My New Apartment!
Hey guys! Well I've certainly let this blog fall on the wayside, but I'm back updating to let everyone know I've found my new apartment in Tokyo! It's in Shinjuku-ku (there are 23 ku [wards] in Tokyo, and Shinjuku is one of the few in the 'main' part of the city), about 8ish minutes walking to the nearest station, and a 10 minute train ride from there to my office in Minami-Aoyama. Altogether, it should take me less than 30 minutes from my front door to work, so I'm REALLY excited!
The most imporant room: the bathroom! As soon from inside the main room. My apartment is one big room + a separate bathroom area. The kitchen and bedroom/living area are all one big room. When you walk in you're in the kitchen, and a little further forward is the main room. Off to the side on the right is the bathroom area.
Toilet! Not QUITE as fancy as my current one, it doesn't have a sink on the back. Drats :P
BUT! I GET THIS AMAZING SINK AREA!! It's got a real HUGE basin, an awesome makeup mirror, and tons of shelves and cabinets for storing stuff. I'M IN LOVE. I'm not kidding when I say this was a HUGE part of the reason I wanted this place :)
The shower! Unlike my current place, this new apartment only has a standup shower (however small it may be, my current place DOES have a bath tub). I'm not anticipating taking too many baths, though, so this is definitely deal-with-able!
The view of the bedroom/living area from the bathroom door. As you can see, it's hardwood floor. It'll be nice to be able to just sweep my place clean, because the vacuums here aren't very good (or maybe I just have a bad one :P). I'll probably buy a floor rug at least, though.
Stepping forward out of the bathroom from the previous shot and turning left, we see this! Behind me is the wall in the right of the previous pic. There's a nice full-length mirror already on the wall there :)
The kitchen...area XD There's no fridge yet (I'll be renting that when I move in, but it'll probably go to the right of the sink there).
A bigger shot of the room, from beside the sink. This is how you see the room when you walk into the apatment. It's got lots of light coming in from that window, something the other two places didn't have, so a plus :)
Another angle, so you can get a better idea of the layout. This is also part of what you'd see upon stepping into the apartment.
My door! It's got this nice modern feel to it with the bright red and the corrugated steel outside :)
The stairs leading up to the apartment on the 2nd floor (where I'm standing). It was POURING down rain the day I went visiting, so you can see the steps are all wet. But they're all covered with a thick rubber matting, with texture for traction, so definitely a plus over the others when I almost slipped down them XD
So how much is all of this gonna cost me? For living in a shoebox in the heart of Tokyo less than 30 minutes from my workplace and all my play-places as well--92,000yen per month (~$920). This'll be about 1/3 of my paycheck, so a sizeable chunk :( I'm hoping next year more friends will move into The City and we can room together. A nice 2-person apartment usually runs ~$12-1500, so I'd be paying quite a bit less if I lived with someone.
Well, that's been my biggest purchase of late! I'm saving what I can now, and hopefully will have a nice little cushion to land on when I make the move Tokyo-wards. I've got one more week of real classes, then I have to give my goodbye message around the 20th. The final week of work students will be off on summer vacation, so I'll be sitting around getting restless pretty much! I move in on July 26th, and I can't WAIT to start this next step of my life.
Hope you're all hanging in there, and I'll update more when I have, well, something to update about!
The most imporant room: the bathroom! As soon from inside the main room. My apartment is one big room + a separate bathroom area. The kitchen and bedroom/living area are all one big room. When you walk in you're in the kitchen, and a little further forward is the main room. Off to the side on the right is the bathroom area.
Toilet! Not QUITE as fancy as my current one, it doesn't have a sink on the back. Drats :P
BUT! I GET THIS AMAZING SINK AREA!! It's got a real HUGE basin, an awesome makeup mirror, and tons of shelves and cabinets for storing stuff. I'M IN LOVE. I'm not kidding when I say this was a HUGE part of the reason I wanted this place :)
The shower! Unlike my current place, this new apartment only has a standup shower (however small it may be, my current place DOES have a bath tub). I'm not anticipating taking too many baths, though, so this is definitely deal-with-able!
The view of the bedroom/living area from the bathroom door. As you can see, it's hardwood floor. It'll be nice to be able to just sweep my place clean, because the vacuums here aren't very good (or maybe I just have a bad one :P). I'll probably buy a floor rug at least, though.
Stepping forward out of the bathroom from the previous shot and turning left, we see this! Behind me is the wall in the right of the previous pic. There's a nice full-length mirror already on the wall there :)
The kitchen...area XD There's no fridge yet (I'll be renting that when I move in, but it'll probably go to the right of the sink there).
A bigger shot of the room, from beside the sink. This is how you see the room when you walk into the apatment. It's got lots of light coming in from that window, something the other two places didn't have, so a plus :)
Another angle, so you can get a better idea of the layout. This is also part of what you'd see upon stepping into the apartment.
My door! It's got this nice modern feel to it with the bright red and the corrugated steel outside :)
The stairs leading up to the apartment on the 2nd floor (where I'm standing). It was POURING down rain the day I went visiting, so you can see the steps are all wet. But they're all covered with a thick rubber matting, with texture for traction, so definitely a plus over the others when I almost slipped down them XD
So how much is all of this gonna cost me? For living in a shoebox in the heart of Tokyo less than 30 minutes from my workplace and all my play-places as well--92,000yen per month (~$920). This'll be about 1/3 of my paycheck, so a sizeable chunk :( I'm hoping next year more friends will move into The City and we can room together. A nice 2-person apartment usually runs ~$12-1500, so I'd be paying quite a bit less if I lived with someone.
Well, that's been my biggest purchase of late! I'm saving what I can now, and hopefully will have a nice little cushion to land on when I make the move Tokyo-wards. I've got one more week of real classes, then I have to give my goodbye message around the 20th. The final week of work students will be off on summer vacation, so I'll be sitting around getting restless pretty much! I move in on July 26th, and I can't WAIT to start this next step of my life.
Hope you're all hanging in there, and I'll update more when I have, well, something to update about!