Big in Japan: A Look Inside My Tokyo Apartment

by Matthew Firestone on

This week I decided that I needed a change of surroundings, so I moved to the Nakameguro (??????) district in Tokyo. It’s a highly-respectable neighborhood bordering on the entertainment district of Shibuya (???) and the wealthy residential district of Yebisu (????). To simplify things a bit, it’s within easy striking (or stumbling) distance of the bar and club scene, yet offers all the peace and isolation of a residential area.

And, it’s surprisingly cheap, and much nicer and bigger than you’d imagine.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a two part series on the Myth of Money in Japan, which argued that Japan is surprisingly more affordable than you would imagine. The responses to my post ran the gamut from ‘You’re absolutely correct and thanks for acknowledging what I already knew!’ to ‘You’re an absolute idiot and thanks for wasting five minutes of my life.’

Hey – there’s always a critic!

Well, in order to throw some more fuel into the fire, I’ve decided to give you all a virtual tour of my apartment. Hopefully, this will help dispel the myth that the Japanese live in crowded shoeboxes that rent for thousands of dollars a month.

First of all, the renting agency is a popular foreign-friendly company known as Sakura House (www.sakura-house.com). My room is located in a gaijin house (外人ハウス) or foreigner house that is aimed exclusively at ex-pats temporarily living in Japan.

Although prices vary considerably depending on the neighborhood, my current room lists for ¥83,000 a month including utilities and wireless internet. Depending on the current exchange rate, this is about $690 to $755 a month – not bad for one of the nicest districts in Tokyo.

As you can see from the pictures, it’s spacious (approximately 100 sq m), and comes furnished with a good bed and a somewhat shoddy but workable desk from which I am writing this column. However, take notice of the stone fireplace that sits behind the computer, as well as the polished wooden floors and closets.

The best part of course is the enormous picture window and sliding doors that face out towards the neighborhood. I overlook a number of traditional Japanese-style houses, and there is a Shinto temple complex in the distance.

Not bad for what is commonly referred to as the most expensive city in the world! Try finding a room this nice in New York City for less than $1000 a month.

The house itself is shared by seven other foreigners, all of whom have their own private rooms as well. In regards to common space, we have a fairly spacious kitchen, a lounge with satellite TV, two and a half bathrooms and an onsite washer and dryer.

Still not sold that living in Tokyo is prohibitively expensive? Consider the fact that the house is located only five minutes by foot from the subway station. If you’re a fan of convenience, I should also point out that the station has a number of restaurants, small shops and even a grocery store.

Now do you believe me that Japan can be bargain if you know where to look?

Beaver – it’s all the rage in Japan!

by Matthew Firestone on

There’s no shortage of great ‘Engrish’ in Japan.

Take for instance ‘Beaver,’ the hottest new women’s clothing store in the always hip and trendy shopping district of Shibuya in Tokyo.

Always imitated but never replicated, nothing fits as warm and as snug as a Beaver. And from what I’m told, men in Japan go absolutely hog-wild over a woman sporting Beaver. No wonder Beaver is this fall’s hottest fashion accessory.

(I could go on all day, but I think you get the joke).

For more on the weird, wonderful and wacky world that is Japan, check out my feature column Big in Japan.

Big in Japan: Bandages and Eye Patches are the Hottest New Fashions

by Matthew Firestone on

Think mummies are hot? How about pirates?

What if they were scantily clad women?

This week, Japan’s Weekly Playboy magazine reported that the otaku (geek, ?????????) community is starting to lose interest in eyeglasses and maids. Although these two styles have dominated the geek-friendly Tokyo neighborhood of Akihabara in recent years, ‘one-eyed virginal maid mummies’ is the hottest new fashion.

This increasingly popular style is known as kegadoru (????????????), which roughly translates as ‘injured idols.’ The look popularizes women who wear cute, frilly Lolita-style dresses, and then accessorize with bandages and eye patches.

