The house.

We've spent the past couple of days sheltering in Taka's bedroom, taking it easy for a couple of days after spending almost every previous day wandering around Tokyo. We stay in Taka's room most of the time so Taka's mum doesn't feel like she has to keep us amused or whatever, heading to the supermarket down the road to buy lunch and drinks and so on.

This entry will basically show you around the house we're staying in, and a bit of the area around us. Our local train station is Moriya「守谷」, but Taka's house is in the suburb of Kinunosato「きぬの里」.

First up: the house.

I remember first entering Taka's house-- lugging our suitcases up the [three] front steps, into the genkan 「玄関」(entrance), where we removed our shoes as is Japanese custom, and lugged our suitcases up the narrow staircase to the second level of the house.

Compared to the last house I stayed in back in 2003, Taka's house is big. Not huge, but noticeably larger than Takuya's house. Taka's room in particular is large-- bigger than my bedroom back in Melbourne. From what I've seen of his brother's rooms, they're not small either, though they are a little smaller than Taka's.

The house has four bedrooms, kitchen, shared lounge/dining area, a shared bathroom/laundry area with a separate area for shower and ofuro 「お風呂」(bath), two toilets and an attic, which is where Ben and I sleep on what must be the most uncomfortable futon in Japan. And the pillows... Urgh, don't get me started on the pillows. Instead of some soft feathers or cotton filling, they have what feels like seeds, or dried kernels of corn, and are as hard as a rock. Needless to say, both Ben and I have woken up with headaches on numerous occasions.

The entire house has dull white walls (made of some weird plaster that feels like recycled paper), with a light wood skirting, architraves, doors, floors and cupboards. It feels spacious and airy, which I'm sure Taka's parents paid a lot of money for.

The toilets are a constant fascination. Unlike toilets we have in Australia, the toilets in Taka's house are special. The seat is always warm (which can be kind of uncomfortable on an already hot and humid day, but would be pretty awesome in winter), and there is a panel with five buttons on the right side of the toilet. There are three big buttons and two small ones. The big orange one on the left says 止, which means "to stop"; the blue on the the right of it has a picture of a bum with the word おしり (arse, bum, bottom) above it, and the pink button on the right side has a picture of a woman sitting down, with the Japanese word for bidet 「ビデ」above her head.

Below the three main buttons are two smaller ones, with five green LED lights between them. The left button says 弱 (weak), the right says 強 (strong), and they control the strength of the jet of water that shoots out to hit you in the bum should you choose to use it. A word of advice for those who have never used one of these toilets before: don't start the water-jet on the strongest setting... you'll be in for a nasty surprise at how powerful it is.

On top of the toilet cistern rests a shallow trough, with a water spout in the middle. You do your business, flush the toilet, and before the fresh water is pumped into the cistern it passes through the spout for you to wash your hands with.

The bath is pretty cool too-- it has two control panels: one on the wall at the head of the bath, and one in the kitchen (not sure why...). Instead of using taps to empty/fill the bath, you use the panels on the wall. Press a button, it fills. Once it's filled a nasally-lady voice tells you that you may now commence bathing.

The shower is also different from the one we have in Melbourne. It's basically a hose extending from the wall with a shower-head on the end. There is a stool on the floor, a low shelf containing various shampoos and whatnot, and a vertical pole on the wall with a bracket that slides up and down-- choose the height you want, put the hose in it and it'll stay at that height.

The shower has two taps-- the tap on the left controls the temperature of the water; the right tap controls the flow/pressure. It took me a while to get used to, but now I'm used to it I like it better than the one-tape-for-hot and one-tap-for-cold the majority of the world uses.

Taka's family has an eight-month-old miniature dachshund called Dan-kun (which sounds like the name Duncan when they say it). He's a well-natured pup, who loves to play and chew and piss all over the floor-- both when he gets excited to see you and when he just needs to go.

Apparently dog-training hasn't caught on here, as Taka's parents just give the dog what he wants. He pisses on the floor-- it gets cleaned up. He eats a box of tissues-- he gets 'told off'. He jumps on the low-table and tries to steal your food-- he gets pushed off, only to repeat it again and again.

He's a nice enough dog, but his lack of training gets to me. He has a little pen he gets put into when nobody is home so that he doesn't chew everything and/or pee everywhere. If he tries to steal what Taka's dad is currently eating, he gets put into the pen, where he barks and barks and whines and sooks until Taka's mum lets him out again... all so he can repeat the process.

While he's barking in his pen, Taka's dad goes over to him and feeds him pre-chewed food directly from his mouth. It's a bit yuk when Dan-kun licks their lips and teeth too-- especially considering how he licks his wee off the floor. It's even worse when he tries to do it to Ben or me (the dog licking that is, not his dad trying to feed us...)

To be honest, I'm utterly surprised how content Taka's family is to have this untrained dog chewing everything and making a mess on their floor. Taka's mum is the one who always ends up cleaning it up, and even she doesn't seem to want to train him. Of course, it's pretty much their fault for letting the dog to this-- after all, he doesn't even have a designated spot for him to go to the toilet on.

Taka's house is in a fairly nice area-- far enough away from main roads to make it peaceful, but close to the conveniences of modern-day life: supermarket, video store, 100yen shop, various small restaurants, park and so on. If it were closer to the station it would be absolutely perfect.

Yesterday we went for a walk through the area behind Taka's place-- where the developers haven't bought all the land as yet, and where groves of bamboo grow between the plots of lands filled with pumpkin vines, tomato stalks or sunflowers.

Took some random shots of ourselves in front of the stands of bamboo, and found a big grasshopper to take some shots of. It's a bit hidden by the vines around it, but the pumpkin in the photo was absolutely massive-- twice the size of the average [Australian] watermelon.

We ended up migrating to Kasumi (our local supermarket) to see if there was anything there for lunch. There was! We bought a dish of yakisoba 「焼きそば」~fried Japanese noodles with vegetables~ each, Ben got some self-serve tempura 「天ぷら」 prawns and squid, while I went for something sweet and bought a crème caramel. We found these cool drinks in the frozen section-- you leave it out of the freezer for ten minutes, squeeze the bottle, shake it, then remove the lid and drink it. It's like a slush puppy in a bottle!

We took our food to the local park and sat in the shade to eat, watching a group of little kids run around in the sun. On our way back home we came across some school kids on the other side of the big hill in the park, sliding down the sides on pieces of cardboard.

The Japanese can be odd. They put nice big boulders in spots around their parks, then go and ruin the effect by putting a giant blue soft-mat on the rear side of the rock-- so that children rolling/sliding/running down the hill don't roll/slide/run into the rock and hurt themselves.

Today we mostly sat in Taka's room planning our various day-trips to Kamakura, Nikko and Mount Fuji, and figuring out a vague timeline of what we have left to do, and when would be best to do it. Boring, but it's gotta be done.

And now we're about to to Kasumi once more to purchase some ice creams (which are ridiculously cheap here) because I'm craving some icy deliciousness.