hello, it's bene no fukuoka ! welcome to the hall of my living building.today i'll show you my appartment in fukuoka ! at first i want to show you a thing that we don't have in france : a special kind of mailbox in france mail boxes are opened with a tiny key so i thought it would be the same in japan but no. here we use a code. when you get in a new place you receive a code and i'll show you what it looks like. here it is mine is the 501 one and as you see there is no keyhole but a code. to open it you va e to do (for example) 2 turns on the right until number 3, and one turn on the left until number 4.
it doesn't open because i actually don't know my code (haha). oops, sorry it's something typically japanese that i wanted to show you. okay, time to go up to the 5th floor where i live to show you my appartment ! elevator is here, let's go ! "welcome to my home !my japan appartment tour in fukuoka" here we are on the 5th floor and something typically japanese (=different from france) (wow i have sun in my eyes) is that the corridors are outside as you can see.
it's quite nice in summer because the wind blows and it's cool but it becomes so cold in winter. also, i wanted to say one more thing, don't expect my room to be like magazines ones with only decoration and not daily life things. my living place is a normal appartment so yes it's can not the tidiest kitchen or bathroom ever and i won't show you how it looks like in my closets but don't mind me for that please. but i wanted rather to show you where i live daily and not a magazine appartment. so let's enter ! i'll take the camera in front of me to show you everything. here is my intercome, wow ! let's enter...
welcome to my home ! let's start by the entrance which is called genkan in japanese. we remove our shoes here and we put the ones we use the most on the ground while we put the other ones in our big shoes closet, here it is. it's quite big but we already filled up all of it. it's very convinient. on the other side we have our umbrella stand, and up to it we have a shelf where we put our shopping bags, folded umbrella and hats. next to it we have some coat racks which are very convenient in winter
but as for now daisuke put his things on it as he has to collect cardboxes for his job (he is a kindergarden teacher). i'm going to remove my crocs but don't put my slippers in because it's too hot. as you can see we have 1, 3, 3 doors. let's start with this one. it's the bathroom ! hi there ! when we enter we have a japanese sink called senmenjo in japanese. we can also use it as a shower, there is a light and shelfs to put products on them. it's great for washing you hair, i'll show you. here is the normal water and when we push this button it transform to shower water.
than we have our washing machine, inside the bathroom which is nice because in some japanese appartment it's outside. as all japanese washng machine it makes nice sounds and is very simple to use. above it we have more shelfs with our badly folded towels, my hair accessories and my french medicine. i only drink medicine from france so i have bunch of ti like this one. on the other side we have the main part of the bathroom : the shower room. i'm going to enter even it's still wet from this morning. what is great about it is that we have tons of shelfs to put our shower products we also have a mirror which i don't understand why because watching you when you're washing yourself isn't my thing but why not.
then we have the bathtub, some basins and a nice wooden wall. and here is the tap. we don't have small benches to sit in while showering, as the two of us prefer to sit on the floor. let's get out. oh, yes, of course we can put water everywhere in this room. no need to worry. it was our bathroom, let's go an other room. here are our restroom. there are more shelfs i won't show you how it the flush works, i think there are too many videos on youtube which show that... okay, i'll do it anyway
it's a japanese flush, water is getting out ! we have some buttons for bidet, water, make the seat warm, set the water temperature and so on. we don't have the sound to hide what we are doing here but it's not very important after all. now i will show you our 3rd room which is the kitchen ! as i said before it's quite messy, sorry, we washed our plates and everything this morning. we have 2 gas stoves and it works like this : just to have to turn the button. at first i was unsecure about using gas but it's very easy. more japanese buttons here.
next we have our cooking chopsticks, the sink with our little garbage bowl and the water cleaning stuff. the water in fukuoka is good, it even has a better taste than what i had in france but we wanted to have one. next we have cleaning stuffs and dishwashing liquids. above we have... a mess ! there are daisuke's bananas, some sesam, somen noodles and a korean thing that daisuke's parent send to him.