Only in Japan could gauze and Band-Aids become the latest must-have fashion item!

The idea is simple.

According to a young woman interviewed by Weekly Playboy:

“When you’re covered in bandages, everybody pays attention to you and worries about you. They also provide a chance to start talking to guys, who’ll ask you how you hurt yourself, so the bandages are really, really good. One guy told me he likes seeing a thin woman’s body wrapped in bandages because it made him think about bondage, and made him want to protect me from harm.”

Wow…

But not everyone is convinced that mummies and pirates are going to be taking the catwalks in Paris and Milan by storm. According to psychologist Yu Yuki, the rise of kegadoru is a sign of rising gender equality in Japan.

In an interview with Weekly Playboy, Yu Yuki states:

“Women feigning injury but still swathed in bandages and eye patches look as though they’re weak. This makes the men want to protect the women. In our age of gender equality, the number of strong-willed women has increased. Men still want to protect and look after women, so they seek out those who seem to be in need of help.”

As strange as it may seem to Westerners, the Japanese obsession with cosupre (costume play, コスプレ) has recently exploded in popularity, particularly amongst teenagers and young adults. In a country where individual thought and expression is frequently squashed by a society that values conformity and order, dressing up in bizarre fashions is one of the few outlets that rebellious teens have.

In the teen-fashion district of Harajuku in Tokyo, cosupre has even become a weekly scheduled event, taking place every Sunday in front of the bridge leading to Meiji Shrine. For most of these teens, who grow up in sterile, concrete housing blocks that are typical of much of urban living in Japan, the Sunday street show is sadly their one chance to break away from a repressive culture.

Like most pop fads in Japan, kegadoru is not likely to maintain its popularity for too long. In greater Tokyo, which numbers upwards of 30 million souls, fashions wax and wane in popularity with frightening speed. However, even if kegadoru is short-lived, it’s almost certain that another equally shocking fashion trend will replace it soon enough.

For more on cuteness in Japan, check out Hello Kitty and the Culture of Cute.

For more on the weird, wacky and wonderful world that is Japan, don’t miss the feature column Big in Japan.

For pictures of Japanese fashions, from kimonos to costume plays, see the photo gallery below.

**Special thanks to stock.xchng user Shibuya 86 for the picture of the Harajuku girl **

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Big in Japan: The Myth About Money (Part II)

by Matthew Firestone on

So, two days ago I wrote about the Myth of Money, namely that Japan was surprisingly more affordable than you’d imagine. Needless to say, it’s hard to convince people that Japan is actually a budget-friendly destination, especially since most of us have heard crazy stories of excessive displays of wealth, such as those infamous $500 fruit boxes.

(Truth be told, they do exist – I snapped this photo of perfect melons at a luxury grocery store in Ginza, the most exclusive shopping district in Tokyo).

Of course, unless you have a pressing business engagement, or you’re trying to impress a girl with some serious bling (melons are a girl’s best friend), you shop at the local hundred yen shop (百円屋; hyaku-en-ya) like the rest of us poor working stiffs. The rough equivalent of dollar stores in North America, your local ¥100 shop carries everything from seasonal produce and budget cuts of meat to cleaning products and pet food. They’re found in virtually every neighborhood in Tokyo including Ginza (even rich people love a good bargain), and help lower the price of urban living.

Still not convinced that Japan is affordable? You guys are one tough audience!

Well, the most important thing for foreigners to know about before considering a move to Japan is what is known as a Gaijin House (外人ハウス; gaijin-hausu). Funny thing about that word gaijin – it’s actually a derogatory word used for foreigners (literally it means outsider). Of course, that hasn’t stopped us gaijin from claiming the word for ourselves, and much to the amusement of the Japanese, the word gaijin is tossed around with an air of pride, regardless of how offensive it may be.

