I am alive and I am not homeless.
I have been busy, but I have a home. With stuff. It was quite a process.
The soundtrack to today’s post is Porter Robinson’s Look at the Sky. A demo of this song was first revealed on YouTube nine months ago, which was my only source of listening until it was released as a single on Spotify a month ago.
Making this move has not been easily logistically, mentally, and emotionally, even after all of the main “hard” parts were done. Look at the Sky is an optimistic reminder of what the future can hold.
For those of you who have not heard me talk about Porter, the first time I heard his debut album Worlds was a powerful emotional experience for me, and no drugs were involved. Former colleagues from Facebook will recognize the face at the 0:40 mark (of the Worlds link, not the one below) from my laptop, so I’ve still been carrying those feelings for a while. This is not your daddy’s electronic music.
Going forward there will be more artist and genre variety, I promise. I just listened to this a lot.
It has been almost two months since my last post, sorry. This is also the second time I’m writing portions of this post, because I accidentally lost a draft due to the touchpad on my laptop freaking out. Here’s a summary of what happened:
I searched for apartments
I looked at some
I chose one
I “moved” (brought my two suitcases, ha)
I went on a $pending bonanza
In the interest of actually getting a post out, this one will only contain stuff the housing adventure. Pictures of food and city to come soon!
Getting an Apartment
Much like the housing quest in the Bay Area, if you filter units by “allows pets”, the volume shrinks dramatically. Like 80% or more. Unlike my searches in SF, I now have to worry about whether or not the landlord/management company allows foreigners (a real, actual concern). Furthermore, even for the units that do allow pets, many do not allow for pets over 10kg. Kuma is 18kg, which is far, far above the average size of a dog in Tokyo. Most people have extremely small dogs (chihuahuas, papillons, shibas, those little curly-haired white dogs that Asian people love, etc). I have seen exactly one German Shepherd here, and four golden retrievers. Everything else has been small dogs.
To help me navigate the search, the relocation company set me up with a real estate agency. Although pricy, this was definitely the best route because 1) I don’t have time to do this labor 2) I am illiterate 3) there are aspects of the Japanese rental market that are different from the American one, and it would be a shame to learn these things by surprise at an awkward time.
Digging up images of the various floor plans I saw seems like kind of a low payoff:labor ratio (not nearly as interesting as the Dominos crust options, honestly), so what I will say is that most apartments are extremely small (probably a surprise to no one) at around 25m². Curiously, the floor plans don’t include dimension measurements because… reasons? They do tell you how large a given room is in “tatami mats” though (1 mat ≈ 1.5m²). Seems significantly less useful than you know, how long the walls are. Whatever. Anyway, trying to find an apartment with my previous filters that also has the tiniest amount of accessible greenspace is nearly impossible. There were two. I at least wanted a ground floor unit because if Kuma has to go the the bathroom early or late, I don’t want to change out of my pajamas, take the elevator, and walk 1000ft to the nearest patch of green. Thankfully, I found a unit that has perhaps 1.5m² of private outdoor area. It’s not grass, but Kuma can potty on it. Praise be.
As for the rental market differences, the big bad one is something called “key money”. It is literally a gift to the property owner to “thank” them for letting you rent from them. Seriously (I can hear one of my college friends yelling “EAT THE RICH” in the distance as I type this). The fee can be anything from ¥0 to a full month of rent — it is not a deposit and you don’t get it back. Lucky for me, the unit I chose had been vacant for a little while and they were willing to waive the key money to get someone in the unit. Many places in Tokyo also require a guarantor company and do not allow a private party guarantor. Naturally, this costs another fee. There are also other smaller, less frustrating fees/costs like the usual security deposit, pet deposit, rental insurance, lock changing, and property management fees. If you use an agent like I did, then you’ll also pay their fee which is 1 month of rent. All in all, you can expect to pay costs equal to 4-6 months of rent. If you choose a place with a higher monthly cost, this can explode your up-front costs quite a bit. Because of my timing, on top of the fees I paid a prorated amount for January and all of February when I moved in, totaling around ONE MILLION YEN.
(about $10k USD)
Because this isn’t a trivial amount of money, if you too are planning on moving to Japan, be sure to initiate your money transfers to your Japanese bank early so you don’t end up homeless while you wait for the slow gears of financial institutions.
Unsurprisingly, people do not like to move often. Also, the standard rental contract is 2 years long. So yeah, I plan on persevering for a bit.
