Outside View of Amakubo Residence for Singles.  The small bike is mine and cost me 7,843 yen with tax and a lock(air pump and tools are available in the hardware room, 1st floor).  It is not suitable for long distance ride.  I am riding a normal size bike that I got from somebody for free.

Outside View of the Guest House(view from my room).  Right next to the guest house is the residence hall for couples(not shown in the picture, one bed room apt) and families(two bed room apt).  Very spacious. Also, there are two kinds of the guest houses: ones with kitchen, ones without it.

All automatic Spa in my bathroom.  I enjoy it very much almost every night. You set the water level and temperature once then one button will set you for a hot bath.

Bath Tub(Herbal Shampoo and Rinse, 498 yen each). A little small but it saves money.  It's a pity that you can't bathe with your girlfriend.  ;)
 

Basin. Small but very useful.

Toilet. Left turn flushes big ones, right turn does small ones.

Bed, Heater/Cooler.  If you can't stand a cold room, you need a supplementary heater.  Also, you will need a carpet or a slipper.  Floor is very cold unlike in Korea, where floor is heated instead of air.  You can change your sheets every week (fee included in the mandatory maintenance fee of 3600 yen a month).

Closet, Refrigerator, door, cabinet(all furnished). On top of the frig is hot water pot, which provides hot water anytime.  You have to keep the cord plugged, though.    You take out your own garbage and dump it for free.

 

TV and study desk are also furnished.  If it is too dry you can place a wet towel in the room or keep a small amount of warm water in the tub and leave the bathroom door open while you sleep.
 

Balcony. Individual heating/cooling system unit.  You can dry your laundry here but the laundry room (every floor) is equipped with washers and driers. It takes about 1.5 hour to wash and dry.
 

Scent for Bath (400 yen). Very soothing experience.  If you have a music like CHANT or instrumental by KITARO, the surreal experience will be enhanced. 

Weight Scale (Electronic, 5020 yen with tax). Very accurate compared to mechanical ones.  It also reports fat composition of your body.  Mechanical ones are around 2000 yen at Bulldog (a gift shop nearby the dorm).

Hospital look hallway.  I hope it is blue or green.  Walking down the hallway, you can here people talking inside.  Be aware.
 

 Lounge (eating, chatting, and studying if you don't mind people talking). After the caretaker retires, some people drink (not allowed in principle) here. Air conditioned.  If you want to save on your utility bill, stay here a lot.

Kitchen (you are not supposed to cook in your room) and personal cabinets for storing utensils, sauce, and rice etc. Looks like a morgue...  I don't go there a lot for now.

 A Wash/Dry room each floor.  It takes about 1.5~2 hours to finish the whole laundry.  You don't have to hang your laundry in your balcony if you are laundry-shy.

If you arrive around the end of semester(late March), leaving students will dump their appliances to the garbage dumping sites. You can get most of appliances such as refrigerator, fan and others here, if you don't mind used ones. Usually when the appliances are out of order, students cut the wire to let others know they are not usable.  However, people from recycling centers will cut the wire to prevent others to pick up so that they can sell them later. The two refrigerators in the picture were gone 5 minutes after I took this photo and I saw recycling center was going through the pile.  Therefore, if you find what you need, even though the wire is cut off, check if it works.  They will work usually.

A truck from a recycling center.  They ran away when I took this photo.








 

Left is for recyclable and right is non-recyclable.

Dumped microwave oven in front of a dorm.

Oposite view of the guest house. You CAN get a unit with kitchen, I was told.

Residence for couples and families.  If you a larger unit, you can get a university town house out of the main campus.

A cat family in my neigborhood.  I don't see many squirrels like in the US, I see lots of big black crows and cats.  They are not domestic.  Also crows are very smart and my friend told me that some of them remember your face and may attack if you harass them.

In the Fall, you can pick up chestnuts around the Oikoshi residence. Very environment-friendly (no fertilizer or pesticide) but not so tasty as commercially grown chestnuts.  Also, you will find chestnnut worm in 5 out of 10 chestnuts you find.

Boiled chestnuts.... I loved them.








 

One day I really want to eat a Japanese Nabe(boiling pot) Ryori(dish) and did it in my room.  The pot cost me 1,300 yen, vegetables about 1,000 yen and meats about 1,500 yen. I tried the Sukiyaki('Suki' mean "prefer" or "love" and 'Yaki' means "grilled". So basically Sukiyaki means you boil what you like and eat them). Also Sukiyaki sauce for 1000 yen.  The sauce was a bit too sweat so I used just a little bit of it, just to give the flavor, and added salt.  That way it wasn't that sweat. After the pot is bolied you put an egg in a separate bowl, stir the egg and add soysauce to it and you dip the vegies and meats and eat them.  Hmm... very yummy.  I am doing it again soon because I just used 1/4 of the materials I bought for Sukiyaki.

On 11-15-06, there was an earthquake near Japan(magnitude of 8.1) Islands and a Tsu-na-mi(a tidal wave caused by earthquake) warning has been issed.  I was far away from the coast but made me a little scared. North Hokkaido(red lines) has been hit.

A Mot-chi(a sticky rice cake) from Tokyo.  A little sweet but delicious.


 

If you don't want to go out for a dinner but don't want to cook, an alternative is to get a Ben-To from a convinient store.  They will heat it up so it is edible if it is not too frequent.  This was the most expensive one on the shelf; 530 Yen.