Settling in a new place in Tokyo

Oh Boy. I feel like it's been forever since I last posted
anything to my blog! I had never intended to take this long
vacation from blogging, but moving outside the country really
took over my life. I feel so behind on blog land now..it will take
some time to get back to the swing of things, but I am very much
excited about continuing to blog from Japan now. It's funny how
I have missed all of you although I haven't met most of you in person!
If you've felt the same way about me, I am giving you a big
virtual hug! I'm back! And I will always be here!

I apologize for all of you who have sent me emails in the last
several weeks, as it took me literally a few weeks to get back
to each of you. We had several days of no cellphones, no fridge,
no microwave, no washier, no Internet, and of course almost
no knowledge about this area we moved in, but now we have everything
mentioned above now, so things are getting back to normal.

Our new place and the neighborhood are pretty good.
The apartment is so much smaller than our previous
apartment in California. Not just an apartment itself,
but everything has shrunken. We used to buy 2 gallons
of milk at a time, as opposed to now where we barely
have enough space for 2 quarter gallon of milk in the fridge.
To help you visualize the downsizing we experienced,



here is our old kitchen, and..




this is our current kitchen. (FYI I am not missing
out any part of this kitchen. Everything you see is
everything I have in my kitchen.) In my old kitchen,
I needed a stool to look at and wipe the top surface of
the fridge, but now, everything on the microwave
which is on top of the fridge is right in front of my
face when I stand there, lol. I spend a lot of time
in the kitchen, so it has taken me some time to
get used to my new tiny kitchen, but I enjoy
the challenge. Trying to be creative on how to make
use of each space I am given here is a good brain exercise.
It helps on saving money on unnecessary stuff too
as we simply don't have space to store it.




Here is our new living room. As moving cost a ton
of money, we'll slowly get our apartment up to speed.
Hopefully I'll furnish this room with a small couch,
a bigger table, and maybe a handmade rug. (I'm contemplating
making Camille's Swoon quilt pattern into a rug for this room!)




Probably this is the room you want to see the most, hehe.
Just a snapshot for now, because I want you to see it
when it's complete and pretty (hopefully!). I have shipped
almost all sewing supplies and fabrics from the US and am
still waiting for them to arrive. Once I have them, I will
start decorating my room with mini quilts made by my
friends, etc. Can't wait to start doing that!




The neighborhood we moved in is at the edge of Tokyo,
so it's quite a bit country side. It's probably far from
the image of the super metropolitan city in Tokyo
you might have. We've learned that everyone in this town
bike to everywhere, so we both bought bikes which
we have been using to explore this neighborhood every weekend.
A lot of fun! The picture above was taken last Sunday
at a festival held at Hikarigaoka park we stopped by.




This is from yesterday where we biked to Shakujii Park.

There has been lots of positive aspects of us moving here,
but I am so relieved that Joe's loving our new life here
to pieces. I still can't believe that we actually moved to
Japan together. This is something we were hoping would happen
at some point in life, but it happened a lot sooner than expected.
Sure there are worries. We experience earthquake pretty often
and the economy here is doing pretty bad. It's so hot and humid
every day and I am so sticky at any given time and itchy
from bug bites, but I am so happy to be back home.

Oh many folks have asked me if I would sell fabric from Japan.
I am not sure if I will be able to list a lot of fabrics, but
if I find cute and unusual fabric here, I'll try to list them
in my shop. I have to go fabric shopping first! (Can you believe
I haven't gone fabric shopping in Japan yet?!)

Thank you so much for taking the time to read such a long
post! I'll come back with pictures of a few things I made
before moving sometime soon.

Hope your week started off nicely!


P.S. Japan's got a "small" option at Starbucks!