Category: plans and preparations

Since my move at the end of February, I have been living in a rather sparsely furnished apartment. Except for the bare necessities – futon, gas range, and fridge – I did not buy anything for a while. I wanted to get a better image of what I wanted my new home to look like. After all, this would be my first “permanent” home in a long time – ever since my PhD in 2006, I had to move every year or two and never invested much time or money into buying furniture or appliances. Most of it was second-hand so I would feel less guilty if I could not sell it when I packed up again and had to throw it away.

This time however, I want to buy decent stuff that will last for longer, that I will like for longer, so I took my time. By now, I think I have a clearer idea of what I want. As you can see in the image in this post, my apartment essentially consists of three parts: The office at the left, which I want to have as modern and fun-looking as possible; the middle part with the kitchen and a living room, which I will furnish in a modern western style; and the right part with the second living room/guest room and my bedroom, both of which have tatami. Those two rooms I want to decorate in a traditional Japanese style – or at least in a style that I think is traditional.

So far, I have only finished one room: the office. This was the easiest room to do, as everything I needed came straight from IKEA. In fact, I went to IKEA in Kobe twice, once about a month ago, and the second time last Monday, to buy everything I wanted. My things got delivered today in the morning, so I could spend all my day fiddling with the furniture…

The first thing I did after clearing the room completely was trying to get as many cables as possible out of sight – meaning: underneath the tatami. It was surprisingly easy to lift up the tatami by inserting a knife (experts take a flat screwdriver, which I didn’t have) and wiggling it gently. Those are real straw mats though, not the modern plastic ones you find in sports halls all over the world, and they are really heavy. I am glad I only had to lift them up and lean them against the wall, and not carry them anywhere. Here is an image of the underneaths – of both the floor and the tatami. You can see four cables running across the room: 2 LAN cables, the cable to the router and a printer cable. It took a while fiddling with the cables – the router cable is just 10 cm longer than it needs to  be and the printer cable is round and comparatively bulky – but in the end I managed to get the cables and the tatami in place.

Afterwards, the usual IKEA furniture assembly routine. It was relatively easy – you get used to that after a few moves – and I did not encounter big problems when setting up this shelf and the boxes inside: The printer is not yet set up, but the phone does work. I am also thinking of a way to hide the router and the cables in the right bottom shelf, but it will take a bit longer. In case you are wondering where the other cables to the printer and the phone are – they are hidden behind the somewhat oddly placed boxes…

Finally, I brought the desks back in which I had bought already last month. Looking back, the high-gloss finish may not have been the best idea because you can see every single finger print; however, I like the way the whole thing comes together so nicely. As I have to attach a photo of my office space to my visa application, my goal was to make this the most eclectic office the immigration bureau has ever seen. What do you think? So, the office is finished except for a few small things: I still need a ceiling lamp (or rather: somebody to hang it up), the cable management underneath my desk is not optimal yet, and I want to hide the router and set up the printer. Also, there is a lot of empty wall space above the shelf and I think something should go there. I have an idea, but I’ll have to mull it over a bit longer… Anyway, all those are minor things, and they will have to wait…

Unfortunately, I have never managed to set up IKEA furniture without bodily harm. Last month, after a whole day of working with a screwdriver, I had several blisters on the palm of my right hand. This time, an attempt to undo a mistake I made when putting those little red plastic boxes together took off a large chunk of skin from my right thumb. It’s not painful anymore, but from the look of the band-aid it’s still bleeding… I’ll have a look at it in a moment.

I’m back!

After an incredible dry spell of 44 days  I have finally been connected to the internet again last Saturday. And thanks to a friend of mine who beat the router into submission on Sunday morning, I can now go online again. Oh wide wide world, how I missed you!

Of course, you’re now asking yourselves what on earth can possibly take 44 days before one can get internet. And that in a rather large city in a country that is rightfully called the high-tech haven of the planet. Well, enjoy the drama as you read on…

Prologue:
When I signed the rental contract for the apartment, the agent asked me whether I’d need help finding an internet provider and a moving company. I said yes to the internet provider, as apparently, not all providers serve all areas, and it may be difficult to find out which one is the correct one for your address.

Act the first: “Mr. Y. and the emails”
On the day of my move, I received an email with an offer from what I thought was an internet company. After clarifying that I wanted a flatrate for down- and upload and two separate phone numbers, I sent them the necessary documents for the application, stressing yet again that I do not have a mobile phone.

