Wednesday, August 13--The Old Homestead

Jim did the walk-through of our new house with the rental agent yesterday and got the keys! I had to take Alina to the vet for her initial quarantine visit, so I couldn’t go. Our sponsor took us out at lunch-time today, though, and I finally got to go inside our new home. It is very nice, and bigger than the floor plan led us to believe. Since we were on a time schedule, I took pictures, but I didn’t get out the tape measure to measure each room. Jim paced off the biggest rooms while I snapped pictures. The master bedroom appears to be about 13’ by 15’ and the spare bedroom that the floor plan said was 6’ by 9’ is actually closer to 10’ by 10’. I can work with rooms that size! There are plenty of big closets, and an attic that is wallpapered! In fact, all of the walls are wallpapered. Apparently the Japanese find it easier to repaper than to repaint. Bad news, though--the bathroom floors are raised, just like the hotel! I believe it has something to do with the drain system, but I would be very interested to look at Japan's statistics for accidents/fatalities that occur in the bathroom!! We will have our temporary furniture delivered Friday of next week—our own things aren’t expected to arrive until September 15 or later. But hopefully next weekend we will be able to move out of the hotel.