Hello! I am Nami, and I live at Borderless House Kamigamo for one month. For four times in total, I will blog about what I learned from living in a share house. I hope that some of you will become interested in the “share house” concept through this blog, and even catch a glimpse on what real life in a share house is like. Borderless House Kyoto-Kamigamo has just opened on March 20th, and there are events taking place pretty much every day. The foreign tenants have some kind of party every single day – sometimes I wonder where they get that much energy… but mostly, their positive attitude really cheers me up.   We’ve had various kinds of parties until now. For example, welcome parties when a new housemate moves in. And even on regular weekdays, it’s a lot of fun just having dinner or a few drinks together. Generally, everyone cooks their own dinner. But since we live together with Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, German and Australian housemates, there is such a huge variety of different foods! Once, our Korean housemate cooked a Korean dish called “jjigae” for everyone  Another time, the French guys treated us with some apple crumble. At Borderless House Kyoto-Kamigamo, we have lots of opportunities to learn about other cultures through food. My Korean housemate once saw the dish “Ton-jiru” (pork soup) shown on the Japanese TV show “shinya shokudou” (Midnight Diner) and got hungry, so we made it together! (By the way, I hadn’t even heard of the TV show Midnight Diner. And there were other times when my foreign housemates told me about certain foods they learned about from this anime or that manga, and I didn’t know what they were talking about!I actually learn a lot from them about Japanese TV shows or manga .)   But we do not only share our cultures through food! After dinner, we often watch Japanese anime or TV shows together, play cards, or talk about what our days were like, and just socialize by having a conversation.  For example, the latest anime marathon we had at Borderless House Kyoto-Kamigamo was “shokugekino souma” (Food Wars), an anime all about food. (Apparently, it’s a pretty popular manga from the magazine JUMP.) When playing cards, we always play games I have never seen in Japan before, so someone always has to explain the rules to me. At Borderless House Kyoto-Kamigamo, when someone comes home we always ask each other about our days or talk about what we did that day, so we never run out of things to talk about! (Even when you cook your dinner, someone approaches you and asks what you are making :D) Every day is fun in this house, and it feels just like home. (The ones sharing the same days off on the weekend have an even broader way of socializing! But I’ll talk about that some other time…)  

So, do you have any concerns about living in a share house?

For example, many worry if they can properly communicate with the foreign tenants, or if they will be alright living with others. But above all, I think many worry about having to change their current lifestyle. The thought of having to change your daily school or work routine can discourage many from choosing to move to a share house. To be honest, I was one of those people.   But Borderless House Kyoto-Kamigamo took my worries away instantly. Without particularly changing my routine, I can interact with people from lots of different countries, and I feel so comfortable!   Of course, I am very busy with school, work, and other things, but there is no special time I have to be home or take a bath. So I can keep my own, usual routine while enjoying life in the share house! I strongly recommend you to live in a share house to meet new awesome friends and new cultures!! Then,i will be back with new great story soon!! <Borderless House Kyoto-Kamgamo> ★Borderless House  - Osaka/Kyoto area -