What is a Japanese Apartment Like?

(Pictured: a Japanese apartment with a tatami mat room. This is a pretty nice new apartment)

When you step into any apartment, residence or even some officesyou are expected to take off your shoes if there is an entranceway that is lower than a step up to the rest of the apartment.

It is very obvious. Once you are here you will do it naturally.

My first apartment in Nagoya had one tatami mat bedroom, a kitchen with linoleum floor and another room with a fake woodfloor.

My second apartment just had one six tatami mat main room and awalk in kitchen area that was really, really tiny. Space to cook and that was it. The hallway and kitchen were combined.

Tokyo Apartments

Some are quite large if they are for two people or are in the countryside. Tokyo apartments and apartments in the other major cities of Japan tend to be smaller.A typical Japanese apartment in Tokyo is the standard six tatami mat "rokujo" apartment.

Living in Japan

(Pictured: an apartment in Japan by Paul Canosa) Go to page one of this story

Continued from Page 1 of this story: Mark`s apartment in Japan

I spent the night in Mark's apartment having dinner and getting to know he and his family. The next day he proudly showed me the apartment and I tried to hide my shock. Even though I had read in Wharton's book,"Working in Japan," where it told you that the apartments here didn't come with much--it was still surprising to see that I didn't even have any lights.

Mark handed me a small plastic light fixture, that if I am nice about, I would say looked like a K-Mart reject. "A friend gave me this." I could see why, I thought. Obviously not a good friend!

Maybe a secret enemy if truth be told!

We screwed it into the kitchen ceiling. That would be the only screwing I would be doing for a while.

Now I would be able to see what I was chewing!

According to him this apartment was huge. According to me, it wasn't much bigger than my bedroom back home in Tsawwassen, a small town near Vancouver. It was a 2DK in apartment lingo. I had a Japanese oil heated bath, which everyone should try at least once. It was very deep; like a big cube in shape.

Although tall, I fit in it nicely and the water came up to my neck. It was very nice on those cold Nagoya mornings.

Jeff and Brian came over to my apartment a day or two later. I offered them the second bedroom until they found a place of their own. I'm happy I did as Jeff and I ended up becoming good friends.

By January though, I knew I was going to leave Nagoya. I had decided to move to Kanagawa to be near Ikumi.

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Short Term Stay in Japan?

Staying in Japan for three months or so? Or even less?

As mentioned elsewhere, the Sakura Hotels and apartments are very reasonable for short or long term living in Japan. As well, Leo Palace apartments are all over Japan and very reasonably priced too. They offer short term stays and people often live in one when they are intending to live somewhere for less than a year. They are clean and usually located close enough to a train station to allow for convenient commuting.