Essentially, a gaijin house is a shared house or apartment, similar perhaps to your college dormitory, where internationals (and a few in the know Japanese people) can rent a cheap room by the month. Gaijin houses run the gamut from hundred-year old traditional Japanese buildings with tatami mats and sliding rice-paper doors to institutional concrete prisons with flickering fluorescent lights and sheet rock walls. But, they’re nearly always affordable, great places to socialize and a quintessential part of the Japanese ex-pat experience.

(Next week, I’ll be writing a piece on apartment hunting in Tokyo, which should hopefully illuminate the process of finding a room in the world’s largest megalopolis).

Finally, Japan is affordable in that it arguably has the world’s most efficient and comprehensive public transportation system. To be fair, intercity travel in Japan is very expensive, and you can expect to pay upwards of around $250 for a two-hour roundtrip bullet train between Tokyo and Kyoto. But, it costs no more than $2-3 dollars to cross the whole of Tokyo on the subway, and you’re never more than a few minutes from a station. With that said, making head and tails of the insanely complex train system is something of a rite of passage for new arrivals.

Cheap it may be, but even Japanese get lost in grid sometimes!

Well, after two columns of raving and ranting about the myth of money, I hope that I’ve at least won a few converts out there. However, if you still don’t believe me that Japan is an affordable destination, enjoy your trip to London, and let me know how those $18 Happy Meals taste!

Big in Japan: The Myth About Money

by Matthew Firestone on

Let’s start off by dispelling a common myth – are you ready for this?

(I know you’re not going to believe me, but just bare with me for a few moments).

Japan is not astronomically expensive. There – I said it. In fact, compared with most major cities in North America and Europe, I’d argue that it’s a bargain.

Are you still reading this? I fear that I may have already lost most of my audience with such a seemingly absurd statement, but if you’re still reading this post, let me explain.

In March of 2007, the Worldwide Cost of Living survey released by the Economist Group lists Tokyo and Osaka as the 5th and 6th most expensive cities in the world. Truth be told, this year was a marked departure from previous lists in that Tokyo and Osaka weren’t entrenched in the number one and two spots. According to experts (who know way more about economics than I do), this year’s chart topping cities of Oslo, Paris and Copenhagen were given a boost thanks to a strengthening euro and the declining dollar.

So what’s going on here? How can I, in the face of experts, still argue that Japan is a bargain? Bear with me for a few more paragraphs – I’m almost there.

The biggest expense that most Japanese contend with is the soaring price of real estate, which is made all the more absurd by the total lack of developable land. The term ‘shoebox apartment’ has a whole different meaning in Japan, where 100 sq ft is arguably a palace. Indeed, when my Japanese friends first came to the states to stay with my family at our modest – by American standards – house in suburban New Jersey, they seriously thought we were oil moguls.

Assuming you can get over the lack of space, it’s possible to live in a shared apartment in central Tokyo for only a few hundred dollars a month, which pales in comparison to the money my friends pay in New York City, London and San Francisco. Sure, a lot of the buildings in Tokyo are asylum-esque concrete monstrosities built in the 1950s and 1960s (hardly the Golden Age of architectural achievement). But, it’s possible to find some great places out here if you know where to look.

Case in point – I’m currently renting a room in a two-story traditional Japanese house just a few minutes from Shibuya, one of Tokyo’s most fashionable entertainment districts. My room has wooden floors and picture windows, and enough space to put on my writer’s cap on and hammer out this column.

(Next week I’ll go into detail about apartment hunting, and give you some tips on what to look for).

Of course, I haven’t even touched on how affordable it is to eat out in Japan, particularly if you know how to avoid the expensive spots. One of the themes of this feature column is going to be Japan’s unique (to say the least) cuisine, so we’ll return to this issue several times in the near future. And finally, with the world’s best public transportation system, and a bike-riding culture to boot, you don’t need a car to live in Japan, which is a significant savings if you’re moving here from North America.

Are you sold yet? If not, tune in next week for a posting about apartment hunting in Tokyo. And don’t worry – there will be plenty of time to delve into the full culinary spectrum of Japan!