Re-arranged Living

I posted a sneak peek at the "big changes" we were doing in our apartment a week or two ago. We moved furniture all over the place, deep cleaned, de-cluttered, and made a lot of purchases. It's been a little crazy, but exciting.

The living room is finished enough to take a ton of pictures and show it off! I just put artwork back on the walls last night, which means it's done. And not moving for a while. After living with the new layout for a few weeks, I'm in love. Let me show you.

How Bazaar

This weekend base was hosting a "Far East Bazaar". I saw the signs posted a few weeks back, but didn't think much of it. I mentioned the event to Jeff in passing, and he enthusiastically told me we needed to go check it out. I wasn't aware that he had attended a few of these bazaars down in Southern Japan while he was deployed.

The last bazaar he went to featured this gorgeous chess set that he got at a steal, in my opinion. It's housed in a beautiful wood case with dragon decals and beautiful gold locks. Solid wood. The board itself is also solid wood, and the pieces are beautifully carved. I'm not a chess person, but I love the set.

I knew he had picked it up on his last deployment to Japan. When he said he bought it at a similar bazaar, I knew we had to go.

Who knew what we could find?


I forgot to bring my camera to take some pictures of the bazaar itself, but it was hosted in a hangar on base. It was large, obviously. They had tons of Asian furniture, which took up about half of the hangar. We fell in love with quite a few of the pieces, especially one large and in charge dark wood entertainment center. But the prices of solid wood and the likelihood that damage would occur during one move or another made us resist. The rest of the place was filled with everything from $2 paper ornaments to much more expensive wood carvings, paintings, etc. If we had unlimited funds, we would've needed a truck to bring home all the things we saw and loved. Jeff had his eye on a $3,000 sword for a while. Too bad that's outside of our budget.

But of course, some things weren't. A few things were within our budget and quickly snatched before they were gone. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy some locally made products that we could keep forever. Sure, we could always buy some "oriental decor" at the local home goods store in the states, but how much better will our house look when it's filled with authentic decor from all our travels? That's our goal, anyways.

The first thing we picked up was this sake set. I saw the beautiful midnight blue glaze on the ceramic pieces and could not walk away. They had sushi sets, bowls, plates, and sake sets. After some thinking, Jeff decided the sake set would make the most sense. He had his eye on another gorgeous gray set, but I couldn't let this midnight blue glaze go. It's my favorite color, and well-made ceramic pieces go straight for my heart. I love it. Now all we need to do is find some good sake.

(By the way, I tried my first sake a few weeks ago! I went out with some girlfriends for a birthday, and between way too many other drinks, we tried some sake with lime. It was delicious! We all agreed that we needed to find that exact sake and buy it by the bottle in the future.)

I'm also a sucker for paintings and prints. There were tables and tables of gorgeous images of Japan. Most were hundreds over our price range.

We saw this print in a larger scale and I stopped in my tracks. I loved it. Jeff said he had seen the print multiple times in the past and shared my love for the gorgeous waves and the miniscule Mt. Fuji in the background. Too bad it was way too expensive even for mutual love. We walked down a few tables and found smaller, more affordable prints. Perfect! The print is made on wood, and the frame is solid. It's going to stay around for a while. I love it, and it had many brothers and sisters I was wishing I had the means to purchase and bring home. We were both drooling over all the nature scenes, with beautiful bamboo and cherry blossoms. There were also tons of prints of buildings and structures from Japan, but Jeff and I both prefer the more natural elements.

Ready for my favorite? They had all sorts of carved animals scattered throughout the vendors. I fell in love with two elephants. One was some kind of stone, colored bright red. Another was solid jade. We argued in indecision for a while, then I picked the jade elephant. As much as I loved the red, we both prefer blues and greens in our home, so this little beauty will undoubtedly match any decor we have in the future. Red, not so much.

This guy is big. Heavy. He's a hunk of rock carved roughly and gorgeously. I love him. I like that the carving isn't perfect ad that it looks like it's a hunk of jade. I don't like things too perfect. Jeff's been cracking jokes about my love for this elephant all weekend.

As I was drooling over the elephant, Jeff mentioned possibly buying two and using them as bookends in the future. I liked the idea, but the way he was shaped might not make the best bookends. Then I noticed the guard dogs sitting next to him. Their rectangular bases would make perfect bookends, and since they're also solid jade, just as heavy.  I begged until Jeff let me get them and their brother, the chunky elephant ;)

Don't quote me, but from my limited knowledge I understand that these guard dog structures are placed around sacred buildings to protect from evil spirits. We decided they would protect our knowledge, since they'll eventually be guarding our collection of books.





