Many people ask me about my house in Japan, i suspect that they think that it is tiny.. Especially compared to my home in Australia..
It is smaller than my Perth home, but my Sydney apartment for 6 years was pretty much the same size. Total size is about 73 sq m, its a 2 storey maisonette, like  2 storey town house in a block of 4 with another block of 4 across the carpark from me..
2 bedrooms, bathroom, toilet, combined Lounge /Kitchen /Dining and a small outdoor area.  Its very peaceful and I have a rice field view from my bedroom window and theres a vegetable garden behind me too..
In the close vicinity of my house are dozens of restaurants, a couple of big supermarkets, lots of convenience stores and city offices are close by.  But in general its peaceful and relatively quiet.   The children clatter past my house in the morning on their way to school and the odd strange parade goes past..  But most of the time its like now – completely quiet..

All the floors are wood and there is a space by the front door to take your shoes off before you enter.  That makes it very easy to keep clean !
I have had to dig myself out of snow a couple of times, and when there’s an earthquake the house rattles.    Its wooden framed, so it creaks just before the earthquake hits – actually thats what usually wakes me up, if i’m asleep, is the pressure wave making the house creak…  But nothing much has fallen over or off the walls really, although i do have a fairly minimalistic
style here..
I have reverse cycle air conditioning upstairs and downstairs and in winter i have a couple of radiators i use …  All the windows are double glazed, so its pretty comfortable inside for the most part..
One of my favourite rooms is the bathroom, the bath is deep and long enough to stretch out, but you can fill it automatically, and it keeps the water temperature constant for how ever hot or long you set it for and when its ready it tells me in the kitchen !!  In winter it is glorious..
You do need to study recycling here… I have to seperate about 10 different items each 2 weeks –  Burnable, non burnable, white polystyrene, PET bottles, cans, cartons, cardboard, magazines, brown glass, white glass, other glass, batteries, newspapers and magazines… Now its fine, but to begin with !!