Pulling Up Stakes

Our current apartment was provided to us by the Board of Education when we arrived in Fukuyama. They rent about 10 apartments in our neighbourhood and since they often hire unmarried, childless English teachers the size of the apartments are usually more than adequate. We are the first family with more than one child that has been hired in this city and I don't think Dustin's supervisor put in a lot of thought before we came into our need for extra space or adult privacy.

A few months ago, Dustin and I finally decided that our tiny apartment was simply too small for the four of us, but especially our two rambunctious boys. We started to casually look around at places for rent, but we hadn't gone to view anything or even talked to the Board of Education about possibly moving. What we had read about other ALTs on the JET Programme who wanted to find a place to live other than the apartment provided for them, was that it was possible but you would have to pay all of the key money (a non-refundable down payment, damage deposit, landlord and real estate agent fee that is usually 3-7 months rent) on the new place and your rent would no longer be subsidized. Because of this massive investment on our part we were only half serious about wanting to move. In the meantime, a cute little house in our neighbourhood that had been undergoing massive interior renovations became available for rent. It is a slightly older, more traditional style house with a fenced in yard that is miraculously unpaved and not covered in a million boulders and clipped trees; perfect for planting grass and letting the kids take their energy outside. 


We met with the real estate agent who informed us that the key money was an astronomical 385,000 yen (about 5,000 $ Canadian), but the monthly rent is pretty cheap and there was the perfect amount of inside and outside space for us. Next we talked to the Board of Education about canceling our current lease so that we could rent the house. We were informed that, no, we weren't allowed to move, not even if we paid our own key money and rent. We even offered to continue to pay rent on both places until our current apartment's lease ran out in August, but they wouldn't hear of it. So, we sat around and moped for a few weeks feeling even more cooped up than before.

Just when we had gotten over the blow having our dream knocked out from under us, Dustin's supervisor called us and said that after numerous discussions on her end, they decided cancel our apartment lease, pay the key money on the house for us, and subsidize our rent to the same degree that they do on our apartment. I am not sure what prompted the sudden and extreme change of mind, but who am I to question the hand that feeds me? In the future, I hope that the Fukuyama Board of Education will take into consideration the family size of those they are hiring and rent appropriately sized apartments. This was new territory for them, but we are so grateful at how generous and accommodating they are being.

So, we are moving on May 31st and are excited beyond words. I will post pictures of our new place as soon as we can after moving but unfortunately, it will take about a month or two for our internet to be hooked up, so my ability to post will be severely limited from Thursday on.

A Blessing and a Curse

On Friday, as I waited for Theo's kindergarten bus to arrive, I noticed some men removing all of the tatami from a fifth floor apartment across the street. It was really neat to watch them lower each mat down  on a rope with a hook at the end from the balcony. While enjoying this new sight, I was able to reflect for a few minutes on how common tatami has become in my life in the last six months.

For those who don't live in Japan or have never visited, tatami is a thick mat of rice fiber and woven straw that is used as flooring in at least one of the rooms of a typical Japanese apartment or house. Each mat is about 2.5 - 5.5 cm thick and is usually 90 cm wide by 180 cm long. Since tatami size is fairly uniform, often people will tell you the size of a room or house by how many tatami are in it. In our apartment, the small kitchen and bathroom have wood flooring, but all of the other living space has tatami.

I still remember the feeling of stepping onto our tatami for the first time. It was firmer and denser than I expected, but still had a bit of give and springiness to it. Unfortunately, I was a bit dazed after traveling with the children and not sleeping in over 36 hours, so I wasn't able to properly savour the moment.

This is not our apartment; our tatami has never looked
this good!

In some ways, having tatami in our apartment is great. It is soft and silky smooth under your feet and Theo and William can play directly on it without needing a rug or play mat to cushion them. In the winter it does not get cold like the wood flooring in our kitchen and doesn't heat up too much in the summer. We are able to sleep on futons on the floor without needing tons of padding or losing too much heat to the floor. It also has a really nice, almost sweet, grassy smell that reminds me of fresh hay or straw. I also think that the shimmery green and gold cloth that binds the sides of each mat is quite pretty.

