Moving in

We received good news a couple days ago, we are able to move in to our apartment on October 26. Even more good news, all of our things, yes all, will arrive the 27th! We could not be happier. Today, our keys were issued and we were able to go look at the apartment and complete the initial inspection. The keys here look just a little different. They are magnetized and slide into the door knob to unlock the door. They can be demagnetized from anything magnetic though, we have to be extremely careful.

We eagerly opened the door to glimpse inside our apartment and were pleasantly surprised by what we found. The door opens to a small hallway lined with cabinets, tons of storage space! The hallway then leads to our living/dining room which is also adjoined to the kitchen. The kitchen, thankfully, has a dishwasher, although dated, stove, oven, and refrigerator. Also, just in front of the refrigerator is a small door stop preventing the door leading to the hallway from hitting the refrigerator. I took one look at that and said to Alan, "I wonder how many times I'm going to stub my toe on this?"

Back in the living/dining room, one wall is a wide doorway out onto our patio, fairly sized to fit an outdoor set and grill nicely. Following the hall into the back of our apartment we found the laundry room, the bedrooms, and the bathroom. The laundry room is quite small but does house a modern set of washer and dryer. Back into the hall the walls have been converted into more storage space with cabinets and sliding doors.

This apartment has more storage space than I have ever seen! Instead of a simple entryway by our front door, the walls are storage with cabinets up top and sliding doors on the bottom and is the same in the back hallway. There is no wasted space here! Voids have been closed in to make storage in every room possible. In the kitchen, cabinets have been installed from the floor to the ceiling with our counter tops in between. We also have a storage closet out in the middle section of the apartment tower lining the elevators.

The bedrooms however, are quite small. I am very happy that we had decided to store our guest set of furniture instead of bringing it with us because it never would have fit! Our room will fit the queen bed, one nightstand, and skinny dresser leaving about two feet of walking space around the bed. Our main dresser will have to be housed in the second bedroom along with our computer desk and possibly book shelves. Also in the main bedroom is another sliding door leading to a side patio and the fire escape exit.

I was anxious to see the bathroom our apartment was equipped with. In pictures I had viewed previously of the apartment towers, many bathrooms were colored in either white, pale blue, or light pink. I was terrified of having a pink bathroom: pink tile to match the pink toilet, shower, and sink! As I slowly opened the bathroom door, I found white! What a happy day! The bathroom has a fair sized shower/bath tub and a detachable shower nozzle. I guess it's a Japanese trait, I have found that bathroom light switches are always on the outside of the door. It may be convenient to flip the switch as you are walking into the bathroom but it is also quite easy for one on the outside to flip it off while it's occupied!

Over all, I can say that Alan and I are thoroughly pleased! We began planning where our furniture should go and dreamed of our future purchases. There's a slick sofa and love seat set in the NEX we have got our eye on and Alan wants to upgrade our television. Rugs will also be a necessity as I'm not fond of waking up in the morning to put my warm toes on the cold tile floor!