House Pictures

Sorry that we have not been able to update the blog. We did not get Internet until Friday May 7. We are up and running so you should expect regular updates. My first day in Japan, we went to three different houses. I had to choose one of the houses. It was a little stressful. The first house is the one I chose. Here are a few pictures.

This is the outside of the house. It is a little more traditional than the other two options - also a little older. The bathroom and kitchen need updated, but that's not part of the deal.

Our 'yard' is more of a garden. Instead of grass, we have rocks. There were a lot more trees, but they must have died since there are only a few stumps left. The other day, we saw a brown lizard in the yard. The kids named him 'Slinky'.

These are tatami mat rooms. The floors are made from what we think are rice stalks but we are not sure.

We are using the larger room as our bedroom. It's an 8 tatami mat room. The smaller one is our TV room. It's a 6 tatami mat room. As you can tell, they measure rooms by how many tatami mats fit.

The kids' bedrooms are on the second floor. The look about the same. They are bigger than the rooms they had back in Ohio. Also, they each have large walking closets. Overall, if you don't count the basement, I think we have more room now than we did before we left the U.S.