apartment hunting

an old watchmaker

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I removed all the magnets from the fridge to pack for my new apartment.

Moving those magnets is tricky because they must be separated from my wristwatches by at least 3 feet. It’s the rule for the wristwatch’s well-being that I was taught by an old watchmaker.

His shop was run by him and his wife and I used to visit it very often when I lived downtown Tokyo. My friend once gave me a wristwatch as a gift and she wore the one of the same design. The back of hers was taped up unsightly and she warned me that once I had its cover taken off for a battery change, it wouldn’t be closed again because the watch had a peculiar shape. When the battery was dead, I brought the watch to the old watchmaker’s shop. Although I had thought he would tape up the cover, he grappled with the cover for as long as 10 minutes with sweating and closed it beautifully.

Since then, the shop has become my favorite. Some watches didn’t start ticking even with a fresh battery and in that case, he took time and mustered various old tools from his tattered box and his unique skills to fix them perfectly. I liked to see him working on watches. I can’t count how many times he saved my watches in bad condition.

Years later, I moved to the suburbs and became unable to visit his shop. When the battery change was needed for the peculiar-shaped watch, which had been the old watchmaker’s specialty for me, I brought it to a clock store chain in a nearby shopping mall. I thought they would tape up the cover this time around, but they closed it with a special gadget right away. I wonder if my favorite watchmaker has already retired while I religiously obey his law to separate magnets from watches…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

To escape from those stressful days

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Aftershocks persist day and night although it is more than a month since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit Japan. I often wake up in the middle of the night by a jolt and brace myself for a possible big one. As a result, I get up every morning tired. To escape from those stressful days and also to move my furniture and boxes, I took a trip to my new place for a couple of days.

About 70 percent of the moving was completed by this trip. The goal is near.　    The region of my new apartment was still covered with snow and looked like a different world. I was able to be absorbed in cleaning the apartment without thinking about aftershocks, radiation and a shortage of food for a while. It was when I began to feel unwilling to go back to the Tokyo area that I jumped out of bed at night with a big jolt. I turned on my new TV which I had just set up that evening and found out the seismic center was right under the area of my new apartment. There is no way to avoid an earthquake in Japan…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

pay more money

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By the contract, I have to give a month’s notice to move out the apartment I currently live in. If I move out in the middle of April as I planned, I need to send written notice by mid-March. But I’m not sure if my packing is finished in a month. Actually, there’s no telling when it’s done.

 　　I’m busy enough with my daily life and adding packing to it as an extra routine has been almost impossible for me. In fact, my packing has been going at a surprisingly slow pace. My own schedule has gradually backed me into a corner and sometimes I have an urge to cancel a move itself altogether. As I began to sag, I decided to postpone a move for another month until mid-May, to make packing easier with plenty of time. It’s the third postponement from my original plan of a mid-January move. It means to pay more money for the rent, but it can’t be helped…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

a different world

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As the process of moving, I went to my new
place for the second time. The area was
covered with deep snow this time and it looked
like a different world. I got to my new
apartment on foot from the train station,
walking along the sidewalk sandwiched
between the plowed snow walls. The snow
walls were my shoulder high and I’d never
seen this much snow in my life.
As soon as I arrived, I got down to cleaning
the room. I spent first two days cleaning the
stained carpet. On the second day, I was to
receive several boxes I’d sent from my old
apartment. Looking at the heavy, ceaseless
snow, I was afraid that my boxes wouldn’t
reach here, but they came all right, to my
relief.
On the third day, I went shopping for food.
To get to the supermarket, I needed to take a
train, and I walked along the snow walls to the
station again. I concentrated on my steps not
to slip when an icicle dropped from a lamppost
right before me. I got almost skewered. All the
way to the supermarket, I was busy watching
up and down, for my steps and icicles. That
was awfully similar to an advanced stage of
Mario Brothers. It was an ordeal just to get to
a store. On top of that, my toes became icy as
slush had seeped inside my supposed-to-be
waterproof boots that I’d bought specially for
this trip. You can’t make light of snowy
country…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

it’s just the beginning

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Photo by Lina Kivaka on Pexels.com

My moving process began in earnest. I’ve
already sent several boxes to my new place,
and now I set about my furniture. I looked up
on the Internet for the lowest possible price
and decided to move furniture separately by a
small cargo container, since I don’t have a car.
Although it’s the cheapest way, the cost of
the shipment is about the same as the total
value of my furniture, because all my furniture
is the lowest price one. I might as well replace
them to new ones as spend money to move
them, but people don’t do a garage sale in
Japan. I can’t throw away what is still usable
and I’m attached to them. For the first
shipment, I emptied and cleaned the shelves
and drawers. They were seven pieces and it
took me more time and energy than I had
thought to do the work. I was exhausted, but
it’s just the beginning. Only about a quarter of
the moving was done. More pieces of cheap
furniture await me…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

