My Mazda at rental cluster house
I don’t remember what model year this car was, but it had a manual shift and a powered sunroof. Now, if you think driving on the left side of the road would be a challenge, you should try shifting with your left hand — it takes some getting used to. My rental house is on the right. You can just make out the kerosene heater vent beneath the window. I was lucky enough to have a heater with an external tank, i.e., I never had to pour the kerosene myself. After a few months, you get used to your place smelling like JP-8 all the time. There were five houses clustered into this small area, each with a very small attached garage with no door. You had to drive carefully to be able to park in that garage, and when there was room to park outside, you didn’t even try. Notice where I’m parked. My garage already had suffered a collision on one side, and the owner tried to force me to pay for the damage when I left.
My kitchen
This was shortly after I moved in. Cute little kitchen for a three-bedroom house, huh? Just be careful what you plug into that electric socket at the end of the bar, though — it provides only 90 volts. But that was enough to run my hotplate, and I bought a transformer to power my microwave.
- Complete with pay phone and free toilet
Behold, the ubiquitous “pink phone.” The white part at the bottom is the coin box. Just keep a supply of ten-yen coins nearby and feed it while you talk. And local calls, only, please. If you want long distance, go buy a phone card and find a green phone. I think yellow phones might also work, but I never could get the color system down.
Note the boards that span the bottoms of the doorways. In Japan, you must remove your shoes to prevent tracking in the abrasive volcanic dirt, so you’ll be sure to stub a toe in the dark getting up to go to the can for the first week or so.
There's efficiency for you!
No wasted space here. The tank goes in the corner, and the feed pipe doubles as a towel rack. When you push the flush lever (either direction), the water comes out the faucet at the top so you can wash your hands, and the water is caught in the basin on the top and continues on into the tank, ready to provide the fluid for the next flush. No place for soap, though. Also note the brake on the toilet paper dispenser. Handy thing, that — it rests on the top of the roll and prevents it from spinning off paper onto the floor if you pull too hard.
Make sure you shower before you bathe
Bath time in Japan is right before dinner (or supper, depending on what part of the US you come from). The black hose rises to a shower head, but if you want to do it the Japanese way, you’ll need to get yourself a short stool and a pan, one that looks like it was meant for watering your dog, and you sit in front of the faucet and wash yourself. The tub is used for soaking, only, thank you very much. In the mirror you can see the insulating cover for the tub, in case you want to set it up in advance, or in case the whole family needs to use the same water: Grandparents first, then the parents, then the older children, then the young children, males before females. That tub is short, but it is deep. I got caught in there once during a 5.1 earthquake, and I feared the roof would fall in and I would be drowned in the tub before it could drain.
Needs furniture
Shortly I will have a nice carpet, a low-to-the floor Japanese table, a big TV, a component stereo system and large speakers, with bookshelf Bose speakers in the rear for surround sound. In the corner you can see the kerosene heater I mentioned previously. You can also see the connection for the fuel line. Above, on the wall, there is an exhaust fan in case the kerosene fumes get overpowering. It doesn’t do much for the carbon monoxide, though, since that is heavier than air, but the window slides open and you can let in cold, fresh air (except that the heater vent is right beneath the window!) to go with the warm, toxic air — basically the same principle as heating with a hibachi (in other words, sleep with a heavy comforter and wear a hat in the wintertime). On the shelf beneath the phone is my Katakana (one of two Japanese phonetic alphabets) study book and some Japanese dictionaries. Pay no attention to that bag of potato chips under the bar.
