Windows and balconies

It was 20 degrees in Tokyo yesterday, so I took Elliott outside a few times and we explored the balconies for the first time. We had been living here for a week before I realised there are two balconies in our loft... The large one is at the front of the loft, and the floor to ceiling windows looking onto it are how we get most of our natural light. The view from the large balcony is of the busy road, so I show Elliott the cars and people out the window every morning at play time. He loves it!



The other balcony is easy to miss because it's behind some thick colourful curtains, and doesn't let in very much natural light.



You have to crouch down and crawl through a little window to get onto this balcony. I think this is the one Mrs. Yamaoka was talking about in the Wall Street Journal article here, although I disagree with her! I think it's fun to crawl through a little door. Elliott and I felt like Alice in Wonderland. There is a normal-sized door on the large front balcony, so I do wonder why she didn't just use that one for hanging her laundry. Perhaps she didn't want people to see her undies from the street?

The little door:



The view towards the street:



The view straight ahead, of the neighbour's balcony!



Little Elliott feeling like Alice in Wonderland:



I also took the chance to take photos of the windows in our loft. My two favourite aspects of architecture are windows and staircases, and the windows here are pretty photo-worthy! They are made of metal, which is usually my least favourite type of window. These windows are cool though, because they're at all different heights and are lots of different shapes!

Here's the view from the round room:



And here's the little window in the square room:



And here's another little window in the bathroom:



Obviously I like the little windows best!