Here are some photos of various apartments I’ve lived in over the last 15 years. I thought it would be interesting for people who’ve never lived in Japan to see what an average apartment with an above average amount of clutter looks like. And these pictures are old anyway so I figure there’d be no harm. The above photos are already in my gallery. I stayed in a Gaijin House in Yokohama for a few months and each person had their own 4.5 tatami mat room (about 2.75 square metres?). The rent was around ¥66,000/month. It was basically like a college dorm with 50 or so units and the toilets, bath were shared. The place was very old but kept fairly clean. The walls were thinner than toilet paper and you could hear what every person was doing, what they were watching on TV, whether they were getting lucky etc. As you can see, I literally crammed it with all my stuff. But it was comfy and the guys always came over for a game of scrabble.

After landing my first steady teaching gig in Tokyo, I moved to an apartment in Nakano-ku. It was your typical one room only smaller. About 5 tatami mats and I paid around ¥77,000 if I remember correctly. This one was on the first floor and was broken into so when another unit on the 2nd floor opened up I moved up there. Again I crammed a ton of junk into this tiny place. At one point, I had 3 bicycles in the kitchen. To get in and out of the place I had to move the bicycles out and then put them back in again. I didn’t want to leave them outside. Check out that 10″ TV I had. Can you believe that I used this TV set for almost 6 years? And that’s a Mac Color Classic. I wish they still made them. If you come to Japan and have to live in such a tiny place, you’d probably be better off with a Japanese style room with tatami. Japanese style rooms look more or less the same in style but they were designed to maximize space and usually have large closets, something that these western style one room places don’t have. Closet space is very important in Tokyo.

A few years later, I moved to the heart of Shimokitazawa. Great location and the apartment was not bad except it was an irregular wedged shape and had lots of pillars and stuff sticking out of the walls and ceiling. When I think back I realize that the place was a Feng Shui catastrophe, but I still had a great time there. Again, the place had literally no closet. Well there was one but it was only 20 cm deep so basically useless. The flat was located on the 4th floor of a building in the middle of the shopping street. Once I had a bunch of people stay over and I put 5 mountain bikes in that tiny kitchen. Incredible. The place was only about 26 metres square but the rent was ¥116,000/month. You pay for the location.

Also, check out all the gear I had back then. I have no recollection of what happened to some of those devices. I think I lent some to people and they never gave them back. I have to start writing things down. These photos were taken with the first digital camera I bought. It was an NEC Picona 350K pixels and came with a 2MB CF card. I remember buying a 15MB CF card which costs me ¥40,000 at the time. There’s a picture of the camera here

I had to move out of Shimokitazawa because the landlady of that apartment rented the one below me to these stupid jerks who thought it would be cool to open up a drum and bass record shop. They had no customers except their loser friends but blasted music, heavy in bass, out the window past midnight every night. It drove me crazy! My landlord was too chicken to tell them to stop and after repeated attempts to enlist the help of police I gave up and moved.

I found a older but absolutely wonderful place a few stops down the Odakyu line. The mansion was quite old but extremely comfortable. It was a 2LDK, about 60 sq metres (very big) with windows in every room. It was located above an optometrist and there was only one other unit on the other end of the building. At night I could turn up my home theatre without bothering anyone. Of all the rented places, this one was the best. The landlady was super nice and we had a great relationship. The rent was a little high at ¥138,000 and when I decided to get a car, the cost of renting a parking space AND rent for the apartment was a bit beyond my budget so I eventually moved. That and the fact that I could not get the new refrigerator I bought through the entrance.

Some pictures of the “entertainment room.” I think it’s a good idea to regularly take random photos of your living space, desktop, bookshelf etc. without cleaning them first. When you look back at the clutter it reminds you of things you were doing at the time, books you were reading. A photo of a clean apartment is not the same.

A couple of years ago I went through a short-lived phase where I wanted to get rid of all the stuff and lead a simple life. So I moved to Shinagawa-ku, near my gym to this apartment. Another one room about 26 sq metres, ¥107,000/month rent. It was the first newly built apartment that I’ve ever moved into. The building was rock solid and I had free broadband, but there was no closet space, again, and eventually I started to accumulate stuff, again. Smaller apartments are also harder to keep clean for some reason and I was constantly tidying and vacuuming. The place also faced a small park which I first thought would be a good idea. But it’s not. Never live beside or near a park of any size. Kids screaming all day and people kicking soccer balls around all night. I like peace and quiet.

And then I moved to where I am now. It’s nice to have your own home and all the space but I’ll miss apartment hunting and living in different locations. I like change every few years.

These aren’t all the places I’ve lived at, just a few of which I have digital photos. My scanner broke so I couldn’t scan photos of the other places.