January 13th, 2004
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It’s Tuesday morning, a much better morning to start the work week on. Of course, perhaps even better is when the work week ends on Thursday. Michelle has off every other Friday;I remember hearing about such a plan when I was at DSR back in northern Virginia. It must be nice, but I suppose it’s a different kind of economy. Most people in games find very little rest.
I spent the three day weekend doing lots of stuff. I guess it was the most productive weekend I’ve had since first settling last summer. Unfortunately productive weekends are rarely restful ones.
Mikiko and I spent most of Sunday and Monday in real estate offices looking through thick books of faxes for apartment listings. First off we went to Tokyo Chintai House in Shibuya, looking for a larger realtor with presumably a wider selection. It sure felt like a big company, and though we came up with about a dozen possiblities, all but one were shot down for various reasons involving my race and gender. I learned a lot though about how many jo (standard Japanese bedroom mat size) approximates to square meters, what age apartments are suitable, sunlight ratios for certain stories in the Tokyo skyline, etc. In the end we had one sizeable place in Ichigaya for about the same I’m paying now. Not bad..in fact the place itself was actually really nice. However, it was in a business district and didn’t feel much like home outside the front door. No grocery stores, no children, no pubs, not much of anything other than tall corporate offices and early-closng coffee shops. [And the extreme right-wing nationalist temple in a stone's throw.] I did see that Tecmo was literally around the corner and across the street. In the end, as temptng as it was to find such a big place cheaply in central Tokyo, I turned it down because I had a feeling I’d end up being lonely and isolated rather quickly.
After leaving our big time realtor and the first place we looked at, we went back to Iidabashi to revisit a small, secluded realtor that we’d happened by on chance while walking around earlier. The office was old, and piled high with books and aging office equipment. Seated behind the sole occupiable desk was a middle-aged man, slightly portly, with a thin pate of hair, boxy glasses and a smiling face. There were three little stuffed kangaroos on his desk, each wearing a pair of glasses and smiling with squinted eyes. The resemblance between the four of them was quite strong, and I wondered if whoever purchased the dolls was aware of it. Following more traditional Japanese business custom, he served us two cups of steaming green tea, which were greatly appreciated as Mikiko had inadverrtantly bought cold milk coffee from a vending machine at the station.
I learned quite a bit from our new agent in a short time, namely which parts of the city were best avoided do to an an abundance of printing shops and the Chinese mafia. Also, I further convinced myself that a warm and inhabited burrough was more important to me than close proximity to Porsche and Prada. He highly recommended Kagurazaka and Ushigomecho, two areas east of Shinjuku I’d passed through before on one of my bicycle trips to Akihabara. He offered to send me relavant vacancies in the mail over the week and on Saturday show us around not only the apartments, but also the town as well. Mikiko and I both absolutely loved the guy; I’m really loking forward to seeing him again on.
Though I’m a little disappointed to have given up the apartment in Ichigaya, I think it was a smart move, both because it as the first thing I looked at, and the lack of life would probably really have depressed me. I guess you could say “Why be so picky, it’s just an apartment?” Still, I usually form a strong bond (be it positive or negative) to my living quarters, and it probably plays quite a sizable role in my contentment and ability to relax. The fact that you need to kiss goodbye to about five-six thousand dollars just to get a place may have some weight as well.
