a seriously little place

So, here is the deal. When we named this blog, we had no idea. We just thought it was a cool name. But here's the deal, it's 8 1/2' x 12', and that makes it actually a little place in Japan.

This is the first night in our tiny nugget of an apartment. It's nestled back from the tiny winding street among modern and traditional Japanese homes and up some seriously old steep stairs covered in lush greenery.

Our apartment building on the left. Bottom right Door.

The only thing that is English is our 1/4 cook top, which sits in the hallway in between the door to the bathroom and our washing machine. We thought our San Antonio stove was bad, but this one consists of 2 burners only. There are no ovens in Japan, or most of Asia for that matter. Right now Brandon's knife kit actually covers the entire thing!

There is only one American channel on our super sweet TV, which is painful because we have free Internet cable. As excited as we were to find a channel playing 24 hours of CSI, Lost, Brothers & Sisters, Mad Men, 90210, and more...so far every single one is translated to Japanese! So, alas...we must find other ways to entertain ourselves.

Our Bed is actually a cubby hole, in which we must travel up a ladder that is built to hold a 100lb Japanese 20-something, not a respectfully larger American...it's pretty funny the fear we will now experience from crawling out of bed. Which I might add is a remarkably comfortable futon mat. Not too keen on the lame grandma flower pattern, but it works for now.

We can't even begin to talk about the bathroom, in which you can take a shower while you brush your teeth and fill up the bathtub with the same water spout.

While this might sound crazy, after the five minutes we wallowed in self pity, we picked ourselves up (actually we crawled down the ladder), and went out to discover our neighborhood. Turns out we are a 5 minute walk down some seriously steep steps, past modern and close to ancient homes, to downtown. The Arcade is a 4 block strecth of shops, restaurants, 100 yen stores, hair salons, and floral shops. It is surrounded by downtown Sasebo. It is everything you would want from a Japanese city. Vibrant, smelly, crowded, and loud. Although it may only stretch 6 or so blocks, it's no Tokyo, but we are so excited to explore every inch.

Our street

Two of the 3 sets of steps up to our apartment.

We are beginning to realize the reality of this choice, but have vowed to keep a positive outlook, other wise there is no point. Thank you for your constant contact with us, we can only hope it continues...we believe it will be a big factor in our success.