The Apartment Itself
There has been a dearth of pictures so far, so here’s a quick peek of my apartment prior to move in:
The first day was very hectic. I showed up at 9am to meet my agent, who helped me do the walkthrough and initial paperwork. He also talked to the various people from utility companies who came to turn on my services. While we’re doing this, my movers with my American stuff came and brought all the possessions that I deemed sufficiently expensive/sentimental to pack. Then suddenly everyone was gone and I was left with a scene like this:
That’s the chair that was cheaper to ship across the Pacific than buy again.
I must say, the movers worked fast. They cut open and emptied all my boxes and took them away in like, 10 minutes? I almost turned down their help, but then I realized that if I didn’t ask them to take away the boxes I would be voluntarily subjecting myself to mess. I claim partial credit for their speed, because my packing involved lots of boxes or bags within larger boxes, so they didn’t have to worry about taking stuff out of a box and it just melting into a pile.
My dad is the reason I have so many shoes. This collection is after I sent several pairs back to him.
Overall, I am very happy with the layout and contents of the apartment. The one thing that it conspicuously lacks is a closet near the door or place for coats. There is a closet upstairs attached to the bedroom, but entranceway where guests take off their shoes (genkan is the specific term for this part of the home) just has a ludicrously spacious section for storing shoes. Of which I have many.
Close-right is my new futon set.
Due to some logistics unpleasantness, I didn’t buy furniture until after I moved in. So for my first few nights, I slept in ye olde Japanese fashion, aka on the floor. I bought a futon (a Japanese one, not what Americans generally imagine when they encounter the word) and some linens to cover them. This was my first time ever putting a duvet cover on, and it was… something. I was eventually successful, but I really want to know: why isn’t the zipper the full width of the cover? This would have made it exponentially easier. The limited width makes it unnecessarily difficult — I was constantly afraid I was going to tear the fabric or break the zipper.
I had spent hours deliberating on Amazon, trying to choose the best futon and linens. However, during that whole process the word “pillow” did not cross my mind. The first night, I slept on a laundry net full of socks that I covered in a t-shirt to make the surface softer.
I do not recommend this sleeping arrangement.
The second night, I tried a rolled up bath towel. Also completely miserable — the towel just compresses and then is hard as a rock. Buy pillows early. My head hurts just remembering this.
On Bathrooms
If you were trying to visualize the layout of my apartment while looking at the gallery, you may have noticed something. The bathroom (the room where you wash yourself, connected to where you brush your teeth) is a completely separate entity from the room where the (robot) toilet is.
Yeah, that’s a special “ladies” button in red.
That’s right, my toothbrush is completely safe from poo particles. The Japanese may seem to be lagging in many ways (the continued usage of fax machines, requiring personal stamps on documents, insistence on physical paperwork), but in regards to bathrooms, it is the US that is streets behind. Not only is the toilet separate from everything else, it also has 3 levels of flush, a heated seat, and an electronically controlled bidet that hits you with heated water. Naturally, you can control the pressure and angle of the bidet stream. It even flushes for you if you forget. Seriously. I assume in the coming years, the toilets here will analyze your waste and tell you how to change your diet.
The Japanese bathing/shower room is a little different from American setups as well. It’s a sealed room with a drain inside and outside the tub. Japanese bath culture involves being clean before you enter the tub, so you clean yourself on the shower side and then soak in the tub to relax. If you are in a multi-person household, this water is actually shared with everyone. So you should be clean clean before entering. I’m not sure the exact origin of this shared-bathwater thing, but I assume it has something to do with heating large amounts of water being energy-intensive.
One more side feature that my apartment has it can automatically fill the tub. There’s a button in the kitchen on the hot water controller that will just start dumping water into the tub until it’s full. So if I’m working hard in the kitchen like the accomplished chef that I am, I can prep the tub for a nice soak while I clean up.
Shower fan controller
The shower room also functions as a place to dry clothes. Dedicated dryers are not common, and washer/dryer combos are significantly more expensive than just washers. There is a bar suspended above the tub, and a vent in the ceiling. Outside the shower is a controller for the vent, where you can ask it to blow warm/cold air, dehumidify, or just ventilate the room.
The Neighborhood
When I was 12 years old, my parents took us on a vacation to San Francisco. While we were there, I said I wanted to move there when I grew up (I’m 99% certain this conversation happened after visiting the Golden Gate Bakery with an egg tart in my hand/stomach). Then in 2015 I moved there. In my last summer before graduation, I spent a summer in Tokyo and stayed at the former site of the 1964 Olympic athletes’ village. The nearest train station was in a cute neighborhood across the street, and I frequently thought to myself when going to the train “this is a nice place to live”. So here I am.
