Target Acquired

So we went looking for a new place today, and, partly by fluke, ended up actually getting a new place. Well, getting a contract for a new place. OK, verbally agreeing to go back next week to sign a contract for a new place.

But it was still exciting!

As of August 18, we will be living in an apartment in a location that I think is quite marvy: 9 minutes from Futako Shinchi station (I love the trivia note on that link). This gives both myself and Kate a nice, short commute, and brings us quite a bit closer to Shibuya, the Center Of The Universe. As a bonus, it stands alongside the Tamagawa river, and while our view doesn't quite reach the standard set by beachfront properties back in Kits, it's still pretty nice, and apparently we'll have line of sight to the summer riverside fireworks.

Everyone else in the building will be Japanese--which means no more Elephant Men stomping around at 3am. Woot!

On a somewhat related point, I listened in on our agent's phone conversations with the landlords of the apartments he showed to us, and each time I made out a part of the conversation where he informed the landlord that we were foreigners, and asked if that would be acceptable, emphasizing that we were Canadian (I guess Canada has an OK rep here), that I was half-Japanese, and that I have a fully Japanese uncle willing to act as a guarantor.

I may have felt a pang or two of liberal angst.

As is the custom here, we have to pay an arm, a leg, and part of a buttock up front. On the other hand, despite the improved location the monthly rent of the new place will be about 2/3 that of the current apartment. (One is almost tempted to invoke the word "gouge".) So it should work out in the long run.

Which, pursuant to Paul's inquiries, will run about as long as the rest of this year, plus the next until at least the end of spring. If all goes perfectly, we'll leave sometime in the summer, do some travelling in Europe (maybe visit Kate's relatives in Greece, maybe visit some friends we've met here and there), touch base back home for a while, and then head off to our respective grad schools--I'll be going to the University of Pittsburgh, except it will have been moved to New York or somewhere in California, such that Kate doesn't kill me for demanding that we move to Pittsburgh.

(I think maybe probably things won't go absolutely perfectly.)