It is Hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season in Tokyo right now. It’s a really beautiful time of year to go walking around the parks and rivers to find particularly beautiful views like this one.
Sunday, April 1st, 2007 Archives
It has warmed up considerably in the last week or so here in Shanghai. I was busy this week at work and just noticed today looking out from my balcony that the there are leaves on the trees now. Shanghai can be a pretty gray city and it is nice to be backing to having some green.
I have been flipping through some pictures of apartments in Tokyo with an eye to moving back at some point in my future. When I’ve lived in Tokyo before it has always been a little outside of the most central area. Next time I would really like to be in the middle of things. But just like other major cities like NYC or Paris, you pay for location. Added to this is that in Japan it is common to have to pay 2 months rent up front as “key money”. This is basically just bribe money for the owner. Pure profit. Gone forever. But some places, more recently, don’t require this money. With the standard 2 months of “key” money, 2 months deposit, 1 month for the real estate agent and the first month’s rent up front and you’re can easily be talking about a big chunk of change. So when you can find a place that doesn’t require key money or the agent fee you feel very lucky.
This complex is called Lietocourt (many apartment complexes in Japan have strange names – don’t ask). While it is a little more than I would want to pay, it is right downtown (walking distance from the Ginza area) and there is none of this “key” money or even the agent fee. So the amount of cash needed up front is a lot less than usual. And as you can see from the picture itself it has good size living & dining room area (remember this is Tokyo not the USA where apartments are generally a lot larger) with lots of windows and light. I really like an open and bright place like this. Hopefully if and when I move back to Tokyo I can find something similar.