So that's what we came home with. I was one happy girl. And of course, I immediately went about moving decor around to make room for my new favorites.

My favorite elephant was put on the entertainment stand where everyone could see him. I decided to hang the print over the entertainment stand as well. It's small, but with all the movies and decor on that wall, anything bigger would look too cluttered. I love it.

You can see the scale of the print in relation to all our movies and chunky entertainment stand better here. I love how it worked out that everything from the planters to the German stein to the print have touches of midnight blue. I've also got green and brown thrown up there. And NCIS just to top it off ;)

This is My Temporary Home

I had a conversation today about the difficulties of moving from place to place so much. The conversation focused on furniture, and how much of a hassle moving it can become. Things get broken or misplaced. Furniture that fit perfectly in that town home now is an eyesore in this apartment. Or whatever, use your imagination. Jeff and I have made an agreement that we'll save the permanent and high quality furniture pieces for a permanent home that we own and plan on staying in for a while. Until then, we'll buy things that are flexible and replaceable.

The conversation also got me thinking about how we live in each temporary living situation. One girl said that since she's only here a year, she's not decorating or doing much of anything before she has to move again. The other girl said even though she'll be here another two and a half years, she hasn't put anything up on the walls and doesn't intend to do so.

It got me thinking.

Even though we're not here forever, I want our place to feel like a home. It's our comfort zone and where we live, why shouldn't it feel comfortable and cozy? Some things I'm not doing until the effort is worth it, like painting. Other things I can't actually do until we own our own place, like tearing down walls or replacing cabinets. But there are many things I CAN do while we're living in this apartment. Decorating the walls, filling the place with momentos and family pictures. Things that reflect us and our tastes. I can do that with our mobility in mind, though. I use Command strips to hang pictures on the walls so I don't do as much damage, I prefer knick knacks and things to put on table rather than large wall hangings or structures, and we don't own too many breakable things.

In the 8 months or so that we've been living here, I feel like I've done that. I feel like I'm coming home when I walk in the door at the end of the day, and I think that's how it should be. Would I pick an 8th floor 2 bedroom apartment for a permanent home? Probably not. But for now, it IS home.

So here's how I've made our place a home. Basically by unpacking all our stuff and putting it up.

Here's the living room/great room/main room in January on move-in day.

And here it is today.

(FYI, the TV says "Learning Japanese" in Kanji. It's an AFN commercial that shows simple phrases like 'please say that slower' or 'I don't understand'. Very helpful!)

Here's the office in January.

And here it is today.

Here's the bedroom in January.

Here it is today.

Maybe not the most amazing transformation. Probably not what I'd do with the place if we were staying here for more than a few years. But it helps. Having the space filled with furniture that works for us makes us comfortable. It can be overwhelming living overseas and dealing with the cultural differences. Coming home is a source of comfort and security for me.

Some things are still pretty much the same around here though. The view, for one. The trees may lose or gain their leaves and the water may change from snow to rain, but the lake is gorgeous any day.

January.

October.

The leaves are just starting to change, I can't wait to see how gorgeous fall is in my temporary home here in northern Japan!

A Video Tour!

I saw a friend and her husband post a video tour of their overseas apartment a year or two ago, and thought "How cool! I would so do that if we lived overseas". We moved overseas and I kept thinking I needed to copy their idea.

Well, I did!

Here's a little video tour of our apartment in Japan.

Spring has Sprung

It was in the 60's all week, so it finally started to feel like spring around here. Of course today it was in the 40's and rainy, but you know what they say about April showers.

I spent a lovely week enjoying the breeze from the open windows and cooking all sorts of things in the kitchen.

First, I "perfected my pizza recipe", according to my husband. I made a homemade pizza with Pioneer Woman's pizza dough recipe, and we inhaled it. There were no leftovers, and last time I made pizza we had half a pizza left! Since we're both desperately missing our Chicago style pizza, this homemade pizza is pretty satisfying. It's also a lot kinder on our waistlines since I do simple changes like turkey pepperoni and low-fat cheese. I'm making another one in a day or two (the dough is "aging" in the fridge as I type), so I'll try to get some pictures before we inhale it again.