After not hearing anything for a week from my contact person Mr. Y. (I went to the library to go online), I inquired on a Saturday afternoon about the state of my application. Within 10 minutes or so I received an email back saying: “Well, you don’t have a mobile phone.” Oh really Mr. Brilliant, I told you so in my last email, and the rental agent told you even before that. Did you assume a mobile number would just magically manifest itself if you stared at my application for long enough?

We then had some tedious back-and-forth over several emails and several days and at the end even Mr. Y. saw the light and said that it would be stupid to call me anyway as I don’t speak Japanese. We then agreed that I could use the phone number of a friend of mine who would help me with the application. In fact, it would be best if my friend could directly call Mr. M. – who was fully up to date on my application and its issues – in their call centre

Act the second: “The call centre”
So, my friend calls Mr. M. at the call centre. Everything ran smoothly until my friend had to produce – as proof that he is indeed talking on my behalf – my birth date, of which he did not know the year. When he finally had mustered the courage to ask me for it (you can’t really ask a lady for her age…), he tried calling Mr. M. again to finalise the application.

Unfortunately, by the time I could respond, Mr. M. had left the building and somebody completely different took the call. Said person was completely unhappy about my inability to produce a mobile phone of my own and after getting angry and running to his boss and making him angry too, he completely refused any further service, told us he cannot complete the application, and hung up. By then my friend was angry too.

First interlude: “between companies”
It turned out that we were not talking to the internet provider after all. My friend and I were talking to some sort of upstream marketing company who tries to attract new customers for the internet providers in return for a financial kickback. So, my friend decided to directly call NTT, the largest internet provider in Kyoto.

Act the third: “No, we don’t.”
When my friend called them to ask for internet connection at my apartment, NTT said they would not provide any service at that address. It’s a bit complicated to explain, so please stay with me. There are essentially two types of internet wiring: The family type if you have a house of your own, which more or less means that you get your very own cable, and the mansion type for apartment buildings. Obviously I would need the latter, but NTT said they do not provide mansion type access at my building.

Second interlude: “And you?”
So, we decided to use whatever provider has their mansion type cables in place. It is possible to install family type cables in an apartment building as well, but it’s a bit ridiculous to get your own cable up to the fifth floor… So, I knocked on my neighbor’s door with some tough questions, and it turned out that his provider is: NTT! Apparently there is a family type cable installed already, and it is easy to simply extend it to my own apartment.

Act the fourth: “We do, really?”
Back on the phone with NTT, they were really surprised that they indeed did provide a cable in my building. Finally, a Ms. N. agreed to process my application with my friend’s phone number.

Once all the paperwork was submitted and deemed all right – it is really hard to send faxes of color photographs… – it took another 10 days for NTT to review the application and check whether it was indeed deemed possible to add yet another cable. After those 10 days we finally had the date on which a technician would come and install internet, another two weeks after that.

Epilogue:
The technician came last Saturday at the appointed time, and it took him about two hours to lay a brand new shiny optical cable into my apartment and get the router in place. However, even though I had received plenty of paper with plenty of different passwords, I could not get access on Saturday immediately. Even though the status said “connected”, all I could see were error messages… Thanks to my friend, who is patience incorporated and knew just how to talk to the router, we finally set it up yesterday morning.

So far my personal internet odyssey. Since its completion and my return to a safe online-harbour I have been busy catching up on all those emails I have received in the last month and other things I usually do when online. Funny how you never notice how much time you really spend on the internet…

It was a very busy day today, and still I only got parts of the things done that I had planned. Yesterday, late at night I received an email from my agent telling me that although the paperwork is not yet completed, the owner was fine with me receiving the keys.

So, the first thing this morning, I went to my local post office to get a mail forward. It was very easy – but, to be honest, the people there know me and my shenanigans by now – and, what is the best: it was free, a “service” of Japan Post. Did you hear that, Austria?

Next, I went to the agent to pick up the keys – more paperwork – but he said that this would be the last things I will have to sign. I will get the contract as soon as the landlord has signed it too – which is easy, as he lives next door.

