the first move

For context, a few weeks before we moved to Tokyo, I briefly started hunting for apartments. I didn’t take it too seriously because I figured the quality of the apartment hunt would be far greater if we did it in person. While I was mainly considering the fact that Tokyo apartments are deceptively small so it’s good to visit them in person before signing a lease, it’s especially true because many realtors/landlords require a residence card before starting the apartment hunt, and you only receive that upon arrival. The mistake I did make was not fully committing to waiting until we got here to start the hunt - a part of me was hoping that I could get the ball rolling ahead of time and sign a lease within the few days we were crashing at our friend’s place, so that we wouldn’t have to stay at a temporary place (e.g. Airbnb).

Well, once I started talking to realtors remotely, I was informed that the vast majority of Japan was on vacation from 2024/12/28 until 2025/01/06. That was pretty unfortunate because we were planning on staying at my friend’s place from Dec 31 to Jan 4, which means there was no way I could even schedule a showing during that time period. On top of that, they informed me that the leasing process may take several weeks. It was at that point (this was around Christmas) where I realized that we would have to acquire temporary housing for about a month.

I looked on Airbnb for long-term rentals, and in the past when I’ve gotten Airbnb rentals in Tokyo, they have been absurdly small and relatively expensive. I was hoping there would be more options for long-term rentals, but places were charging over $2,000 a month for a shoebox. I’m hardly exaggerating, it didn’t even look like there was much more than standing room for two, and where you’d stand to cook in the kitchen was occupied by a chair and table in the photos, which is also the bedroom, so you’d have to move the chair and table to somewhere (unclear where) to lay down a Japanese-style futon (basically a cushion/sleeping pad you can roll up and stow during the day) to rest for the night. There was no way Miles and I were going to survive there for a month.

I came across this website called Tokyo Furnished that almost seemed too good to be true - very reasonably-priced furnished apartments that would let you book places Airbnb-style: pick a place and the dates and pay the cost, then you’re good to go. I found a number of apartments that checked our boxes (size: >40m² (~450sqft); location: close to Yamanote line subway around Shibuya, Ebisu, Meguro; price: <¥300,000/mo (~$2000)), and there was one in particular that exceeded expectations that we got really excited about. The website said it was available for the dates we chose - it was slightly suspicious that it seemed to be available all the time, so I asked my friend about the place and she said it was in a good location, so we had to go for it.

I submitted my inquiry and waited eagerly with only a few days to go before our trip. Someone got back to me and informed that there was an issue with the website where the availability calendar wasn’t working properly, so none of the apartments that I was looking at were available for the dates I wanted. Disaster! I was actually mildly panicking because I really didn’t want to end up spending a ton of money on housing, especially if despite doing so I was still living in a shoebox. I was feeling a lot of regret for not booking a temporary place earlier on, when options were probably more abundant - that’s definitely the price I pay for being a bad planner.

The person from Tokyo Furnished that I was corresponding with got back to me with a very limited number of options that didn’t quite fulfill my criteria, but beggars can’t be choosers at this point. One of them seemed slightly better than the other, so we went for it. And that’s the place we moved into today!

Miles walking down the street with his bag, so grateful we didn’t have to move our other 3 giant heavy bags

The place was pretty much exactly as advertised, on the cozier side but certainly suitable for 2 (and a guest or two).

Steven testing out the pull-out couch - his review: a little cold but better than 6 months of living in hostels

If you recall from the goodbye San Francisco post, we scheduled a delivery for the bulk of our bags to this apartment. Today was the day they were scheduled to arrive. At some point, I realized I only put the street number (there will be a future post about how Japanese addresses work) on the delivery form and not the apartment name or number. I also don’t have a Japanese phone number yet so I had no means of contacting them, and vice versa. Luckily, we are in the first apartment, so I figured if they arrive, I’ll be able to hear them or intercept them. When I scheduled a delivery with Yamato, I was able to specify not only the date of delivery, but the time as well. I scheduled it for 4 to 6 pm and they informed me that the bags might be a little late due to city traffic. Well what do you know, they showed up at 3:47 pm and knocked on my door. I had another awkward conversation where I tried to explain to a very enthusiastic but slightly nervous Japanese man who was asking me if I happened to know anything about this delivery that it was in fact for me. I kept pointing to my name on the receipt he was holding and then pointing to me, and eventually he got it and the bags arrived (he refused to let us help him carry these 30kg/60lb bags in, wow Japanese service is too kind). In any case, I am really excited to learn Japanese so I can stop feeling so guilty in these interactions all the time.

The apartment itself is pretty cute but nothing to write home about (I guess I’m literally writing home about it right now), but the location is much better than expected. It’s a bit far from our language schools and my friend’s apartment, but my first impression of the surrounding neighborhood has a lot of really great things. There seems to be a nice park close by, and I didn’t even realize at the time we booked the place since I just said yes to the only available option, but it is right next to Tokyo’s longest shotengai, or covered shopping street.

The mall was awesome and I suspect we will be paying many, many visits to it. At a glance, there seems to be literally everything we could possibly want - every kind of food, grocery store, fresh fish/sushi market, drug store, tons of thrift shops including a second-hand electronics store that sells new and retro devices including multiple Super Nintendos (yes, from the 90’s), and even a bike shop. A nice gyoza shop caught our eye:

Oh wow, the food blew us away! Definitely by far my favorite meal this trip (so far).

potato roe dip with fried dumpling skin crackers (right) felt very much like an upscale restaurant appetizer

The gyozas were very plump and juicy as advertised, and crispy on the outside with a thicker skin than a usual gyoza. The style was closer to Chinese dumplings in my opinion, as gyozas I’ve had have generally had much thinner skin and are a bit sweeter. These gyozas were a tad bit too salty for me, granted I kept dipping them in soy sauce, so that was probably my bad. I will say though, the other appetizers impressed me more than the gyozas, especially the potato roe dip and the chashu (in the back corner of the last photo) - the chashu was melt-in-your-mouth, juicy and flavorful but not overwhelmingly fatty, grilled to perfection. The whole meal (and a drink) came out to around ¥5,000, which is about $10 a person. They also served raw horse meat, so, maybe I’ll have to try that at some point. 9/10