Explanations

“So, Sarah, you’re talking about a host family, but you also mention that you’re living in the dorms. What’s up with that?” you might ask. Well, Kansai Gaidai (the university I’m going to) does allow you to participate in a homestay program, but the first week of orientation has you living in the dorms for foreign students. These dorms are known as the “Seminar Houses,” are off campus, and are about a half hour’s walk to campus. I walk back and forth from dorm to campus at least twice a day, if I’m lucky (though this is due to personal preference. I like to walk; other students may spend more time on campus because they don’t want to walk back). This Sunday (minus any effects from the typhoon), I will be moving out of the dorm to live with my host mother.

The tatami, the closets, and Guiliana!

The dorms in the Seminar Houses (or at least mine, Seminar House 3), are pretty small (though, currently, we have 3 students in a 2 student room, so I may have a slight bias :) ), but they have three sections: a tatami section, a hard wood section, and the balcony. Tatami mats are the quintessential Japanese floor-coverings made out of woven rush straw. They’re so soft and delicate. We can’t put anything wet, heavy, or sharp on them! The tatami section is where the bedding is placed and takes up about two thirds of the room. Attached to the front wall (near the door) are two closets. Inside the closets there is a set of drawers and a higher shelf, with a large space in the middle. This large space is where your futon (instead of a bed, in Japan, people use futons), is rolled up and put away during the day. There is also a hanging rack for clothes. Also in that area is the genkan, a lowered part of the floor where you put your house slippers on; only bare and stocking-clad feet can go on the tatami!

Genkan

Please pardon the mess!

The tatami lowers into the hardwood floor area next. This is where the two desks sit with attached wall bookcases for study. It’s really, really small, but it has a frosted glass sliding door that opens into the balcony, where there are rods to dry your wet laundry (due to a lack of clothes dryers in Japan)—but be careful not to leave them out during a rainstorm! :)

Next, the balcony!

It seems like everyone has a balcony in Japan, but my balcony is special. Since I’m on the end of the building and on the second floor, my balcony has an escape ladder hatch, which is all kinds of awesome. In

The hatch for the escape ladder

addition to the escape hatch, my balcony is separated from the other dorms’ balconies by a pink “Emergency Exit” board. I find it ridiculously funny. Also on my balcony are a series of metal rods, which I believe to be for drying clothes, but I’m not sure. Underneath them is a groove, which I believe drains down into the rain gutter, so I think it’s either for dripping wet clothes, rain blown into the balcony (and after today, there’s a lot of water to be dealt with!), or both.

Rods and the "gutter"

The lounge

The kitchen

 And now to outside of my room. My dorm is connected to a bigger room. This room is shared by 3 other dorms and contains a kitchen (that we as temporary guests cannot use for stuff other than boiling water and microwaving) and a lounge with a giant couch and TV. There's also a bathroom, but I've heard that suite bathrooms are unique to Seminar House 3 alone, which is why people pay more to live in it.

But now to the part you all were wondering the most about: the bathroom!

Okay, I’ve heard a lot about all the weird things in a Japanese bathroom (especially the toilets). Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), my dorm in Kansai Gaidai does not have most of the odd things on toilets, except for a spigot where you can wash your hands after you flush the toilet, on top of the toilet.  It’s pretty cool in the fact that the water that you wash your hands with goes into the tank and becomes the water which the next person flushes with, but the coolness is slightly negated by the fact that there is no towel to dry your hands in there.

Outside of the shower

However, the showers here are awesome. There are two dials, one for water temperature (and it’s done so that if you want over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), you have to press a button) and one for pressure. There are also two clips where you can put the removable shower head. This means you can have a high shower, low shower, or shower

Inside the shower

yourself. It’s really good for saving water. Also they don’t use paper towels, instead they have a hand air dryer, much like the Dyson Air Blade that the Aldo Leopold Nature Center’s in their new bathrooms. 

Close-up of the shower controls

Well, that's all for now, folks! I hope you have a better understanding of what I'm going through. :D