Afterwards, I went to my apartment. What a wonderful feeling to open the door to my own place with my own keys… I spent some time going through all the rooms and letting it sink in: This is mine! Then I took some measurements to make sure I’ll get appliances that would fit into the allotted spaces. When I had all the numbers written down, I went to the management office of the apartment block for – you guess it – more paperwork. Things are rather strict there, for example I need to buy a sort of licence plate for my bicycle to be allowed to park it there. Things get really complicated if I have friends coming over in a car – there are guest parking lots, but even they cost 500 YEN per night… At least the clerk in the office was very friendly and spoke English very well, which will make further interaction much easier.

It was not even noon when I left on the long journey to Yodobashi Camera near Kyoto Station. I wanted to buy the bare necessities: A fridge, a gas range, a small space heater, and maybe a lamp for my nightstand. I asked for a staff member who could help me with all of these things and I got my personal shopping assistant who spoke excellent English. The fridge was quickly bought (although I wanted a larger one, but they would not have fit the space), but the gas range proved interestingly difficult. Apparently there are two types of gas ranges and you have to know which one will be the right one for your apartment. Then there was the question of how the gas was connected – with a thick valve or a thin one – and if I wanted my little fish grill to work on both sides or only on one… The space heater then was a simple decision: I bought a blue Dyson hot & cool. Well, if you do need such a thing, you can just as well make it stylish…

When I left Yodobashi Camera, it was shortly before 3 pm (yes, seriously) and the question was whether to go for lunch or to buy a futon. I decided upon lunch, I figured that buying a futon is more difficult than buying a fridge and would take even longer. Afterwards, with a brief stop at home to pick up the first load of stuff (mostly books), I went to my new apartment again to await delivery of my goods, which arrived at 8 pm, just when it was starting to get really cold…

I’m now in my room again underneath lots of blankets. I have packed more of my stuff and will start early tomorrow again. I hope that by tomorrow evening I will have everything ready in my apartment to move in. The plan is to clean the place here on Friday morning and then leave it for good. We’ll see if it works out as planned for once.

After more than a month of search and rejection (both on my and on the owner’s side) it finally worked: I found a wonderful apartment fulfilling all requirements – and the owner likes me too! Yesterday, I signed the contract, and now… I have to wait again: for the owner to sign and for my guarantor to sign. If everything runs smoothly, I can get the keys next Wednesday and then start to move in, getting gas, electricity, water, and internet. And buying furniture and a futon and a rice cooker and…

This is my new apartment: In Japan this is called a 3LDK – one combined living/dining room/kitchen and three independent rooms with sliding doors that can be fully opened. The green rooms have tatami straw mats, the LDK in the middle has a hard floor. The red thing is the genkan entrance area where you must take off your shoes. The blue part is the bathroom area and white are the two balconies, the hallway, and the built-in closets, one for each room. The room sizes are given in tatami – which are much smaller than in my house now – and altogether the place has 60 m^2 or so.

The building is from the mid-seventies and lacks an elevator, and as I said in last week’s post, both kitchen and bathroom would benefit from renovation… But the whole thing appears clean and well maintained, and the place has everything I was looking for.

I can’t wait to move in. I have already started cleaning my room here, tossing things (mostly paper, again) and thinking of how to arrange the move in the smoothest possible way. I’ll keep you posted!

Yesterday I had another appointment with my rental agent, who showed me a nice and rather spacious apartment with lots of natural sunlight. It’s an old apartment and the kitchen and bathroom would benefit from renovation, but it is still very nice and, most importantly, ready to be moved into. So, I said we can start the rental procedure.

Already yesterday I had to fill in a “rental application form”, which is essentially collecting all my data: name, address, workplace, income, and all the information of my guarantor as well. As I don’t know details of my guarantor (like his workplace address and income), I sent him the paperwork and will wait for his answer. This form will help the owner of the apartment (whom I met yesterday, nice young man, living next door) decide whether to take me as a tenant. Once he decides (positively I hope), we can make the real contract.

Today I went to the agency again, where I received a form with information about the apartment including things like address of the apartment, contact information of the owner and management company of the building it is in. Also things like monthly rent, deposit, contract duration and renewal fee are stated on this form. And useful stuff like who’s providing gas and electricity and what things are in the apartment (think air conditioner). And what I am allowed to do and not in my new place. For example, I will not be allowed to have the two P’s: Pets and Pianos. They didn’t say anything about drum kits though. But maybe pianos are more annoying…

The most annoying thing about this form, however, was the waiting time incurred. I had stated that I would come around noon to pay the application fee (one month’s rent, refundable if the owner does not want me after all. And I was so happy that the agent’s fee is only half a month’s rent. I wonder what other fees they come up with to line their pockets…). But when I came, the form I was supposed to get was not ready, not even close. It took them about 30 minutes on the phone to collect all the information before they were finally ready to explain the details to me.

