Some great things about my apartment, starting from the best one: It's impossibly cheap. Have you heard about prices in Tokyo? Especially renting prices ? Even higher than NYC supposedly. For a similar-sized, single apartment in an equally convenient location, the market-priced rent would be around ¥100,000 (roughly $1100). For me though, the rent is ¥5900 (around $65). Even if you add all the utilities fees and Internet, it comes down to ¥13,000 ($143) which is 7-8 times cheaper than the market. Todai's subsidy is truly mind-blowing.
It's 20 min by walk and 2 subway stops away from Shibuya, one of Tokyo's biggest and craziest downtowns and shopping centers.
It's free to go to Shibuya by subway if you have a commuter pass, and I do.
It's 15 minutes walk and 2 train stops away from Shimokitazawa, a truly lovely market-like place with lots of cheap stores and small restaurants and bars that serve brilliant food and drinks.
It's 5 minutes away from Todai's second main campus, Komaba. So 5 minutes away from very cheap and quite good cafeteria food. Mind you, Japanese food, even cafeteria food, is comparatively delicious after 3 years of American dining hall food. (Though Harvard's still pretty decent compared to other colleges I have eaten at.)
It's 5 minutes away from Todai's second main campus, Komaba. So 5 minutes away from classes and lecture halls and thus 5 minutes away from hundreds of potential Japanese friends.
It's a single. After 3 years of room-sharing at Harvard (excluding last spring), that's quite refreshing.
Lots of international friends. It's the easiest place to practice some French or German or Chinese (though I don't hang out with the Chinese too often, as they are a bit of geeks and just stay in their rooms all the time) and British English. Easy place to get a drinking buddy as well.
Of course, to be fair, I will also lists some annoying points about my room. Most of these is something you might expect from such a cheap place...:
The whole building is old and dirty. To illustrate it, here's a bit of a quote from my dormmate Ben.
Me: “What was the password for the main gate again? I forgot... Was it 1890?”
Ben: “Yeah, probably the year this whole mess of a building was built in.”
I don't mind the former (old), as I love Harvard for its old colonial look that is more historic than US itself. But the former and the latter (dirt) and a third factor (ugly) combined is nothing nice. I was appalled, with my expectations high after my super clean experience at a homestay this summer, to see Japanese management letting a building become so dilapidated.
My room was dirty. If you can imagine a place where the dust has laid for so long it got sticky, that's how I was greeted the day I arrived. The walls are supposed to be white, but they are just yellowish. So massive dorm cleaning was in place, as opposed to room-warming party. And cleaning is one thing I hate with passion (second only to dish-washing).
There are bugs. As a hysterical bug-phobic, seeing anything small with more than 4 legs sends me screaming and crying. So getting a stinky killing bleach was also a must.
It's too small. Probably because they tried to fit both a bathroom and a kitchen in a room of 15m2.
The kitchen is an absolutely unnecessary space eater. It looks unused and I intend to leave it that way. I hate the cooking fuss and economically it's not worth it for one person. Not with all the Japanese (and not only) goodies all around me.
And some really queer things:
Everything folds and unfolds in my room. The bed a huge folding door, and so is my desk. So if you unfold these two together and the chair stays in-between then there is no more room for anything.
Before.
Even the bathroom folds and unfolds. The sink is slidable to reveal the toilet. So if you need to take the shower, you need to slide the sink back over the toilet. In some way it should be termed 'ingenious' for space utilization in the crowded Tokyo, but sometimes it's just purely annoying to keep sliding and un-sliding when physiological needs call you...
The very funny English you get to see. Here's an example of a notification letter:
“To Residents,
I am very sorry, but cannot present toilet paper and trash bags, because there is not the budget. Please buy it by yourself.
Staff.”
