I live just a few minutes from work, close enough that riding my bicycle is just as quick as if I drove. I'm on the 5th floor of a 6-story building, which is one of the tallest buildings on the south side of the river and can be spotted from quite a ways off. It's 6 tall, but it isn't particularly big, as each floor has only 6 apartments. The landlord is a very nice fellow by the name of Yukio, and he lives in apt. 101 and keeps an eye on things. He actually speaks a bit of English, so we've chatted a little now and then. One of my next door neighbors also speaks some English, as she lived in Tokyo for several years and had a business there that required her to.
The outside of the building is very old looking and not very clean, but on the inside all of the flooring, wallpaper, and paint are brand new. I have two regular-size bedrooms, a kitchen, a small den, and a small bathroom, for a total of about 615 square feet, which is only 100 less than where I was. There's a good-sized balcony with enough room for sitting around out back, and the den and bedroom have sliding glass doors that open onto it, too. No too bad at all, and I cetainly don't feel "cramped up". The view from the front and back are the best I've ever had, as well.
There are good-sized (but not walk-in) closets in each bedroom, another in the den (odd place for a closet), and a pantry area in the kitchen. I have half-size fridge, a microwave, a toaster oven, and a half-size washing machine, as well. They also provided me with a futon to sleep on (actually very comfortable, and long enough too!), a very small couch, a kitchen table with chairs, a cupboard with a few dishes in it, a stove/baker thingy, a small chest of drawers, and some drapes.
Central air-conditioning isn't used in apartments, or houses either as best as I can tell. Wherever you live, you buy your own units, and then if you move they go with you. They aren't like the window units at home though, as these actually sit on the ground outside, like small versions of what we have in the US. There are pipes that come in through a port in the wall and into a quiet fan/blower unit that is mounted near the ceiling. They put one in the den and one in the bedroom for me. So, I get cool, but the noise is still outside instead of in my window. They also ALL come with TV-like remote controls that let you change the temperature and fan strength/direction, and even let you set times for them to turn off or on, or change, so you don't have to run them full blast all day to come home to a cool apartment.
Now how about the bad part(s)?
Well, there's no garbage disposal, which is something the Japanese apparently know nothing about. It's not that this is a cheapo place - I mean they don't have them anywhere. Not even at the appliance store. You have to put your scraps in the trash. Pretty easy to get used to, just seems very odd to me that they don't know about them.
There is no oven. Apparently few people use them, and I've only seen one at an appliance store. Instead they have small baking units that are only big enough to bake a pan of fish or something. The inside dimensions are about 12" x 8" x 3" deep. Not a lot bigger than my toaster oven. No turkey at Thanksgiving :(
No dishwasher. No big deal. Nobody else has one of those either.
I have a washer, but no dryer. Again, nobody seems to use them no matter where they live. You can really tell this is the case when it rains for 3 or 4 days in a row, as when it quits and the sun finally comes out everyone in the whole city does laundry and hangs their clothes out. Everywhere! I have a rack on the balcony and use the curtain rods inside too.
I find it so strange that with all the electronics are other modern equipment they have, they are obviously years behind on appliances. Come open an appliance store and you'd probably make a mint! Hmmmmm...
All of the doors on the inside are the sliding-type, as you'd imagine. The only problem is that the door frames are set at about 73" high and I'm 74" inches tall. This means I'm exactly the wrong height, as I have just about knocked my scalp off 4 times now. It happens when you step out of a room but forget something and turn around quickly to go back. More and more time has passed between each incident, so I'm getting better though.
That's about it. Admittedly, it's nowhere near as nice as where I was living in Tampa, but the rent there was $745 a month for a one bedroom and I had a bunch of as*&^*s for neighbors. Conversely, everyone here has gone out of their way to be friendly, and the rent is $0. All I have to pay is $50 a month for trash and maintenance, and whatever the regular utilities come up to be. I think the rent here would be about $500, but the school pays it, so you could say I'm very pleased. As a last note, the crime rate is so much lower here that you can live in a cheap(er) apartment without feeling like you're risking your life and property. Far from the case in Tampa.
the front of the building
the
entryway, bathroom on L, kitchen
and den up on the L, bedrooms on R
the kitchen area, small stove w/ baker right in the middle of pic
the den, with some laundry during the rain
my
bedroom L, and the spare R, with tatami flooring
you can see an AC blower at the top in mine