New Apartment in Bunkyo

Here it is, the new place. It's in the Bunkyo district of Tokyo, which is on the northern side. The place is actually inside the Yamanote train line, which is dope. A friend suggest it be called RadPad. So I give you RadPad.



It's a 1K, meaning a small kitchen, bathroom, and 1 large bedroom.

But don't call it an apartment. It's a マンシオン. Yes, in Japan an apartment building which is higher than 3 stories is called a mansion. Real mansions don't exist in this country.

One cool feature is that every room has some sort of control panel, all Jetson's style. What's that about?



The bathroom has a few settings, one is a dryer. Hang your wet laundry inside and hit the button. Through the magic of heaters and fans, your stuff is all dry a few hours later. This is hella useful in muggy, rainy Japan.



The bedroom has a video intercom connected to the doorbell in the lobby. Kanji lesson time! That round button at the top, that sets off the alarm. Found that out the hard way. How long before help arrived? It took the security company 2 weeks to respond. Im not joking. Homeboy showed up at the door 2 weeks down the road all like, "Is there a problem, you set off the alarm."



Washlet. I'm gonna miss these if I ever leave this country.



The view from the entrance. My High School is down there, about a kilometer away. I went from a one hour commute on packed Tokyo trains in the morning to a 5 minute stroll.



The view from the balcony. It's rad at night, but I can't seem to take a good night shot of it.



Moving was interesting. Zero furniture or appliances. Coming home each day to a sleeping bag on a yoga mat isn't the best way to say おつかれさまです。 Luckily, in Tokyo, there is a constant flow of foreigners leaving the country. This leads to the "Sayonara Sale". Most things are about 1/3 the price. Some good places to look are

Metropolis Classifieds
Gaijinpot Classifieds
Craiglist

Delivery can be a problem though. There are also second hand shops, most of which will deliver. Or find someone with a truck, which is pretty hard in this country. Or just buy new off the internet. Or carry a giant washing machine 3km on a hot summer day and get to be known as the crazy knew foreigner around your neighborhood.

Took about 2 weeks to get everything sorted.



How much? Well, a typical apartment like this, a 1K on a high floor in a new mansion, is around $1000 to $1500 a month. There are also a lot of upfront costs. 1-2 months "key" money. 1-2 months "deposit" (you wont get this back). And 1 month to the real estate office. Plus regular rent charges. So you can easily have to dish out more than $6000 within your first month.

Most Japanese people live with their parents until they are married.

I paid less, but there are some extenuating circumstances that I can't go into on the blog.