My neighborhood is easily walkable, with two convenience stores, a supermarket, a post office, and various restaurants and cafes less than 5 minutes away on foot. Almost all of the buildings nearby are (relatively) short, and vehicular traffic is light enough that people generally just walk on the street. It’s also walking distance to Yoyogi Park, one of the largest parks in Tokyo that also features an off-leash dog area.
IES Tokyo alumni will recognize the classic Himalaya Curry
The neighborhood seems roughly the same since I walked through it almost daily. Some of the restaurants are different though, and they remodeled the train station.
Sangubashi Station in the summer of 2014
Sangubashi Station like 7 hours ago as of publication
I assume the remodel was in preparation for the Olympics, but at least I get to enjoy it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Furnishing
Over the next month-and-change after moving, I slowly furnished my apartment with various living accoutrements. The most surprising things I needed to buy, as a renter, were:
My fridge, oven/microwave, counter, kettle, and musical rice cooker. The rice cooker is sitting on a drawer that slides out, so the steam can easily escape. Said rice cooker also plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when you start it.
Refrigerator
Washing machine
A fucking countertop
That’s right, the kitchen has one built-in counter with very little available space (visible in the gallery above), but the other side of the kitchen has nothing. Just electrical outlets. Big Furniture™ clearly has a stranglehold on the residential architecture industry. The refrigerator was kind of a challenge to choose — the number of left-hinge units is vastly outnumbered by the right-hinge group. Also, Japanese refrigerators are much more conservative in terms of space, and I wasn’t really sure how big I should go. I ended up going to one of the local big-box electronics retailers (Bic Camera) to see them in person and get a good feel. Two very kind clerks (separately) asked me if I needed any help with the appliances, and I desperately did. But “domestic appliance vocabulary” had not yet occurred in my personal Japanese lesson plan, so I confidently (screaming inside) told them I was fine and then shortly left, realizing that I was useless. Back to Amazon.
I was slightly disappointed that this unit has an electric/induction stove instead of a gas one. It’s less predictable to cook with, the electric side stays hot for a long time, and woks are essentially impossible to use. However, it does have the upside of being super, ridiculously easy to clean. No more covering the space under the burner grates with foil or shameful/moderately disgusting degreasing every few months. The other downside of an electric stovetop is that it doesn’t come with a fish grill under the counter. Honestly this is a bigger disappointment than not having gas on top — this seems super useful and interesting to work with. Maybe my next place in a few years…
Rice supplied by me
Another fun feature of the kitchen is the floor storage. It’s not refrigerated; it’s just a cool, dark, humidity-stable place to store things. One of my friends said she makes umeshu in hers, which sounds like the ideal use case to me. I suppose if I wanted to make my own pickles or kimchi, this could be a place to do that too.
I ended up buying the refrigerator, washing machine, and “home” oven/microwave all from Amazon. For large units like the refrigerator and washing machine, installation is actually built into the price. And if the item doesn’t fit (doorway, stairs, etc), they’ll return it for free. Which is great, because the installers for my first washing machine did not think it would fit, even though I bought a tape measure specifically to verify this.
I got almost everything from Nitori, Amazon, or IKEA. Nitori is a local competitor to IKEA for the “affordable furniture” market, but they deliver most things to you already built, so there are upsides depending on what you buy. However, ALL of Nitori’s desks are too small for my preferences. I I used the same desk from 2011 to 2020 (IKEA Malm), so I was excited to get something new. After much deliberation from many stores, I settled on the IKEA Bekant, so I ordered it online.
They still serve the meatballs
Or at least I tried. Many, many times. Either the online store was out of stock or their delivery service was swamped — the website wouldn’t give me a clear answer. It turns out, though, that the online fulfillment system is completely separate from the store based one. So I made the 90-minute (each way) trip to the IKEA in Yokohama and ordered it in person to be delivered to my door. I am honestly astounded that this was necessary for me to get my desk, but we live in unprecedented times.
Behold, the fruits of my labor:
I very briefly considered trying to photoshop this image itself onto the monitor where I’m authoring the blog post, but I am not sufficiently skilled. Would have been great though. Song playing: sad girls club but u gotta be cute by twst.
Anyway, here’s what the living space looks like with all the stuff that I’ve bought (plus a dresser thanks to Brittney and Jacob!):
That’s all for now! This post doesn’t have everything that I’ve encountered in the past couple months or even all the highlights. New post next week with walking-around-town highlights and food.