Saying Goodbye to Our House Hunters Place

Mari and I's first apartment as we said goodbye to it. 

So after spending two years in our starter Japan apartment that we profiled on House Hunters International, Mari and I decided that it was time to make a move to something bigger. We felt like we needed it for a multitude of reasons. 1) For the amount of stuff that Mari needs for her business (shipping and packing materials, actual merchandise, etc) the place we had was just too small. Particularly since I still had to fit in there too ;)

Beyond that, while I had thought that being in the right by the subway station and having a convenience store downstairs would be really cool, with time, I realized that it also has its drawbacks. The biggest of these was it's really damn loud. There was constant construction, drunks kids yelling (or getting in fights) outside of the convenience store downstairs at all hours of the night, and all kinds of other noises. The worst was that the person in the apartment building next to ours on our floor had not one not two, but FIVE chihuahuas that would bark and play with each other at all times of the day and night, and as the buildings were so close, it sounded like they were in our living room. Since they were not in our building and they owned their own building, there was no one we could complain to about it (and believe me, we tried). There were other issues as well (such as the bike parking ones I mentioned in an earlier blog)

While none of this was enough to make us hate our apartment there, these reasons were enough to make us want to keep an eye out for something better. Over the course of five months, Mari's hobby slowly became online apartment hunting. After a while she found this place, and I loved it because it had a backyard, but she dismissed it because the wooden structure meant being able to hear the neighbors and colder temps in the winter than concrete.

 A jungle of a backyard: How the place before we moved in. 

A little while after that, we found a dream apartment right down the street from our last place. Top floor of the 2nd tallest buidling in the area, with a large rooftop balcony. It was also reasonably priced, relatively new, and considerably bigger. For fears that they would turn us down because I was a foreigner, she went to look at it by herself, and took pictures for me. It looked great, so we decided to go for it. At the last minute, we decided to go and see the real estate agent together instead of her going by herself like we did with the last place. While the real estate agent certainly had no problem with me, he made the mistake of calling the landlord and asking if foreigners were OK, and sure enough, the guy said "No" and hung up before he even knew were I was from, what I did, or how long I had lived here. Mars was pissed as hell and stormed out of there before the real estate agent barely had time to hang up the phone.

With that, (and my insistence) we decided to re-think this place, which miraculously 2 months later was still open. We went to take a look at it, and while it was rough looking on the outside (the landlord hadn't kept up with the gardening) he didn't care in the least that I was a foreigner.

The Living Room Area

Mari's Office

Extra Storage in the Kitchen Floor

And finally... Chuck's own office

We also found out that this place had a lot of incredible advantages. Basically, it used to be the landlord's place, until his family got too big, and he moved out. As such, if we took it, we got both a front and a reasonable backyard. NOOOObody in Tokyo gets a backyard. Beyond that, the bathroom area was spacious, with seperate shower, bath, and sink areas, and it came with a heated french robo-toilet AND a heated shower. I'd never even seen a heated shower before here. It also had an incredible amount of storage space, (in the kitchen, there is even storage in the floor), enough rooms for both Mars and I to have our own offices, and it had a ton of natural light.

Lots of nature here... for Tokyo

As it was a bit older, the outside wasn't well kept, and the landlord just wanted to fill the empty space, there were also none of the (generally illegal) real estate fees that sent the cost of moving upwards of $5000 to $6000 dollars even before you pack the first box. The only major hit we had to deal with was putting down 3 months rent up front, (while still keeping up with the rent on our current place, and paying the actual movers). In the end, we decided that if we could negotiate the price down to the price we wanted, we would go for it. Sure enough, his final offer was almost exactly that (actually it was $10 below), so we decided to go for it.

The backyard after a bit of cleaning. All I need now is a BBQ grill. ;) 

At this point, Mars and I have been in this place for about a month or so, and are feeling really satisfied with it. There are small dog owners around as well, but thankfully they are a few houses away. It's a quiet residential area, so we never have to worry about all the noises associated with the last place, and as its actually closer to the city center, it takes a bit less time to get places too. Shibuya is now a bike ride's distance away. Beyond that, I have a picnic table out back to study at, enough room to do taichi in the mornings, my own office, stretching area, etc. Its not a massive place, but it has everything that I could ask for at the moment. Time will tell how much we like this place in the winter, but Im guessing the heated shower will make that easier to deal with. :) I have a feeling Mars and I will be here for a little while.