Our House!

Here is our home in Japan! It has several pretty neat features. It's a 2-story, 4 bedroom home. It doesn't really have a yard, as most homes here don't due to lack of space. In front of our house we have a driveway big enough to fit one car in. In the back, we have  a little patio big enough for some seating and a small grill. We don't have anything on the sides, and no grass at all - Japan is all concrete!

We have a washer/dryer unit. Saves space and no need to transfer clothes to another machine. On our balcony we have poles installed to hang clothes to air dry if we like.

Japanese homes do not have ovens like we think of in America. They all have stove tops, but if you're lucky, you'll get a fish broiler. It's a tiny little grill right under the burners, and it's just big enough to broil a fish in. Definitely not baking any cakes or pies in there!

Also, showers take up the entire room. They aren't a separate space in a bathroom like we are used to. The bathtub is also in the shower room, but you cannot use soap in it due to its specialized heated plumbing (the tubs have circulating plumbing so your bath water never gets cold). 

The toilet is in its own room away from the shower room. The toilet rooms look like tiny hallway closets, and when you open the door the only thing in there is just a toilet. To save space and resources, the sink is in the back of the toilet on top of the tank. It's great!

Another neat feature is the secret storage in our kitchen. There is a door in our kitchen floor that opens to a storage space where you can keep dry goods.