More about the house

Well, there are still plenty more interesting things about our house that we haven't mentioned yet. First off, we don't have central air, I don't think any one here has central air. so we have a combination A/C and dehumidifier unit in every room. we're still figuring them out completely because the remote controls for the units are all in japanese. At night when it is really warm we only air condition our bedroom, and during the daytimes we sometimes use the A/C in the family room, but only when its hot. For the last few days it has been overcast, so the temperature has been more bearable.
We decided also that we were going to hang dry our clothes while we are here, and maybe even when we come back. Luckily its been working out quite well. We heard that it is more gentle on the clothes and actually kills bacteria on them or something like that. but alot of people do it here because of the savings on energy costs. I don't know how much energy a dry uses, but i know its more than hang drying. We have a friend who has a Japanese washer/dryer combo along with his apartment and he absolutly hates it. He says that is takes hours and hours to wash and dry his stuff and when he pulls his clothes out they are still wet, so he ends up hanging them up anyways.
We also have a small garage, which can fit both cars front to back, but we usually only park one car in there. during a typhoon we'll definitely park them both in there, but in reality they are only a carport. Its a very tight space to park in, and on my first few attempts i couldn't get my larger car to fit without jumping out the window when i was finished (because i was parked so close to the wall). but after many attempts we are both quite used to parking. my car only fits in backwards because it is long and has a bad turn radius.
Audrey is leaving today for Seattle to go to chauntelle's wedding (college swimming friend). She'll be back in the states for about a weeks and a half and is looking forward to buying some things we can't really find here...mainly shoes, i think. while she is gone I am planning on setting up a kiddie pool on the roof and hoping that some rain will fill it up. then i can go up there and put my feet in there and read or something useful. Its pretty normal here to have access to your roof, and for them to be flat so you can hang out up there. it's supposedly for maintainence to go up there, but i don't see why i can't go up if I'm renting the house. Well, anyways, time to take audrey to the airport and hope she makes is through Taipei alright, it can't be worse than the time she had to spend the night in mexico city.