next to that we have what i will prepare for dinner : pork and cabbage with a miso sauce. it's convenient, delicious and easy to cook. just spot the "cookdo" brand in the supermarkets and try it. next we have... oh yes i wanted to show you that ! it's "very japanese" and it's for controlling hot water. when you use the tap in a normal way, when you open it, hot water won't flow out but cold one. to have hot water you have to turn on this thing and choose the temperature, now it's at 37â°c. the temperature controller can't go under 37â°c which is too hot for a shower in summer but it goes up to 75â°c !! hum... what i wanted to how you... we have 3 closets we use this because we don't have place for a waste container here.
on the other side there is our microwave which is also an oven and a toast, not a toast, a toaster. and here is our fridge ! in front of it we put aluminium and kitchen papers. of course i'll show you inside. it's not very interesting haha. so we have two packs of miso, some pickled plums (umeboshi) that i love eat everyday, a can of green tea and natto (fermented soy beans). under we have kimchi and cheese, chocolates and water. then there is tofu, meat, a tuna/mayo bottle. i wasn't sure i wanted to eat that when daisuke brught it home but it turned to be delicious then we have yoghurts and... why it's here ? it should be on the vegetables drawer...
my favorite yoghurts are this peach and mango ones. very delicious. on the door we have... mess ! just kidding, we have eggs, soy soauce and takoyaki sauce, no yakisoba sauce. more water, dressings, takoyaki sauce, takorice sauce... okay it bips because i leave the door open for too long some mayonnaise, ketchup and banana milk. under we have the vegetables drawer and the freezer with some things we put in our bento boxes when we don't have time to cook something, and some rice. when you have rice leftover, just freeze them, it's the best. then, the next room is our main room, the living room !
we put this cute noren (japanese curtain) here is our living room ! on the right we have our rice cooker. at first i didn't want to have it in the living room because for me all the cooking stuff must be in the kitchen but we didn't have space so... under it's messy haha. on the left we have my hobonichi things, some decoration and picture of us and our jewelry box. next to that we have what is the most important place for me : my desk. it's the place when i'm from the time i finish dinner until i go to bed. i do everything from here : blog, answer to comment and mails, doing design, tweeting and so on.
let me show you what i have on it : tsum tsum and sailor moon stuff, some (false) cakes and cute packagings, my business cards, some cute memo papers my smartphone and my glasses, very important (i don't wear glasses when i shoot a video), my pen tablet and my french keyboard which my mum send me from france (thank you), and then i have my design books and all the kyushu and fukuoka tourism related papers i collect or receive. i have so many and it's a ral source of inspiration. beside i put my card captor sakura figures, rilakkuma miniatures and sailor moon figures. under there a re some decoration and a bunch of stuffed toys.
the other parts of the living room are like everyone else's rooms with a sofa, a kotatsu (not working right now because hey it's summer), a book shelf which is too small for all our stuffs. here we have the few manga i read, daisuke ones and his kindergarden books, my fukuoka and kyushu tourism books and the japanese language ones which i have to thorw away, and other big books. more mess (haha). it's actually pretty nice things. on the kotatsu table we have this cute lamp which is, if i remember well, someting use for kimono making. my japanese penfriend send it to me few years ago and she became a great friend so i treasure this lamp.
here is our fan and our big tv, always turned on when daisuke is at home which i hate because i need calm to work and i don't watch tv. look at my rilakkuma plushies and cat chair ! it's very cute. i feel insecure to be here because yesterday a cockroach was just here so i'm afraid there's more. yesterday i was doing reharsal for this video and i left the windows open so one entered. it's all my fault but since i'm very afraid that one would be here so i won't open the window, i'll just show you the balcony from inside. i hope there is no cockroach.... gya, no there isn't. i panic myself haha. you can see our amido (door protection) which is half open
and the balcony. the view is quite nice. let me close the curtain back. i won't show you inside but we have 3 blig closets, big enough to contain daisuke's piano, which is nice. then we come to the last room, our bed room ! it's very simple since we only go there at night. omg, it's so hot inside... i know we only have a single bed for two, we didn't bought a double bed yet but it's still okay. we have also a big closet here where we put our clothes and bags. the room's fan. and we have, well i have tons of plushies !!
