Fukui: Home Sweet Home

My new home, Mauroka Town, part of Sakai City in Fukui prefecture, is a nine hour bus ride from Tokyo. Our bus pulled away from the neon lights and bustling streets of Tokyo, and chugged through the rice paddies, pine forests, and mountains of Fukui prefecture. The further we drove from Tokyo, the more nervous I got: where, exactly, was I going to spend the next year?!?

The answer? I live in the Mahomet of Japan! More precisely, I live on the ground floor of a two-story apartment complex. My apartment is half "Japanese" style, meaning I sit on tatami mats and sleep on a futon on the floor, but the kitchen and bathroom have all "western" amenities - thank God, as Japanese-style squat toilets are not easy for this American to adapt to!

I'm also the proud owner of a 1998 Suzuki Alto - a surprisingly quick little car that's much more reliable than Chicago's CTA! I had to go pick up the car in Tsuruga, a port town about two hours south of Maruoka, and drive it home through the mountains back home. Nothing like jumping in feet first with driving on the left!

So my apartment and car are quite modern, but the washing machine is another story. The dinosaur sits out on my front stoop, in all its olive green, mosquito-covered glory, and washing, like, a pair of pants, takes a full hour. I put put in the water with a hose, change the clothes for the spin cycle, and then hang them on a line to dry - no dryers in sight! So much for hi-tech Japan!

The view from my apartment? Rice paddies and mountains. Japanese inaka (countryside) at its finest. But, just a few kilometers from my house lies the urban mecca that is Fukui City - Starbucks, pachinko parlors, and all the karaoke a girl could ask for. I'll be okay here after all...