Snowy Hokkaido Apartment Tour

In this video, I invite you to explore my Japanese apartment in Snowy Hokkaido, Japan. I’ll start by showing you our traditional Japanese genkan, an essential part of our home. We’ll then move to the stove that’s crucial for keeping us warm during the intense Hokkaido winters. Our compact kitchen might be small, but it’s where my collection of spices and our mini Moka Pot coffee maker live. I’ll also take you through our practical bathroom and shower area. Next up is my wife’s bedroom, featuring her old-style Japanese cupboards, full of charm. You’ll also get a glimpse of my office and bedroom, my own personal space. We’ll end the tour on the balcony, where you can see the beautiful snowfall outside. Come and see how we live in Hokkaido!

Hello and welcome to another episode of Nightingale in Japan, and in this episode I’ll be giving you a tour of my apartment in Snowy Hokkaido in Japan. Let’s jump in. So as soon as you walk into the apartment you enter the genkan, which is where you take

Your shoes off before entering the House, which is a standard Japanese custom, and in my genkan I have a special character at the front, Kuma-san, Kuma-Meaning bear. This was actually my wife’s great-grandfather’s bear, and I guess it’s been handed down to me now, which I’m very fortunate

To have it, but it’s an Ainu woodcrafted sculpture, and he’s very cute. And then I also have at the front of my genkan a picture, or a painting rather, that I bought when I was in Florence

In Italy many years ago, or 10 years ago now I think, and you’ve got your standard fire extinguisher. And then as I take you across, in front there you can see a little storage cupboard. I’ve got my snow coat there because it is absolutely bloody freezing inside, and today you’re lucky

Because it is actually snowing today, so I can give you a brief look at that. So inside is a bit hard to see because I’ve got some doors that I’ve put in there, but a little storage cupboard, and my wife’s suitcase. So if I try and take you into here, you can

See that there’s really not that much room, and I’ve just got frames from desks that I can’t use because we just don’t have the space in here, and a musical keyboard stand as well.

But yeah, not really much to see in there. So next I’m going to be taking you into the actual living room. And so on the left there we have the stove, which I actually just turned off so it’s making a bit of noise

At the moment, but it was getting a bit hot in here, even though I had it on low. But in Hokkaido, this is definitely a staple. You really need a stove because it just gets so bloody cold.

And then this was a chair. This is my chair. Actually, this is the chair that I bought from a second-hand store, which are really awesome in Japan. They’ve got tons of second-hand stores, and I think I probably ended up buying this for about, probably about 60 US dollars, which was a bloody bargain.

And just next to the chair we’ve got the bookshelf, and there’s lots of my wife’s books in there as well, but there’s a couple of mine, like some of the specific books that I wanted to bring from Australia

Coming over here because I wasn’t going to buy them again. And at the top there I’ve basically set up a laptop as a server in the house so that I can stream any of my movies all through the house.

And then on top you can see a little picture that my wife made of Cactuar from Final Fantasy VII, which is really cute. I turn it around in front of you. You’ve got the fridge there. And this TV. I was actually going to try and sit down

And watch TV two days ago, and when I sat down the bloody thing wasn’t working, and it’s broken, so we’re going to have to buy another TV soon. Just a little bit of shelving.

Now, we’re fortunate, my wife and I, in that the house that we live in is pretty much quite spacious for what it is, especially for two people, so the next room that I’ll show you now is, as you can see, the kitchen.

And fortunately we’ve got an extra table that we can use as cutting space. But one thing I really hate is the bins, because they’re just really ugly and out of place,

Which leads me on to my next point. As I’ll post above the video now you’ll see a link to the video I did about making or organising rubbish in Japan, and this is actually the cheat sheet that we used to try and determine

Which day the rubbish needs to be put out, or what goes in, what bag, etc. And then we’ve got the Japanese staple, the rice cooker, and the microwave. Now, the top box here is mostly my stuff, so I’ve got things like nuts,

And it’s hard to try and find spicy curry stuff, so I’ve gone online and bought spices for chicken and all that sort of stuff. And just down here we have the rice, and something that you might find interesting, you can’t really see it too well,

But it’s actually a Star Wars Instant Pot, so I use that for things like slow cooking, slow cooking pork, or different meals. And I’ll just give you a quick look outside, as you can see, right now it is actually snowing,

And that’s pretty much why I said it’s absolutely bloody freezing outside at the moment. And so, inside, as I said, I’m pretty much a spice fiend, so you’ve got the Cooker there, and I’m pretty much a spice fiend, so we’ve got all various different types of spices.

We’ve got methi leaves, so if you chuck a bit of garlic in a pan, some ginger and some methi leaves, fry it up, your house will smell like an Indian restaurant, I guarantee it. And you’ve got some cardamom, and I could list them all obviously, but I’m not going to,

But yeah, tons of spices that I use, I’m a bit of a curry Munchera, and the extraction fan, and just your standard sink. But at the top, I’ve got my coffee and my protein powder, and this stuff is the bomb,

Like it’s a Japanese brand, but I found it on Amazon and it doesn’t have any additives or anything like that in there, so I was like, oh, okay, that’s pretty good, but then I ruined it then by eating all the chocolate and all the bad shit, so it doesn’t really make sense.

