Every morning, generally without fail, I get woken up by a hawk.
At least I think it's a hawk. I don't know a lot about birds,
and I don't really care for birds much but... This hawk means I no longer need to use my alarm clock,
so I'm saving electricity. So in essence the hawk has actually lowered my cost of living.
And it's innovations like that in Japan that you just look at and go, "Why don't we do that in England?"
Umm, and the honest, the honest answer, "I don't know. I don't know why we don't do it in England."
So I've been living in Japan just over two weeks now,
and I'm settling in well.
I live out 300 miles north-east of Tokyo
in a province called Yamagata.
It's quite a cold region, except it's not.
Because it's actually like 36 degrees celsius with 80% humidity making it at least hotter than the sun.
The town I live in is surrounded by sea on one side, and on the other side we've got a tons of mountains,
which look beautiful, amazing. One in particular dominates the skyline,
it's called mount chokai and it has been called Mount Fuji of the north, because it has a
similar sort of shape, in that it's symmetrical like Mount Fuji.
Except it's not symmetrical at all, whatsoever, so I don't know where that came from.
I'm still learning Japanese, so I can't actually read a lot, which makes the smallest things pretty difficult.
Like microwaving a pizza. It can take 40 minutes just to work out how to use the microwave.
No! No!
I've seen two fireworks displays whilst being here
and they are ridiculously big. They look like scenes out of Apocalypse Now.
With the sound of The Good The Bad And The Ugly, and together...
It's a pretty big experience, but pretty cool.
And they go on for about 2 hours, rather than 5 minutes.
But yeah, it's the small things that make Japan interesting.
Like this apartment or flat or bedsit or whatever you wanna call it.
So lets go have a look, shall we?
Okay, so this is my place.
First thing you do when you come in, take of your Jesus sandals.
This area is public space, believe it or not, even though it's in your apartment.
People such as postmen can still come in and actually stand here if the door's unlocked,
so always lock your door, like that, and nobody gets hurt.
Okay, so this is my sink area and kitchen area as you can see,
there's absolutely no room for cooking or preparing anything,
which means I have to go out and eat every night.
It's just the way it is, because I can't cook.
Microwave, some other stuff, rice cooker!
Haven't used it yet, don't know how.
Okay, this is the shower room,
I don't know if that is a bathtub or just something you stand in.
If it's a bath then I don't know how I would fit in it. I
I don't really know what this is either, but you can do this...
and then you can do that as well, so that's pretty good, there's the shower.
Okay, so, here is the toilet. I love this, this is such a clever toilet though.
Not in the sense that it's electronic though, like a lot of Japanese toilets but...
this thing here.
When you flush the toilet, it refills this bit up from a sink that you can wash your hands in.
So you go to the toilet, flush that, and then look! Oh, you can wash your hands!
You got about 30 seconds to wash your hands. But how clever's that?
So that's really recycling water, and it just gets me excited every time.
Such a simple little thing, but so clever, and if that doesn't excite you, nothing will.
So yeah, pretty good, first room, quite spacious in terms of just being able to do every day stuff.
But lets go and check out the room that we've all been waiting for...
Ta da!
Oh, I better tidy it up.
Da nuh, here it is.
My main room. As you can see it's a reasonable size.
Especially for one person. It's got a really cool sofa, I've never sat on it once
because I love this chair too much. It reclines, so I often sit there and watch amazing Japanese television!
Okay, so this is a traditional Japanese kind of eating table.
I don't, can't remember the name of it. But underneath it's got a heater here
so in the winter when you sit here with your legs underneath the table you can keep warm
because typically Japanese accommodation and houses aren't that well insulated against the cold
and it gets pretty cold here.
Over here, got quite a lot of space for putting rubbish,
probably shouldn't have done that, 'cause now I can't get my bed back in.
Here's my wardrobe, pretty colourful, good enough.
This is a bit odd, I've got a mirror here,
fair enough, but there seems to be some sort of outline, a female outline,
that's been stuck on with tissue paper. And I don't know why.
It's even more worrying knowing that my predecessor was in fact a guy as well.
So, I don't know what he was doing, at all.
Okay, so these are Japanese sliding doors also known as 'shouji.'
Because they slide they don't take up that much room, so they're quite clever
and they let in light, and it makes the room really nice,
so you can keep them shut and keep the room cool.
This is my, this is my balcony, it looks just terrible,
but, it is nice to come and sit out here and relax.
Me and my neighbours drink a lot of water.
Water, of course, comes in cans in Japan,
so, yeah. But no, we sit here, and it's lovely.
And here's my pretty, not great, view.
But, it does the job, you can sit out here and drink water.
And that's my air conditioning unit as well. Great.
This is the main room, very nice.
And it's got some sort of rug which is always good. You're probably wondering where the bed is,
although you're not, 'cause I've ruined the surprise,
but this room also doubles as my bedroom so...
It's a futon, I roll it out every night
and put it away every morning. It's a bit of effort but you know, it's not a problem.
And it's very comfortable, lovely to sleep on, it's the biggest bed I've ever had.
But this is like a double bed almost, and it's very comfortable and pretty good, so lets have a look.
Da nuh!
So this is it.
Um, yeah, pretty comfortable. Love it. Now I've gotta put the damn thing...
now I've gotta put the damn thing away.
Okay, so, that's my apartment. Pretty good value for money.
Less than a hundred pounds a month. So for the size, I think it's great.
And it's perfect for living alone.
Yeah, so, hopefully I'll put up some more videos of Japan and the area itself.
It's a beautiful area and there's loads to see and talk about and stuff.
And if you have any questions ask away, but sensible questions, not stupid questions.
So yeah, great! See ya later! Thanks.
Why'd I do that? Why'd I fall back? Should've just ended it.