone! So after 3 months of intensive feng shui and crying while I scrub away mould and redesigning spaces and assembling furniture that comes in 163 pieces, I present to you our apartment. Watch your head on the low beams in the ceiling, they’re brutal.

The Lounge

Ah, let's start in my favourite place. J Here lives the mega TV, the PS3, the computer, the giant couch, pretty much everything that is good in this world. Happy sigh...

It has tatami matting on the floor, which is really awesome until the day I turn over a cup of coffee. Which you and I both know is in my future.

Ssshh. There, there. Daddy'll be home soon.

Our little "office" slash where we keep our luggage.

The Kitchen

The kitchen is small. It’s definitely a one person kitchen, as I have found any time I’ve tried to get in there when my wife is busy doing the mysterious kitchen things that women do. The main challenge for the kitchen was finding a way to have enough room to store all of our appliances AND have room to prepare meals AND have room to put the dishes somewhere until I get around to washing them.

The Bedroom

The bedroom is a two person space, but only just. When I get up at morning I have to inch along the space between the foot of the bed and the wall. I’m not angry about it though; I like to just chalk it up as ninja training. We used to have a large black freestanding wardrobe in the corner, but I think my guitar looks much better in that space. Don’t you?

The Part that’s not the Lounge, the Kitchen or the Bedroom.

We could call this the bookshelf room, because that’s about all that fits in there. It used to house all the candles. Like the kitchen, it has no tatami, just this classy hardwood floor-looking linoleum. On top of the bookshelf, under the eternal guardianship of plushy Mario, is a tourist map of Kobe. I use a black marker to cross off places we have been. Eventually I want a whole map of black X’s. Because I’m emo that way.

The Toilet

Capybaras cuddling. The hanging thing is a deer from Nara.

Miffy & fruits = A happy poo times!

That’s right, I went there. Anyway, the toilet’s one of the biggest rooms in our house! You can see that it was difficult for me to squeeze my huge muscles in there just to take a photo. The Miffy theme makes such hardships easier to bear. On the notice board are souvenirs, tickets and brochures from various places we have seen around Japan. We try to scrounge or steal at least one thing for the board every time we go somewhere new.

The Genkan (Entrance)

It’s really all about the partitioning curtain on this one. That’s all I wanted to show you. There’s also a washing machine, a sink and about 32 shoes. Exciting!

Dogs, right? They know everything.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my virtual tour of our abode. Thanks for coming!

Now get out.