And one thing I will mention is this is the pot I use to make coffee in Japan, I’m going to try and get a bit of better light in there. It’s the Bialetti, so this is just the top part of it,

But in Japan, most people actually use drip coffee, so they use these sort of funnel type things and get their coffee to drip through, and it’s okay, but if you’re after a stronger sort of coffee, then definitely the Bialetti is the winner there.

And now we’re moving on into the bathroom area, so we’ve got the toilet as soon as you walk in, and this is actually quite a big area considering, so we’ve got our washing machine,

And then the old sink, so you can see my stuff there, and then you’ve got the Mrs. stuff just down there, my stuff on top as well, some aftershaves and various other stuff, and again, the wife’s products.

I’m a fortunate that we’ve got a little shelf at the back as well where we can put stuff on, like my contact lenses and the laundry liquid, rather. And then there’s another shelf up here as well, but this is relatively empty.

This box is actually filled with all different types of teapots and teacups and stuff like that from my wife’s great-grandmother’s house, because when we first got here, they did a massive clearing out of the house before bashing it down. And then we’ve got the shower room.

And so the actual bath, I mean, I can get in there and I can bend my knees and it’s fine, but I’d much rather kick my legs out and be able to lie in it. The Mrs. is quite petite, so it’s really easy for her.

I’ve also should mentione that I managed to find some soap dispensers, which are magnetic, and surprisingly, a lot of the showers I’ve seen so far in Japan, the walls are magnetic, so you can stick as much shit on the walls as you want, which is awesome.

Especially considering I keep knocking my wife’s stuff over, but mine arepretty much secure to the walls, so… Now, moving on from there, we’re moving into the wife’s territory now. So this is my wife’s room, and she was a bit Apprehensive about me actually showing you this room,

But I was like, I’ll be all right. “It’s my kinky underwear they want to see, not yours.” 🤣 But yeah, so, nice and bright windows in this room, and my wife’s got a lot of like oldie sort of cabinets and cupboards and stuff like that.

She loves this sort of style, oldie Japanese style cabinets and cupboards. And this thing here is actually a clothing steamer. Now, my wife loves using this bloody thing on her clothes, but for me, I just prefer the old school iron.

And just at the bottom, some of you probably spotted this, but this is one of my wife’s prize possessions. It’s a stuffed capybara, and she’s got tonnes of them. She’s got really small ones, big ones, but we just don’t have the room for her to bring all her teddies from her mother’s house.

And she’s 25, and she’s still got teddies, but there you go. And there you go, this is the standard Japanese traditional futon, just there. And then moving from there, we’ll be going into my room and my office. So you’re probably thinking, well, why have you both got separate bedrooms?

Well, my wife will actually lays her bed down this way, and I will lay my bed down there, and we’re partitioned by a door. So just before we go to bed in the night, we’ll hold hands, and my wife always loves having her curtains open in the night.

It’s too bloody bright for me, so we close the door, and then I’m in my dark room, and I know obviously she’s right next to me anyway, just separated by a door pretty much. So this is my room. This is where I do all my editing and all my creative stuff.

So as you can see, I’ve got quite a bit of a setup here. I built a computer myself, and I’ve got some decent sized speaker monitors, but I can’t really obviously give them a good flogging, because like most other Japanese houses, the walls are not exactly thick, so.

And as you can see there, I love my Final Fantasy characters. Cactuar, Chocobo, Nanaki, Cactuar again, Tonberry, and then on this side, we’ve also got Cloud as well. But to give you another quick sweep, so. I’ve got my office chair there, I’ve got a kickstand down the bottom,

And I used some polystyrene stuff so that I didn’t keep putting my feet on the walls, because in previous places I’ve been in, my feet keep touching the walls, and then they end up getting dirty. And I’ve got a weights bench there as well, with probably about 50 kilograms worth of weight there.

Obviously I’m nowhere near up to 50 kilograms, in terms of bicep curls and all that, but I definitely appreciate having the ability to do weights whenever I want at home. And I’ve got some resistance bands there, so it makes it easier to do things like seated back rows, etc.

And now I also compose some music, so I’ve got a full 88 key keyboard there, and a synthesizer just on the top as well. And I use my tablet as a double screen for when I use my teleprompter, so I can actually see myself and know what’s happening.

And at the back you can see my Welsh flag, and then another one of the Pride and Joy is all my Final Fantasy collection. So pretty much almost everything you see there, up until about there, is all Final Fantasy games,

All from PlayStation, and PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, 4, and some PC stuff as well. Definitely a Final Fantasy Nerd as you can tell. And then, yeah, just a hanger for some of my clothes and jackets, and my CPAP machine down there and my wife’s switch,

So when I go to sleep in the night I have to pop this bad boy on, because it stops me from snoring like a beast. And finally, I’m going to show you the balcony. So let’s go and have a quick look outside.

So as I mentioned, and as you can see it is actually snowing at the moment, which is really nice. A bit of a pan of the balcony. So at the moment there’s even snow on the balcony down the bottom.

And that tank you just see over there is the tank that connects up to the stove, and these are the containers that I use to fill up with kerosene, so I can fill up the tank pretty much. They end up being about 16 litres each. I love the snow.

So we can try and give a bit of a pan up. Just to give you a bit of an idea what it’s like on the bottom. Absolutely gorgeous. As I show you this, I’m actually getting stuck to the ground. I’m getting stuck to the balcony.

And that concludes the tour of my apartment in Snowy Hokkaido. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I wish you all a very happy New Year’s, and I look forward to seeing you in the next year. Thank you for watching. Bye.