My (messy) apartment

I should have taken these ages ago, but my room was either too messy or the light wasn't good enough, so finally! Some pictures of my abode.Hallway, which is on the exact same level as the intra-city highway. It's not too loud, thankfully, and thank heavens it's not on the bedroom side. After 4am garbage trucks in NYC, this may as well be a field in the middle of nowhere.

Welcome to Casa Emily.
My genkan (where you take your shoes off). Usually there is a much greater explosion of shoes, but I straightened up for you all. Excuse the bra hanging up in the background.
A bit blurry. My "oven" on the right, and my dining room table complete with mikans and all manners of junk (I almost never eat here). Why are my sneakers on the table, you ask? Because they are my gym sneakers and they MUST be shoes that you only wear indoors. Sometimes I disregard this since I find it super annoying to have to pad around barefoot in the gym (certain areas are NO SHOES ALLOWED. Even though they are indoor shoes.... I don't get it either...).
My genkan and kitchen, also messy.
Toilet/bathroom/washer area. Shower/bathroom is at the far left, and toilet room is the one with the towel hanging on the door. My bathroom is kind of scary and crappy so I won't make you suffer any pictures of that.
Messy bedroom. With glorious down comforter, FINALLY. I spend almost no time in here except to sleep.
Messy living room with kotatsu (the table that has a heater and makes your legs nice and toasty while the rest of you freezes in your freezing apartment).
Messy bedroom with gigantic closet doors in the background. That's all.

Steaming

I cannot describe how hot and humid and generally miserable the summer in Japan is. From the moment I wake up, I begin sweating. I know I could turn on my airconditioner and sleep in the other room (new apartment has quite large couch that converts into a bed), but that would be expensive, plus I don't even sleep all that well in when the AC is on. Until October rolls around, it is going to be pretty gross around here.

Ooh, there's so much to tell, but where to start? Now that I'm settled I will try writing a bit more often so that I don't have to recap so much.

On Tueday night my adviser invited me out to a welcome-back-to-Fukuoka party for some of his college friends. It was an interesting group of people, all around 30 years old, and I could keep up with some of their conversation. We ate many little plates of food, among which was 馬刺, raw horse meat. Don't knock it 'til you try it, for it's quite delish. I wish I'd had my camera with me at the time. But I'm sure I'll eat it again :)

I'm soooo relieved to finally be in my apartment. It was convenient to live right downtown (5 minutes from work), but now I will really be able to settle in. The apartment is quite big (2 tatami rooms, a dining area, kitchen, bathtub room, toilet room) and it is completely furnished. The only things I have had to buy so far are a set of sheets, a new pillow, and a bathmat. I will probably buy a few more things to make it a bit home-ier (my predecessor was a 25-year old male... enough said?), but I really have everything I need. I may also replace a few things as time goes by, but for now, I'm set! I'll take some daytime pictures over the next few days (my bedroom is flooded with light in the morning!), but for now I will leave you with the views south from my veranda, morning and evening.