Interestingly, I did not even get angry. I watched the situation almost as from the outside, as if this was happening to somebody else. It was more amusing than infuriating, really. I have been here only for 2 years and I am slowly turning into a Japanese… Next step: mastering the language.

I am still in search for a new place to live. Finding one proves interestingly difficult. To be fair, I do pose some difficulties, starting with the fact that I am a foreigner and not every landlord wants to rent to one. Yes, I know, it is 2015 and in Japan people are still allowed to discriminate on those grounds – hence, my real estate agent is always asking first whether a foreigner – from Austria! – is considered a good tenant. Foreigners, of course, all want the same: space and light; and on top of that I need a room that is completely separate from the living space to become my office.

Essentially this means I have to be able to get to my office from the entrance without crossing any other of the rooms I live in. This rather trivial constraint already rules out about two thirds of all apartments! Very often, the genkan, the entrance space where Japanese people remove their shoes, is right inside the kitchen. Yes, I know this was rather common in Europe too – a friend of my grandmother’s had a place like this – but I can say with confidence that in the 1980s nobody would build an apartment like this anymore. In Japan, however…

Space is the next issue. Everyone knows that everything in Japan is quite small; a standard room has six tatami mats, that’s about 12 square metres. This is reasonable – until one starts to reduce the size of one mat to fit in more apartments… Hence, it is really important to actually visit a place, because 30 tatami can mean something quite different, depending on the place.

Another problem: Light. Interestingly, many apartments are built in a very long and narrow fashion. Most likely this is a reminiscence of the old machiya merchant houses, that had a very narrow street front and a sheer endless number of rooms behind it (the reason was tax evasion…). Of course, those old houses had at least one courtyard in the middle to provide some extra light, but in modern apartments this is not quite feasible, at least not in the fifth floor. So essentially what you get is a long narrow tube with openings on both ends. Which, unfortunately are not always sufficient to light the entire space in between, especially if at one of said tube endings there is another wall nearby…

So, yes, it proves rather difficult to find something I like. And as I will spend a considerable time there, I think this is a rather important point. On my quest for the perfect apartment, I have so far seen six places. Four of them were an immediate “Oh goodness, NO!”, one was a “well…” and another one was a resounding “YES!”. Which is actually an excellent average.  The apartment has a good size, lies in a quiet area, is newly renovated and very bright, and all this comes at a reasonable price.

Hence, I instructed my real estate agent to prepare the contract. That was last week Tuesday. It took him a while, but he finally got back to me on Saturday late afternoon to tell me that I am not getting the place: I did not pass the extra tenant screening. Despite the fact that I have finally found somebody who will act as a guarantor for me (essentially somebody who co-signs the contract and promises to pay the rent and any damages I may cause in case I am unable to pay myself), there was still an extra screening needed to make sure that I’m a decent tenant and will not default on my rent.

And the whole thing failed because: I don’t have a mobile phone now and the company thinks I am not reachable. No promises that I will get a phone as soon as I move in, helped. No phone numbers of friends and the insistence that it’s really better for a real estate company to talk to a Japanese than to me who can barely communicate, helped. Which begs the question whether a 17-year-old with the latest mobile is more trustworthy than I am. Or why people in Japan have managed never to have heard of email (even my agent had troubles with that…)

I was furious. Then I was disappointed. Then I started pleading with my agent because it was such a lovely apartment really… He refused to get back to the agency. Essentially he said that Japanese people are very stubborn (he did not use this word though) and that once they say NO, that’s that. I guess there were other things they didn’t like about me, but the “cannot be contacted now” was the easiest way to refuse me.

So, I am back to square one. Now, of course, the agent keeps on saying that whenever such a company stands between me and the actual owner of the place, it is useless to even try applying. Which does not sit well with me… I am now wondering whether I should get the “well…” apartment I mentioned above (I spoke to the owner, and he’s a very nice and relaxed guy which will make living there rather easy), or whether I should wait for the perfect place to show up on my radar. Unfortunately my time is limited…

Suggestions?