Heres a quick geography review. This is a map of Japan:

Notice towards the center of the country, theres Osaka. It’s got a little line over the ‘o’ because technically, you should pronounce it with a long ‘o’ sound, like Oosaka. Anyway, there is where I am living right now. I live right inside of Osaka city, in an area called Miyakojima. It’s really close to downtown!

The red arrow is Miyakojima. I live pretty much right on top of that dot because my apartment is maybe 30ft away from the subway station entrance and most likely right on top of the station itself. The yellow arrow is the station that I get off of to go to work, Higashi Umeda, which literally just means ‘East Umeda’, Umeda being another name for Osaka station right in downtown Osaka. It takes me less than 10 minutes on the train to go from Miyakojima to Higashi Umeda, and in fact they are on the same train line!

Anyway, here are some pictures of my little neighborhood:

Here’s the station exit that is closest to my apartment!

Now we are walking away from the station, towards my apartment. Hmm, what is this Dining Sun place?

Oh hey, its my building! And look on the second floor, thats my place!

Free newspaper in my mailbox? Score! Too bad I can barely read it…….

Turn the corner and there are the stairs into the building. You have to walk past the restaurant that occupies the first floor to get to the apartments. I’ve yet to eat at this place and probably won’t even bother to while I’m here.

Route to my room. Its super exciting. (Not.)

My door!

And the following are some lovely views of my balcony, which now doesn’t have water pouring down onto it every day!

My washing machine and escape hatch that would allow me to fall onto the cement floor below in case of a fire or something. Hopefully I’ll never have to use that.

The escape hatch from the apartment above me. Its directly above the balcony door. This is where all the water was coming from every time it rained or (I’m suspecting) every time my upstairs neighbor used their washing machine. The landlord tinkered with it and it has since stopped leaking completely. Yay!

Cherubs?

Aaaand, three views from my window:


The guy in the last one noticed me taking photos and posed for me. You can see it better if you click on it.