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Hibarigaoka It Is

April 16th, 2010

Looking for a nice apartment? One is about to open up in Ikebukuro. A 2LDK, about 70 square meters, building is less than three years old. Nice hardwood floors, under-floor heating, 21st-floor view from northeast to the south, plenty of balcony space. It’s opening up after we leave around the start of May. Down side: pricey, at 250,000 yen a month. (Ouch! Did we pay that much for so long? What were we thinking?)

We got the Ikebukuro place when we still had two incomes, and could easily afford it. Not any more… so we’re moving farther out, to Hibarigaoka, as I mentioned earlier. Not that we absolutely have to, but it’s hard to justify living in the place we do any more. After my permanent residency comes through, and we find a bank that’ll give us a loan, we’ll start looking again for a house to buy–but that could take a while, and this will be our domicile until we move into a place we own. The apartment we decided on is the same place I outlined in this blog post. But today we were able to go inside after the renovation was finished, and decided that, yes, this would do for the next year or so.

Here’s a stitched-panorama shot taken from the south-west corner (lower left corner of the yellow-colored living/dining room as seen in the map below):

Hibari-Ldr-North


Below is a view from the room marked “Poza Room” on the map above, looking west to “Luis’ Room”; as you can see, we can slide open the doors between them, and even remove the doors completely so as to make one big room:

3Room-Pano-600

The down point: we’ll have to buy some new stuff. We have two air conditioners, but the new place needs at least four. On our way home, we stopped at “Labi” and found a model on sale for 35,000 yen–a very low price for a heating/cooling conditioner, and that price comes with installation. We still have to purchase at least two more ceiling lamps, a gas cooking stove, a shoes cabinet for Sachi, and a few other pieces of furniture. Tomorrow about 3 different movers will come through and give us estimates on how much it’ll cost to pack up and transport all of our stuff to the new place. Due to size restrictions on visiting trucks, we’ll have to limit ourselves to 2-ton vehicles; it’ll take at least two to make the trip.

After we get a mover who’ll commit to a moving day during Golden Week, we will sign the contract with UR and officially give notice on moving out of our current place.

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  1. Troy
    April 17th, 2010 at 03:38 | #1

    Y250,000 . . . number brings back memories . . .

    I hate that you’ve got a nicer place for less rent than I’m paying in Sunnyvale. The Seibu Ikebukuro line has a special place in my heart since I lived on it when I was FOB the first month, until I got a subleased a nice place in Kichijoji from NCB coslave.

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