Our place

We live down south on the main island of Honshu, in a little hamlet called Sunami  [not to be confused with a tsunami OK], which is about one hour north of Hiroshima. We’re right near an award-winning beach (no really! see description here) and from our spot on the hillside you can see the sea and the neighbouring islands. Along the coastline there’s a cute country train that only has two carriages and no conductor. (It’s so cute in fact that barely anyone uses it.) Just down the road is a very fine onsen (hot springs) facility where you can have a dip while gazing out at the islands.

For a map of where we’re living, click HERE. Note: It looks better as a photo rather than the map. Click on the middle button at the top-left corner of the map.

See the beach just down the road? In summer we’ll be able to put on our bathers and just stroll down for a swim. The onsen is that oval-shaped thing down on the main road.  Meanwhile, if you scroll up you can see Ruby’s high school, about 10 minutes’ walk away. The local primary school is a fair bit further away off to the north of our house; it takes about 25 minutes of brisk adult walking, but the kids’ walking group takes more like 45 minutes.

As for the inside of our house, we’ll start with some of the photos that the real estate agent sent to us in Australia several months ago when the house was completely empty.

It’s full of sliding doors, tatami mats and lots of Japanesey things.

Gwynneth Paltrow eat your heart out!

It has an old-style Japanese bath (= small and deep).

It even has a garden—unprecedented in Japan—complete with our own personal Zen Rock.

But what does it all mean?

Now for some outdoor photos. Here’s a shot taken from the road above our house. Over to the right you can see an orange roof among all the dark ones: that’s our place. My office upstairs faces the Seto Inland sea and I am regularly (and all too easily) distracted by the spectacle of ships chugging back and forth across my field of view.

There’s a park literally one minute away, with REAL GRASS on it, which is a bit of a bonus; I’ve hardly ever seen any grass parks except in massive shrines and temples where you have to keep off the grass anyway. This is what it looks like when Gigs and I have a game of soccer and the local kids join in:

In short, it’s a sensational home in a sensational place. I keep looking out to the sea and the islands shrouded in mist and I have to pinch myself. We consider ourselves extremely lucky to have snared this place.

Click here for more house photos.