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], 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.

Here’s where we live.

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We’re in the middle near where it says “Daiyon JHS” — that’s Ruby’s junior high school.

If you switch to photo view you can see the beach just down the road. It’s so close that in summer we can put on our bathers and walk down for a swim. The onsen (hot springs) is that oval-shaped thing down on the main road. The primary school is back up near the station; 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:

And here are some lived-in photos. First, the kids’ bedroom:

The loungeroom, complete with Mummy’s computer (also used for watching Glee episodes) in one corner and the telly in the other corner:

And the kitchen, now fully cluttered with 6000000 appliances and shelves and hanging things and all manner of other bits and pieces:

Click here for more house photos.