I also tried Annie's Eats chicken gyros on her whole wheat pita bread. Gyros are another favorite from Chicagoland that we've never been able to find anywhere else that tastes 'right'. And since we don't regularly have lamb on hand, it's tough to duplicate at home. I've tried a pork recipe before that came close, but the smell was all wrong. This chicken recipe was delicious though. The pitas were delicious, but I'm a sucker for bread. Jeff and I both liked the chicken flavor, and loved the sauce. I've been eating the leftovers for days. I added more garlic than she called for (you shouldn't find that surprising, I come from a family addicted to garlic), so the garlic flavor just got stronger each day it sat in the fridge. Mmm. It's demolished, but I'm tempted to make some more just for snacking since I have some greek yogurt in the fridge...

Anyways.

The warmer weather and promise of spring has given me the urge to de-clutter and organize the apartment. It's crazy-we've only been here maybe three months and it already feels like we have stuff everywhere! It has a lot to do with our quick and dirty unpacking plan. We got everything out of boxes, but never really organized and put things in spots that made sense. So now it only takes one lazy afternoon to trash the place.



So tonight I started to deep clean and really organize the place. I started in the kitchen since it gets the most traffic and needs the most organization. The pantry was overflowing with recycle piles, since garbage service was limited after the earthquake. I finally combed through the piles and straightened things up in there. I also cut down the boxes so we could actually get things into the recycle bins without moving everything around. The tops of the boxes used to come flush with the bottom shelf, which just didn't work). Now all we have to do is slide the trashcan left or right, not out of the pantry completely.



Then I re-organized the food items to make the most sense for what we grab first and what needs to be out of sight (i.e. potato chips, etc.). I hung the broom, mop, and dustpan up off the floor, since they had a tendency to fall on me when I was reaching for some item in the pantry. Not to mention things just look neater when they're hanging instead of propped in a corner.



Although it's just a small start, it feels good to get things organized. Since I had it in my hand, I went ahead and mopped the floor (it's amazing how quickly the floor can get covered in food and dust when I'm cooking every night), so I'm using this post as a time waster until it's dry and I can get my hands on all the cabinets. Although the rest of the kitchen has stayed relatively organized, some things can use moving around. The little inconveniences, like having my blender on one side of the kitchen when I always use it on the other side. Sure it's a small kitchen, but why not put it in the cabinet right under the counter space I always use it in?



With that theory in my head, I'm hoping to work my way through the whole apartment this week. I figured I'd start at one end and finish in the office, which has no organization at all right now. I'll attempt to put things where we use them and tame the chaos that happens every week. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be showing you our organized and finished office!




P.S. Yep, we had another earthquake the other day, followed by a 14 hour power outage. No damage on base, just the inconvenience of a power outage. The most common question I had was about my wall collage! Rest at ease, it stayed put. It still looks just like it did when I photographed it a few days ago.

First Earthquake!

I just experienced my first earthquake in Japan!

I was sitting watching TV and browsing the web, and it felt like someone was shaking the couch, just a little. I stop to actually pay attention and notice everything else was wiggling too. Our blinds were going crazy and our massive movie collection was shaking all over the place.

Remember these?



I watched in terror as they shook for a few minutes, hoping they wouldn't come crashing on the floor. Those suckers take forever to alphabetize... But even the precariously stacked collection of TV shows on the floor didn't fall!

It was only a couple of minutes long. And as far as I can see nothing fell over. The doors all moved and some of the things on tables slid a little, but not enough to cause any damage.

As soon as it was over, I went over to my neighbor's door. We were just talking about how weird it would be when we had our first earthquake, so I knew she would understand! Well, her husband, who I've never met, answered the door. I dumbly asked if his wife was there, but she walked up behind him and said "Did you feel that earthquake?!"

I thought about calling Jeff ad telling him, but figured he would either laugh at me or say "Uh, Teri, of course I know, I feel it too". He'll probably still laugh at me when he gets home and I explain, but that's okay.

I survived my first Japanese earthquake ;)

Fire Alarms

We moved into our newly renovated apartment just about a month ago.

In that time span, we've had FIVE fire alarms.

No joke.


What's even less funny is that in the past 24 hours, we've had THREE fire alarms. All for nothing. And it's snowing. And it's so windy that we're getting howls and whistles up here.

Oh yeah, that's the best part of all this "fun". Remember where we live? Let me remind you. This isn't our building, but it's built exactly the same way.



