Apartment: My Shower/Bath

I SO prepared for this!!!

I think that, in general, my shower tends to be the cleanest place in the apartment since it gets washed and dried out almost every day, but nevertheless, I cleaned it up all nicely to show it to you guys!

The bathroom and room with a bath (& shower) are different rooms, which is how it’s been for all the Japanese apartments and houses I’ve been to so far, including in Tokyo, Hokkaido, and Kyushu. I keep mistyping “shower room” as “bathroom,” because my “shower room” here has the bathtub in it, but “bathroom” to people in the US means “toilet,” so…shower room…shower room…

In my shower room, the bathtub is on the left and the shower/standing area is on the right. The bathtub is big enough to soak in, but it’s not made to stretch out in (I think you can go to an onsen for that). I’ve lined up my shampoo, conditioner and soap on the thicker corner of the bathtub–it can be a little precarious when it gets slippery, because I’ve knocked the shampoo onto my foot once >< But generally, it’s okay. For shampoo, conditioner, and liquid soaps here, you can technically buy a new bottle each time you need a refill (which costs a little more), but it’s cheaper to buy plastic-contained refills and just pour it in yourself. I use Dove shampoo, by the way. I first started using it in Tokyo, when I had to decide on a shampoo and there were too many kinds and it was the only name I recognized, haha.

The faucet can be moved to the left to fill up the bathtub or to the right to wash your hands. The blue circle knob on the right is for cold water and the red one is for hot water (simple enough). The knob in the middle can be turned left or right, and doing so changes the water from going through the faucet to going through the shower nozzle/hose. This knob is marked with カラン (faucet) on one side and シャワー (shower) on the other. Pretty simple, and it’s written in really basic Japanese characters.* There have been times where I forgot to change the knob back to “faucet” after using the shower, and when I wash my hands I never bother to adjust the water temperature to “just right” and just use really cold water, so I would just walk in to wash my hands and turn on the faucet and get sprayed with super cold shower water^^; I think I’m becoming better about checking which way the knob is turned now, though…

In the following picture, you can see that there are two places you can put your shower head, higher and lower. When I take a shower, I keep my hand under the faucet until it feels warm, and then I put the shower head on the lower spot, change the knob to “shower,” and test the water from the shower again because it always comes out cold first.

On the left as you go in, you can see the light switch for the shower (bottom) and then above that, a larger looking box with white, red, and blue buttons. My shower has different airing, drying and cooling functions, available at varying settings. On the left is a long gray rectangle–that has increasing amounts of time: 0.5 hr, 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5 hours. This setting allows you to determine how long you want to keep whatever type of fan you’re using on.

On the left above the bathtub, there’s a bar where you can hang towels and things. Emily (my predecessor) told me that the drying function on my washer didn’t work too well or something (it’s an all-in-one type of machine, there’s no room for a washer and a dryer in here), so I dry some of my stuff in the shower room. The drying settings by the door are supposed to help, but I’m looking into just getting a drying rack/bar for my large room so stuff dries quicker. The other things I have hanging there are a plastic clothespin-dryer thing (it’s folded in half in this picture to save space, but you unfold it and then it’s twice as long), and a plastic holder that only has my comb in it because I’m not sure what else I could put in it without it tipping over.

Reverse view!

Let me know in the comments section if you have anything you’re curious about that I didn’t talk about! This post will leave me with two more sections of the apartment to cover. The hardest one will be getting my “bedroom” (is it a bed?) this sparkly clean to post about it, but it’s not going as badly as I expected, so there’s hope yet!

*Note after writing all this–tonight I just realized for the first time that the faucet/shower knob also has obvious little pictures indicating which direction is which, even if you can’t read…but I think that because they weren’t in color, I just sort of ignored them ><; It’s best to pay attention to details…><;;;