The location of our apartment is about a 70 minute train ride from central Tokyo. As you can see in the pictures, the landscape in our neighborhood is quite different from downtown Tokyo. (that's Martin collecting our mail) Most of our team memebers live in the same apartment compound about an hour away, so we feel fortunate to have the opportunity to actually live in a unique community among the Japanese. Our building has 12 apartments with most of our neighbors speaking some English. They have accepted us into their building and have been very helpful.

I took this picture from the 45th floor of the Tokyo Goverment Building. Far in the distance is the area of the city where we live, Koganei-shi; a community of about 500,000. Our apartment is within walking distance of grocery stores, a shopping mall, restaurants, the train station, bus stops, and "McDonalds".