We're all the way up on the 8th floor, so every time the dang alarm goes off we're herded down the spiraling stairs like cattle and out into the windy, snowy parking lot where we all huddle in our cars until the Japanese firefighters give us the okay to go back into our warm apartments. Only to be herded down again. And again.

At this point, it's pretty clear there's a malfunction somewhere in the system. But since it's Friday night, nothing will likely be done until Monday morning. The whole building is unhappily anticipating meeting again and again throughout the weekend.

I was sharing with my husband just how much I've learned about our neighbors from all my fire alarm meet-ups. The previous two were during the afternoon, so it was mostly wives impatiently waiting in the cold. I know where most everyone came from in the states. I know one neighbor on the floor above us reaches for her iPad before her shoes or house keys in the rush of a fire alarm. I know which neighbors will come out cursing and which ones will quietly wait out the bugs and annoyances until they can get back inside. I know which wives don't know how to stand in respect during the Japanese and American national anthems (my husband and I were quite disgusted in this instance). The list goes on. He couldn't decide whether to laugh or curse.

Apparently he fits into that cursing group today.




On a happier note:
We went on some cultural tours this week around Misawa and a local city called Hachinohe, so I have some fun pictures and stories to share about some new experiences in Japan. My husband and I are bursting with information and ideas about where to go and what to see, which is exactly what we were looking for. I was floundering a bit with no one really telling us what to do and where to go, and especially how to get there, but this tour gave us some footing. Jeff has work this weekend, but we're already debating where to go exploring next weekend!

But first we have to get through the fire alarms!

Unpacking is a Workout!

I haven't really needed the gym this week - my muscles are screaming from all the box carrying, lifting, squatting, and moving I've been doing. Yikes!

But the wonderful news is that we received our household goods shipment with little damage (a few nicks here and there and a busted corner of a small cabinet which can be mostly fixed with wood glue). Not bad for a trip across the ocean.

We're not done unpacking and organizing, but I wanted to take a break and share some pictures!



We were up bright and early for the movers. The loaner furniture was taken out at 7:30 and the movers were here by 8:00am. I think they were in and out by 9:00am, they're quick! I took pictures of the house before we started digging in, so here's the damage.





The kitchen and living room weren't too bad. Just a few piles. And the bedroom was pretty bare, with just our bed (which I love, love, LOVE having back home with me) and nightstands.

Now the office, on the other hand...





Holy chaos. I couldn't even get to the back boxes, which happened to be kitchen things. (The movers had a little trouble deciphering the boxes' labels, and I had a little trouble deciphering their words, so we did the best we could.)

Jeff came back from work just as they were finishing up, so he helped me dig in right away. He started on the massive movie collection (alphabetizing that thing is a beast of a project) and I started in on the kitchen. Food and movies are our priorities, obviously.





We worked all day long and fell into our wonderfully comfortable bed late that night.


After 2 and a half long days of unpacking and organizing, we're starting to see our house again! The kitchen was the first room done, since cooking was a priority. And it had places ready to put everything. The living/dining room is mostly finished besides any sort of decoration. The bedroom has the bed, but not much else. And the office is less of a disaster.



All the empty boxes were taking over, so I spent this morning packing the paper tightly into the big boxes and flattening the smaller ones. They would be down in the garbage room right now, except someone from Jeff's work might be taking some. I just want them gone!





I'm really liking the way our furniture fits in this apartment. It's cozy, but not too cramped. The wall with the entertainment center is just long enough to fit the DVD's too, which worked out great. We're grateful we bought a small kitchen table, so we have more wiggle room between that and the kitchen.





Look, you can see the floor! This room is still the least done, but I did get the desk built yesterday and then Jeff built the bookshelves when he got home from work. Now I just have to unpack that pile of boxes, which is all books, and alphabetize them. I'm avoiding that headache for the moment ;)

I also have the closets to organize, which I'm also dreading. I HATE putting clothes away, so I'm avoiding that one. Of course, my husband hates laundry just as much as I do so it's not likely he'll take that project on either.

Things are shaping up nicely, though, and we're really happy to have our stuff back. It's nice to cook in my kitchen again, and relax on our couch. Jeff's enjoying gaming on his TV again, and I'm in heaven as soon as I lay down on our bed.

We're hoping to have the house relatively finished by the weekend, and as long as I keep staying productive (rather than...uh....playing online?), it looks like it'll happen. I'll post pictures of the whole house once we get it relatively finished!