House Hunting

OK, I think I'm ready to talk about the house, now that we have actually found one. Warning: this could get long, so you may want to get a cocktail or snack if you plan on being here for the long haul.

All righty....

It has been a hot, sweaty, and exhausting week, but somehow in a good way. All of these challenges are partly fun, because it's so interesting to me to see how differently things are done in other parts of the world. In addition, the boys have been sleeping like champs every night thanks to us walking them around all day long in the ridiculous heat and humidity. BONUS! So while this has all been one long sun-blasted week, I feel pretty good about where things stand right now.

First, we finally found a lovely house to rent that I am so excited about. Here are photos: http://www.japanbases.com/housing/viewproperty/type/view/id/3128/3ldkloft-usui-home-in-ikego.aspx

It is a decidedly Western house. The owner is Japanese, but he spent time in England and put a lot of Western touches into the house ---- there are regular doors with knobs (most Japanese doors are the sliding variety), there is an OVEN (Japanese homes do not have ovens, ever), the walls and floors are all very sturdy, hard wood; and, there are no tatami rooms.

Tatami are the mats that line some of their floors in special rooms of Japanese homes. They are usually multi-purpose rooms, but the mats are somewhat fragile, and the doors leading to the rooms are as well, as they are made of paper divided into sections by lightweight wooden frames.

We had originally been looking at traditional Japanese homes, but after Jackson poked a hole in the paper door leading into a tatami room in one place we were looking at, we realized maybe that wasn't the best idea. I mean, the boys would have torn those paper doors down in about 2 seconds flat, let's face it.

Here are a few pictures of tatami rooms from some of the houses we looked at:

There are 3 things about the house we decided on that are definitely Japanese: 1) it's small by Western standards; 2) there is no yard or outdoor space, and 3) the bathroom(s) ---- in Japanese homes the toilets are always in a room by themselves, and there is a separate room with a bathtub and a showering floor NEXT to the bathtub. The sink is in another room altogether.

And a kitchen with no oven!!!

 
Anyway, I am so excited about the place we found, and the challenges along the way have been laughable already. The main thing that has been a challenge is not having a car. This base here is enormous - so big that there is actually a bus that goes around it all day. (This has been both convenient and also a good form of entertainment for the tiny terrors, who have never been on a bus before.) However, sometimes the bus doesn't actually come at the time that would get us where we need to be on time. So then there is a lot of walking...

Some of the real estate agents in town are able to drive onto base, and some are not. (Meaning, some have permits to do so and some do not.) So if you are using a company who cannot come get you on base, you have to make your way into town and meet them somewhere. We do not have a stroller yet (we sold our awful ones back in Washington before we moved), but we do have the car seat dollies that the boys love to push around. (We also had to bring the car seats anyway since we were riding around in cars with the agents.)

This is all great until 2 days ago when Adam had to go to the bank, and the boys are with me and decide they don't want to walk anymore. This is, naturally, at the same time I have to meet an agent at the front of base, and the bus won't get there until 20 minutes after we need to be there. So of course I decide to walk and pull the boys in their strollers on the dollies. (This is an attractive sight, let me tell you.) Then what happens? No big deal, Jackson's wheel just breaks off and we are stranded on the sidewalk with a broken wheel and 2 boys who ain't going anywhere.

Fortunately, there were some angels smiling upon me - a very nice stranger walked up and said, "how can i help?" and ended up putting Anthony in her stroller while Jackson pulled one car seat and I carried the other one on my back. (Thank you, Jackson, for being stalwart; this totally makes up for the $100 hole in the paper door.) Then when I didn't think it could get any more absurd, the angel with the stroller flagged down a nice Japanese man in a truck and ended up getting us a ride the rest of the way! By the time we met up with that real estate agent we were pretty much delirious, hot, sweaty messes. But already laughing about our ride in the truck.

And finally, before I go to sleep, here is a young, sweaty son with dreams, drinking a Japanese cherry soft drink of some sort. Sometimes that's all it takes to make him happy!