Posts Tagged ‘Living in japan’

I wrote the below post a while ago, but I finally found an internet connection and am able to post it. It has been about 4 days since we originally moved into the apartment and we absolutely love it. The dogs are quite, the view is great, and the ocean is close. Not to mention the rent is also cheap. We pretty much have it all cleaned and setup so it feels like our home. After living here for a week, it’s hard to believe I ever worried about leaving it all behind. If you haven’t read the first two posts you can find them here: Starting a New Life and Day 2 in Miyakojima: Finding an Apartment and Other Advice for Moving to a New Area. (The above picture is a 15 minute walk from our apartment).

Day 3 starts from here:

“After a full day of looking at apartments, we were unable to find anything as good as the one we found the first day with the dog. So we decided to go and look at it one more time and found it was even better than we thought. It had more storage space (not that we needed it for our 4 suitcases) and it was only a 15 minute walk from the ocean. It was also very quit, so hopefully we don’t hear the dog too much if it barks.

We were able to talk the apartment company into allowing us to move in the following Monday so that will allow us to save a few days of having to stay in a hotel. We were especially eager to get out of the guest house. It was the worst place I have ever stayed. Not only were the rooms not clean, but we had to go outside to use the shower and bathroom. It felt kind of like expensive camping.

Tomorrow we will be moving to a new location and getting a new rental car.”

PS. We found a rental car for a month at a great price and have even got recommendations for places to find a cheap used car.

I would love to hear all your comments so please post away. My internet usage is a little limited, but I will reply as often as I can.

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.