Japan: Hiroshima 2 - Our Apartment and Parking

I love our apartment because it is so convenient. This is the first time I've ever lived in a city. We live in downtown Hiroshima and are only a couple blocks away from the shopping district and restaurants. It is only an 8 minute walk to the train station.

The apartment is a very nice 2 bedroom, 2 bath apt, in the Shukkeien Park area. We don't have all our furniture yet. I plan to order more this week. We don't have couches, until our air and sea shipments get here. Which will take about 2 months. Rent is ridiculous as you probably imagine. It is approximately $4,200/mo. Thankfully we get expatriate benefits to help us with part of it. (See pic of washing machine, can it be any smaller?)

The best way to go is to walk or bike everywhere (check out our sweet bike pic). There are taxis galore or we drive our bright blue Mazda 3. Most cars in Japan are either white, silver or black. We stick out like a sore thumb. Parking is rather interesting. The parking garages are the coolest thing I've ever seen! The system is a cross between an elevator and conveyer belt. Basically you pull into a one car garage over a rotating floor, park and get out. The floor drops and your car is swallowed into a series of other shelved cars. When you want your car, you punch in a code and watch the floor open and the cars rotate til it finds yours and brings it up. Then it rotates around so you can drive right out...very a la James Bond.