Well the Hiroshima chapter of my life is closed. I have made the move to Tokyo. After spending three days looking for apartments and dealing with my company saying they will sponsor my apartment, and then not, I have found an apartment. Or so it seems. Right now I am living in an hotel waiting for the apartment lease to be formalized, which is supposed to be tomorrow. Which means I should be able to move in Wednesday, the day before I start my job. Not ideal, but the apartment is really nice.
I wanted to live in Ogikubo, which is west of Shinjuku by about 10 minutes on train. Very convenient and I will only have a 27 minute train ride to my office, without transfers. This made it pretty ideal, plus the area is where a lot of college students and younger people live. Anyways, I looked at a bunch of places around the area and went with brand new apartment. Just opened maybe a month ago.
The apartment isn’t large by anymeans, 8 tatami living room and 3 tatami kitchen, but it has a walk in closet, separate toilet and bath, and double pane insulated windows!! The best part is that it has free fibre internet. The rent is on the cheaper side also, only 74000y a month. This is about 680usd a month.. The only downside is that the apartment is about 15 minute walk from Ogikubo station (but only 5 minutes from another line.) This isnt a problem though, even though for japanese it seems to be. Besides, I won’t have to pay 5000yen a month for internet or phone now.
The only downside is moving in costs… it is really expensive to move in to apartments in japan. You have pay a security deposit (normally two months), a thank you payment (usually another two months, nonrefundable), a realtor fee (usually 1 month), first months rent and insurance. So moving in is really expensive. You can usually negotiate the thank you money and sometimes the rent.
So hopefully I will get a call tomorrow from the real estate agent, saying, start moving in! Pictures will come soon, I am excited.