bargain hunter

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dig

I check the TV listings online everyday. I found
a TV show that featured the town I was
moving to. I was looking forward to it in front
of the TV. When the show started, I realized it
was about how to live inexpensively after
retiring.
The town was introduced as the area that
had many budget apartments where retirees
with a drastic income drop could afford and
save money. The show chose a couple of
apartments as super money-saver ones of all
others. To my surprise, my new apartment was
one of them! Seeing the exact building I was
about to move in on TV, I felt delighted and
embarrassed at the same time.
To sum up, the apartment I selected is one
of the best bargain apartments located in the
least expensive area in Japan. It proved my
discerning eye as a bargain hunter, but also
declared my new place was the cheapest in the
country on national television. I have a low
income, all right, but I’m not retiring…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total

claustrophobia

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Last weekend, I went in my new apartment for
the first time since I looked at the room with a
real estate agent in September. Although the
building was 20 years old and I had expected
some fixtures would have been broken,
everything worked fine including a heater and
a boiler. Only, the room was dirty from the
former resident’s poor maintenance, meaning
an extensive cleanup awaited me.
The room was carpeted, and that carpet
was extremely dirty with countless stains. I
was talking with my partner how careless the
former resident must have been, and at
dinnertime, it was my partner who
inadvertently spilled soy sauce on it. Already a
new stain has been registered.
My biggest concern about living in that
room had been whether claustrophobia would
fall on me or not. One of my ways to lessen the
phobia is turn on the TV. My cell phone is
capable of receiving TV and I carried it around
as the most important emergency item for the
phobia in the room. Thankfully, I didn’t feel the
phobia but tried to turn on the TV for fun
before going to sleep. Then, my cell phone told
me that it couldn’t receive it. As the building
stood surrounded by high mountains, the wave
was too weak to be received. Once I realized
the TV wouldn’t be on, I felt a touch of
claustrophobia all of a sudden. I shouldn’t have
tried TV…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

another surprise

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Here is the finale of my apartment hunting. I
had complained about delay of the contract to
a real estate agent and she had advanced the
date for it.
Two days before signing, she called me
and gave me yet another surprise. She went in
the room to make sure everything was okay
and found out that the owner had taken away
all of the furniture and appliances although the
room was supposed to be furnished. According
to her, everything was gone except for a
kitchen table. She sounded more shocked than
I actually was. Because each piece of furniture
and appliances had looked pretty old and
worn-out when I saw the room, and even if
unfurnished, the price was still a lot lower than
the area’s average, I asked her not to retrieve
them as she offered. I accepted the present
condition, and signed a contract at last.
My six-month long apartment hunting is
officially over. Starting now is my moving saga.
It’s decided for me to move 160 miles far from
where I live now to the countryside surrounded
by mountains. Is it really possible for me to live
in the mountains secluded from people? More
than anything else, please no more bad
surprises for me…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

unbelievable twist

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About my apartment hunting, I’ve written up
to the point that the owner of the room wanted
to consider his or her price, which had been
offered as 20 percent off by himself or herself
in the first place. Two more weeks have passed
and the owner offered 10 percent off. Since I
was going to pay the full price to begin with,
10 percent off was still a good deal to me. I
answered to take it.
Then, the situation took an unbelievable
twist, again. The real estate agent asked me to
pick my convenient days for a contract among
several days in the end of October. That means
it would take two months to close the deal
since I decided on the room. At first, I thought
it would be done in a week because the
process was simple – look at the room, make a
decision, sign a contract and pay. How could it
be possible to spend two months for this easy
process? At this stage, it should be done only
by signing a contract, and yet, they need three
more weeks just to do that.
Meanwhile, I noticed the owner had placed
an ad for the very room I applied for on a
different real estate company’s website. The
room remains available there. Now, a suspicion
crept into my mind. Is the owner waiting for
someone who wants the room at the full price
and prolonging the deal on purpose? But that
someone was me because it was the owner
who offered the discount while I didn’t ask for
anything. Whatever the plot is, it’s beyond my
comprehension. I wonder when and how the
whole thing is settled…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods

my fridge

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A new supermarket opened one block away
from my apartment. It’s the closest
supermarket and I can see it from my window.
Since the construction started in spring,
I’d been looking forward to its opening while
seeing the progress of the construction site. I
jumped in it on the long-waited opening day
and the store exceeded my expectation.
Their prices were a lot lower than I’d
thought. They have carried the opening sale
and I’ve been there almost every day. Before
the opening, a flier of the store came in, which
said, ‘Please use us as your fridge.’ With this
proximity to my place, I thought it would be a
good idea, depending on the prices. Now that
the prices are low, using the store as my fridge
is becoming real. Because I found something
at the lowest price ever each time there and
couldn’t resist getting them, I’ve brought home
more food than I could eat. As a result, my
home fridge is packed, too.
Once I decided to move out my
apartment, this nice supermarket appeared.
Leaving the store behind makes me feel
hesitant to move…

Episode From Surviving in Japan / Hidemi Woods