My host family and my Homestay

These are the pictures of my house for my Home stay Program. My house is a three story house. Sound like a big house but the fact is the house is pretty small compared to Malaysia houses. The 1st floor of the house has a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. 2nd floor is my Okasan room which is a huge room with a big balcony for drying the clothes. Lastly, 3rd floor is my room and my big sister’s room.

Here is the look of the house from outside
This is the potrait of the politic leader

This is the portrait of the politic leader in the Japan Liberal Democratic Party (DLP). The Japanese people usually will put the portrait of the leader the like and they support in front of the house. Such condition is seldom seen in Malaysia.

Here is the corridor after you enter my house. The kitchen is on the left and the living room is on the right. In Japanese culture, after you coming back to the house, it is appropriate for you to say “Tadaima” to your family meaning that you have safely reach home. While when you want to go out, usually you will say “Itekimasu”. Then your family will reply you with “Iterashai”.

After I take off my shoe, usually I will wear on another in house shoe.

The floor can be very cold during winter, so that shoe is necessary to keep you warm.

Here is the staircase that leads to my room. You can find that the staircase is so small and narrow. It matched the size of the house.

Finally, here is the 3rd floor where me and my sister stay.

Ok, here is my room. The pictures shows my study table.

And this is my bed. I am having a normal single bed instead of a Japanese Tatami bed. This bed is warmer and softer compared to a Tatami bed. However, during winter it is very cold so I often use more than one comforter to keep myself warm.

My Japan room size is 6 Tatami bed size. It is like half of the size of my room in Malaysia but the view here is even better because I am in the highest floor. Through the window, I can see the mountain on my left and a temple on my right. During the spring, the temple is full with cherry blossom that make the view even better.

The furniture in my room include bed with warm comforter, study table with chair, heater, two cupboards and a carpet. Although it is small in size, it is sufficient.

I don’t have a air conditioner in my room however I do have a heater.
So this is the machine t hat helps me through the freezing winter in Japan.
Kind of small but it can be very useful during the cold time.

Here are the others shoes and socks that I wear in the house.

This is the bigger view of my room. Also, the window over there is the place that I can see awesome view of the mountain and sky.

Here is the house’s kitchen. Kitchen is the place where I spend most of my time in the other than my room. This is because the living room is use for teaching calligraphy purposes so the kitchen is the place where I gather with the host family to have meal together and have chatting with each others.

There is a refrigerator, toaster, microwave and an electric cooking spot in the kitchen. The dining table is also set up in the kitchen so it made the kitchen seem a little bit small.

Here are the cupboards that my Okasan keep all her precious set of dishes collection. It is something like the tea time cup and plate set with tiny teaspoon and small fork. She has plenty of different collections. It is used only to serve the guests that visit our house. Usually it will just be kept in the cupboard till when the guests visit us during some occasion.

Here is the bathroom. During winter, the atmosphere and the floor is freezing cold so a hot bath can really make you feel comfortable. In Japan, the water fee is very expensive and Japanese people do not take bath so often like Malaysian people. So I only take bath once in a day at the morning before I go to school. There is also a bath tab in the bathroom but I never use it because usually I just take a 15 minute shower.

There are two restrooms in my house. This is one of it while another one is better because it has the control buttons that has multiple functions. Some of my friends even make presentation about Japanese restroom in the class. So can you figure out how advanced the country is? even with their restroom…!!!