i know there is a lot of people who wanted to see my collection so here you are. i have a huge banana xd my foot looks so small next to it. and the last ones : an ice cream, a kabosu lemon and so on. check my cute curtains, dark blue with silver stars on them which i love. what i don't like in this room is that's too much hot. it's because of this huge window. the room is exposed full east so the sun comes to the window every morning and it makes the room hot. i think i show you everything... maybe not the intercome, there it is. if someone rings on the first floor we can see who it is and open or not the door. here we are, you saw everything. i take back the camera.
now i'm going to aswer question you asked me, just let me sit on the sofa. okay i sat down and ready to answer to all the question you wrote me on facebook, thank you. but i just checked the video i just shoot and it's already 15 minutes long so as i don't want to do a 30 minutes videos, i decided to quickly talk about this appartment while answering. if i don't have time to answer everything, i will reply to this question on facebook directly. let's start ! this appartment is a 37m2, we have two main rooms and we pay 80 000 yens for a month so we pay each 40 000 yens per month which is reasonable if we consider where we are located. we are in the center of fukuoka
we have several bus stops which take us to all of the city, we have two subway stations nearby too. on the surrondings we have several convenience stores, banks and a post office just in front of our home but we don't have any supermarckets and that's a bad thing. it's something to look when you rent a place in japan and we looked at that too but i don't know we must forgot when we found this place because we only realized that after moving. we don't have drugstores too so we have to thinkin advance if we run out of shampoo or body soap, we don't have to run out or toilet paper at the middle of the night because we have to run our bicycle for 10, no 5 minutes (even though there are conbinis). we fond this place trhough a normal estate agent, ours is call able.
so to say how it works, you go there, we tell them what you want, in which city or district, they show you bunch of rooms and take you in car to visit them. i don't think it's like this in france (you have to go by yourself ?) after you choose, you fill the contract and it's done. it tooked 1 month and a half from the time we first enter the estate agent to the moving we really took our time because at first we saw a place we liked but there were some bad points so we made them searched again and found this one. it wasn't a problem at all that i'm a foreigner because i know thie estate agent really well to have used it for my previous living place and they knew i speak japanese and i'm not a troublesome
there was only one time i wasn't sure to be accepted because i'm a foreigner (for my previous living place) but the estate agent managed to get him out of their files. but except that it wasn't a problem at all. i never struggled to find a place because of that. i know it can be difficult in tokyo or osaka but not in fukuoka (at least for me). i think it depends of your japanese speaking abilities, the estate agente (you need one which want to do its best for you) and it depends about your city too. for example there is few (western) foreigners in fukuoka so they are nice to us. in this appartment we can have pets like a small dog or a cat but bigger animals are forbidden. you may check if you can have pets with you buildings policy, it depends from one to another. sometimes they accept only cats, sometimes only dogs, sometimes nothing, sometimes everything.
in an other topics, about insulation, about noise thermal insulation, we don't hear neighbors at all, no even those upstairs. we hear street noises a bit because the building is located on a kind of small square so noises are coming up so if there are cats fighting downstairs we hear them a bit but we are used to it now and it's a quiet district. we don't have big streets or anything. about thermal isulation, it's quite bad. until now i lived in good insulated places, i just need one fan to cool down the whole appartment. i know it's quite rare in japan and i was so happy about it that i wasn't used to use the air conditioning. here if we don't put it on we just can't live. it's too too hot.
we don't have one in the bedroom and it's too hot. i'm not someone who sweat a lot but the morning when i woke up my shirt is quite soaked than i wanted to talk about the garbage system. in japan it's pretty strict about reclycling and sort your garbage it depends of your city or prefecture but in fukuoka we have to sort our garbage in 3. we have to put pet bottles in the yellow bag. it's collected once or twice a month, i don't remember well. the blue bag is for cans and things like that. it's collected once or twice a month too. and the red bag is for the rest (paper, food ans so on). it's collected twice a week. the reason why i can't remember about the blue and yellow bags collects is that we have a kind of room for garbage
so we dont care about the collect day since we can access to it all the time. in smaller building we may have to get out the bags on collects day only because of cats and birds but not in ours so we forgot when collects are. about big garbages such as sofa, you need to call a service, pay and they will come to take them in front of your building on the day you want. i hope you liked my appartment. sorry if i couldn't answer all of the questions, i tried to answer the most. i will answer to more if you leave me comments (please do :)) see you next time for new adventures in fukuoka !
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