In saying this, I have come to loathe tatami, at least in this phase of my life. It would be fabulous in a bedroom, but we have it everywhere. This means every little mess our kids make, every piece of food dropped, every drooly patch from William, and worse lands straight on the highly absorbent, easily stained, and incredibly difficult to clean floor. We have put an area rug underneath our table to protect the tatami from inevitable foods spills each meal, but it still doesn't protect it from the occasional glass of water, juice, or even worse, milk, that gets tipped over by the elbows of our clumsy son. So far I have had the pleasure of cleaning all forms of food and drink, vomit, urine, and poop from our tatami. The only uncharted territory for me is blood and wine, but it is only a matter of time. I have become insanely jumpy about anything spilling on it, but short of trading our children in for robots, I can't think of any way of preventing the occasional unforeseen accident or emergency.

Our own little tatami model showing off the silky soft
qualities of our floor.

I have developed a sort of science when it comes to cleaning, disinfecting, deodorizing, and removing stains from our tatami. It seems to be working for the most part, or at least our tatami looks no worse than it did when we arrived. The good news is that the tatami was fairly old and worn when we arrived, so I am not quite as neurotic about it as I could be. I really wonder how other moms with babies and young children handle life with tatami? Any advice?

For anyone interested in the tatami making industry, and how and how often mats are changed, I found this photo essay by Keith Graff very interesting and informative.

A Wet Weekend

Typhoon Talas

We had a typhoon that passed through this weekend. The rain and winds started on Friday and lasted until Sunday, making it nice and cool for the first time since I have arrived. We enjoyed the break from the hot, windless weather that we were having, but tragically there are quite a few people dead or missing from this storm. There was absolutely no flooding in our part of town, which surprised me, since during hurricanes in Houston there was always a foot or more of standing water.

My mother, who lives in Vermont, had an insanely destructive hurricane that passed through last week. Here are a few crazy pictures of what Hurricane Irene thought of Vermont's infrastructure.

First meal on our new kotatsu

Despite the strong winds and buckets of rain, we still managed to get few important things done and have some fun. On Saturday we visited Nitori, where we bought a kotatsu, computer desk, an area rug and storage shelves and bins for our closets. Our neighbours were nice enough to watch the kids so we could relax while we looked around the store. I absolutely loved how basically everything in the store was created with tiny Japanese rooms in mind. There wasn't one giant, overstuffed, single function monstrosity in the place. I loved the array of legless chairs and short tables, desks, and couches. Their furniture style was very Ikea-esque, but with most of the legs hacked off.

On Sunday, Karlee left  for a week to visit a friend of hers who lives in Kyushu. Afterwards, Dustin, the boys, and I went to check out our city's Castle. Fukuyama Castle is downtown, about a 20 minute walk from our apartment. We were rained on the whole time, but even William didn't seem to mind walking around in the drizzle. Theo has been extremely excited about going to the castle, so even though we didn't go inside, he had a great time walking around the castle grounds.

Winding our way up the hill to the Castle

Storming the gates

The main castle with Dustin and kids in foreground

The beautiful park in the castle grounds

William doesn't care if he gets rained on, as long as he is outside!

A Beautiful Day in This Neighborhood

A view of the neighbourhood from our front door

I feel like I have finally settled in here in our new apartment and neighbourhood. At first, everything looked virtually the same to me and I had to really pay attention when Karlee and I went on walks. I knew that if we didn't retrace our steps back exactly, we would be wandering around Fukuyama for hours with basically no way to communicate with people or get ahold of Dustin. It doesn't help that there are no street names and as of yet I don't have a cell phone.

Our canal

It took the kids almost a week to adjust to the time difference here and actually sleep through the night once again, or as close to through the night as William ever gets. It took about the same amount of time for me to recognize distinctions and uniqueness in our neighborhood as well. I now have no fear of getting completely lost and not being able to find my way back home, which is great because it allows me to wander down little paths and side streets and truly discover our city.

We live in a quiet residential area surrounded by beautiful traditional looking houses and the occasional blocky apartment building. There is a canal that flows right behind our apartment which makes a nice landmark for orienting yourself if you do get a bit turned around. It takes us about 20 minutes to walk to the main bus/train station and downtown, and amazingly there are rice paddies throughout the city surrounded by houses. In Winnipeg there were canola fields right up to the city limits, but I have never seen them in the middle of a neighborhood.

Random rice paddy tucked between houses

Though Dustin and I did not request to be placed in a city, we have been very happy with Fukuyama. It is a small and laid back city that has a older, more traditional feel. Very rarely do tourists come here and I can get virtually everywhere by walking or biking. I am sure that the honeymoon will end at some point and we will start noticing the more annoying aspects of our city, but our first impressions have been very good. This really feels like a place that we can call home.