Our Apartment

We've moved into our new apartment, and it is awesome.

It is on the second floor of a very new building, built in 2005, but it has no stairs, as is a requirement to Emily and I, after having lived in the Jackson Park house. The apartment is all one level, three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a great kitchen and a good sized living room. Aside from all that, is the view. We live right on the Sasebo river, and its almost like having a backyard, but not having to maintain it.

I've set up the front bedroom as my office, and the back room will be Jackson's room. The main bedroom is where we put our queen bed and it is also where the coolest toilet in the world is attached. The master bath off our bedroom has an enormous shower, like one you'd see on MTV Cribs, and an awesome toilet. It has heated seats, and a dual-angle bidet built in.

Our washroom has a nice large sink and another bathroom attached to it. It has a regular toilet though, but a nice clawfoot style bathtub/shower. I have yet to soak in it, maybe tomorrow.

We also experimented with the train, which is very cool, and inexpensive. Only 240 yen from our apartment to the station which is a 10 minute walk from the base. This compared with a 2100 yen taxi ride to the base. My next challenge is to get a long-term train pass so we don't have to carry change with us each time. The schedule is nice, and no joke, you can set your watch to the stops.

That will be all for now. I'm glad to finally have my normal computer back and online. The internet provided by the landlord is excellent.

Signing off now, had a nice four day weekend, time to return to the normal schedule of mustering and PT.

The Housing Search

We had our housing brief today, at which time we were informed of our rent ceiling, our utilities allowance, COLA, and all the other information we need to live either on or off base.

At first we were fairly dead set on living on base. On base housing gives you two locations, one of which is right near the base, but is only 20% of the total base housing. One is about 30 minutes away, and is the other 80%. Guess which one is offered first every time. I had no desire to live 30 minutes away, so I started thinking about off base options.

Without getting into the grimy details, there are a few options off base, regular rent setup, or a setup that is much like base housing, but yet off base in the community. We looked at an awesome apartment that is about 15 minutes from the base through the city, and it was amazing. The rent is 165,000 yen, which is about $1,650 a month, but we get $1,600 a month in housing allowance so I'm more than willing to kick in 50 bucks for how great it is.

Its in the Nonaka area and has a grocery store, a bus stop, and a major highway all within a block. A great covered parking space, a nice balcony, and a beautiful view of the Sasebo River. We are very excited.