My Home Away From Home

Sorry for not delivering up on my post about where I reside here in Japan.  Hopefully this will make up for the lack of updating on my part.  So big picture; this is where I live:

Here's a closer view to put it relation to well-known places like Shibuya and Shinjuku.

The thing that confuses me is that when I tell people where I live, they get very sympathetic and usually respond with things like "Oh, yeah, there's nothing really there."  I got this reaction from someone who lives in Saitama right before I left Hawaii.   I was left dreading that I would be going to another McMinnville where the closest thing in the way of a night life were three bars; where everything closes at 8pm; and where the only 24-hour establishment was a 7 Eleven.  However, I think the Japanese have something different in mind when it comes to "boring" or "uneventful" because there are tons of things within walking distance of me.  Perhaps most Japanese natives want a Shibuya in terms of a "fun" city.

An even closer view of where I live (red marks where I frequent the most).

But I was glad to see that Kurihara is nothing like McMinnville.  I'm just a 15-minute walk from the Hibarigaoka Train Station, and along the way, there are a ton of small shops and restaurants.  Let's start from the station.  Across from the station (or south if you go off the picture above), there's a Seiyu (the Japanese equivalent of Walmart) as well as a small department store.  There, I can meet most of my apparel needs as well as any household goods.  There's also a bunch of food chains like a McDonald's, Mister Doughnut, and Baskin Robin's.

If you follow the red path heading north, every little building along that path is a shop up until the first corner.  There are little boutiques for clothes, a drug store, grocery store (Olympic), meat shop, fish shop... just about anything you can think of there's a shop for it along that one stretch.  The worse is this really tasty-smelling kebab shop that usually covers the street in the delicious aromatic scents of teriyaki chicken just off the grill.  It tempts me to buy some every time I'm coming back home (usually hungry).  But if you continue past my apartment there are bunch of other stores like a 24-hour Book Off , a DVD rental place, and more grocery stores.

As for the apartment where I live, it's a guesthouse, so there are people from all parts of the world (kind of). The manager's name is Carl, a native of Sweden, who lives with his daughter who he is borrowing from his ex-wife so that she can brush up on her Japanese.  Then there's Sebatian who's from Canada and lives with his Japanese wife; Charlie, a Chicago-lite, who works part-time as an English teacher; and Eiji, a Japanese native with an impressive English vocabulary.  Apparently we also have French, Scottish, and British neighbors, but I've yet to meet them.  There's a bunch of other people living here, I'm pretty sure of it, but I just haven't seen them around yet.  The neighbors I have interacted with, mostly Carl, Sebastian, Charlie, and Eiji, are probably the best neighbors I could have hoped for.  There's a good story that pretty much sums up their awesomeness but that's for another post.

My room is definitely a lot smaller than the ad let on, but it's just the right size for two to live in.

 Here's our room in a nutshell.  The bed in the back is where my roommate sleeps.  

Where do I sleep?  That's coming up later....

Another angle of the room.  The room came with a makeshift table that I sometimes use as a desk,

 but usually  we just put crap on it. 

In case you were wondering where my bed was, it's in the closet!  

I was just the right length to fit inside (lucky me).

So yes, this is home sweet home.  As I mentioned earlier, I'll talk more about my neighbors and then perhaps I'll get around to talking about my actual adventures!  Thanks for being good sports about my delayed posts.