Lots of pictures, but not too much going on...

I have to say, not too much has been going on recently, but somehow Chris and I have lots of pics on our camera... so, I guess I will share a few of them!

Koshi (praise God) is pretty much potty trained. She goes outside, potties on her mat, and then comes back in a looks at you like "where's my treat?" It's pretty cute. Here's a pic of her getting her first bath in the shower... she looks thrilled, doesn't she??

Then, the other morning, I was putting on my makeup and she decided that she was going to stick her head up my jacket... and then she didn't know how to get out. I was cracking up so hard, so we had to get a pic...



My parents asked me the other day what were some unique/weird things about Japan... I couldn't tell them too many at the time, but since I've been looking I've come up with a ton. So, I'm going to share them in each post. Here's #1:
Many of their toilets here have a handle that comes out the side and has several options on it... We've seen these toilets in people's homes, hotels, department stores, you name it... To sum them up, they're pretty much just butt sprayers. A little tube comes out the back of the bowl and sprays out water on your rear. Chris loves them! He claims that he has to use much less toilet paper thanks to them. I, on the other hand, was curious about using it, but freaked out when the water actually started spraying and stood up. It then proceeded to spray water on the entire toilet and all over my clothes, so I ended up using a LOT more toilet paper than normal. Different ones have different options... some will play a flushing noise while you go (I guess so no one can hear you??) and others have other buttons with pictures on them that I'm scared to try. Anyways, here is a sideways picture of one:

I've also had some requests for pictures of our place... so here's a picture of the outside of our apartment building. It's called Florence Emi and there are 6 apartments in the building...

The balconies on the second floor there are ours, and the one on the right is the one that they chose to haul our piano over with a crane. (The thought still freaks me out)...

Here's a picture of our entrance... the cabinets have racks in them for all our shoes since it's customary to take off your shoes when entering a home in Japan. I'll be honest though... there's no room for any guest shoes in there because they're completely full with my shoes.
And here are some pictures of our bedroom... these are a sideways picture of the curtains that I made...

We normally have a black carpet that goes under our bed and covers up the ugly brown tile design that they put in the middle of our floor... but, Koshi decided early on that this was one of her favorite places to potty. So, it got cleaned and is rolled up in the corner of our room until we decide that we've really got this potty training thing in the bag.

That's it for now!! I have my first job interview this evening... it's to teach English to older Japanese students. A friend used to work there and really loved the job, so we're hoping I get it! I'll let you know what happens!