Posts Tagged ‘apartment’

So it has been just a little over two weeks since My wife and I left my old life in Tokyo and moved to the tropical island of Miyakojima. I am happy to say that things are still going great.

We have an amazing house that has a slight view of the ocean and is about 10 minutes walk from the harbor. It feels like we live in the country, but we live just outside of the city. It’s much bigger than our apartment in Tokyo, but costs less than half what we were paying.

Shopping for a vehicle has been a little more difficult. We rented a car for a month so we would have plenty of time to look, but it was difficult to find something worth while in our price range. Since the island is small and we were only planning to be here for a year, we wanted to spend as little as possible. The original plan was to rent for a year, but the local people we met told us we could save a lot of money by purchasing. They were right. We eventually found a nice little car for about $1,300 out the door. That is what it would cost us to rent for 4 months, so hopefully it runs well.

Even though it’s November, the weather is still warm (if not hot) and we are able to swim in the ocean several times a week. The water is warm and the life is amazing. I am an avid diver (I actually used to work at a scuba diving shop in California) and there is so much to see here. Yesterday we found a great spot that had literally dozens of clown fish.

The only difficulty so far has been getting internet. Our internet will be installed this coming Friday and I will try to post some pictures. In the meantime, I have found a �media center� where I can connect for free. The good thing is since we have no internet or TV, we have had to fill our time with swimming, fishing, dinner with new friends, and attending festivals.

Day 2 Started out with some heavy rain that seemed to get heavier every time I needed to get in or out of the car. Once in the car (and quite drenched) we headed to Guppi’s Shiatsu Massage. We had visited Guppi’s the first time we visited Miyakojima and Guppi had given us a lot of information on places to visit.

I kept in touch with him after we left and he offered to go with us to look at a apartments. Not only was he able to give us valuable information about the surrounding areas of each apartment and whether or not he thought they were worth it, but he also introduced us to more people and showed us some good places to eat.

Searching for an apartment

For anyone who is moving to a new location, having a good friend is invaluable. By day two, our friend Guppi had helped us search for an apartment, introduced us to a number of new people, showed us good places to shop, and had a number of appliances he wanted to get rid of that will save us from spending a lot of money. Not to mention the massage we got on the first day.

We looked at about a total of eight apartments and found one that we really liked. We decided to take it, but later realized the lower apartment has a dog. Since the idea was to really relax while we are here, we are going to look for another apartment.

When searching for a new apartment, and especially one in a new area, it is very helpful to make a list of the things that are important to you. Having a list will help you to quickly narrow down the list and also stop you from loosing focus on what’s important. Since the apartments here are quite different than what we were used to in Tokyo, it was easy to get excited about the size and forget about the location or price (things that are more important to me).

Adapt to the local situation

Once you get an understanding for the prices structure and quality you need to adapt to the local expectations. Apartments in Miyakojima go for far less than they do in Tokyo. Keeping the expectations of Tokyo would make it easy to be taken advantage of. The people are very honest here and it hasn’t been a problem at all, but in certain areas it most certainly could be. Lean the local conditions and adapt to them.

Know the general area

By visiting Miyakojima before hand we were able to see the layout of the island and could plan before hand where we hoped to live. Most of the housing is located in a tight small city and the rest of the island is basically farmland and forest. We are searching for a places just out of town, but close enough so we can walk to town if we want to save on gas. If you don’t have a chance to visit before you move, then I highly suggest getting to know some of the local people and ask them for advice.

It’s warm and raining again on day 3, but hopefully we will be able to find something today. I can’t wait to get out of this guest house. I have somewhat limited access to internet so I will post pictures once we move into our apartment.