A Sunday 14.5

Sunday was our only day with no scheduled activities on the itinerary, so we decided to go exploring on foot. In hindsight it's something we wish we could have done the first day.  We were so confused driving around the first 4 days that we felt the need to just go out and find things on foot.  And it was a real eye opener.  We realized that many of the apartments we were considering were much closer than we had thought.  Since we drove everywhere, and oftentimes had to take crazy routes because of all the  one way streets, things felt a lot further than they actually were.

We started out from the Westin in Ebisu and attempted to walk to our apartment in Roppongi, a short walk that should have taken about 10 minutes. However, the lack of street names caused us to get a bit side tracked and we took an alternate route that took over an hour.  

We passed multiple exotic car dealerships with lots of crazy cars that would be no fun to drive on these streets.  

After walking around our new neighborhood for a bit we were feeling even more happy about our apartment choice.

Fun ride on toys at Robot Park

Our (nameless) street

Walking 

Our buildling and ASIJ ELC

Nation Azabu Supermarket. Sells imported Western foods. Most of the things are pretty expensive so it probably won't be our main grocery store, but comforting to know that familiar food items are within walking distance 

After we finished exploring our neighborhood and taking a quick break at the Grand Hyatt, we walked north to see the Imperial Palace, but not before stopping at a Starbucks for a quick hotter-upper.  On our way, we saw our first street skirmish.  There were 8 or 9 large non-Japanese people yelling and pushing each other outside on the sidewalk and it was getting very heated.  After about 30 seconds 3 police men came running down the street blowing whistles and getting into the middle of the action.  We left before it got any more heated but I hope those police officers called for backup because they didn't stand a chance with that group.

There is a really nice running/walking path that goes all the way around the palace and we noted the abundance of runners.  We later realized it was in fact an organized race.

At the Imperial Palace

From the Imperial Palace we walked east through a really fancy neighborhood with a Four Seasons and some high end shops.  We then headed south to the Ginza area and back down toward our apartment, stopping for lunch and shopping in Azabujuban.  Azabujuban is a neighborhood adjacent to Roppongi and about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. It has really cute streets with an abundance of shops and restaurants.  Some of them mainly cater to Westerners and almost all the restaurants at least offer a menu in English.

Too nervous to try a Japanese restaurant without our translator, we got lunch at this Chipotle knock off in Azabujuban

Verdict - Frijoles has a lot to learn from Chipotle. The rice and beans were just plain with no seasoning, and it was just a little bland overall. It was also super expensive ($17 for a burrito and a drink). That being said, I'm sure I will eat here every once in a while if we get desperate for a burrito

After lunch we stopped into a few 100 yen shops where I picked up some gifts for the girls.  A 100 yen shop is Japan's equivalent of our Dollar Stores (99 cent stores in LA) and as you probably have guessed, all of the items cost 100 yen (actually 105 yen).  There are lots of small household items, stationary, stickers, small toys, snacks, etc.  

Presents for the girls in hand, we began the walk back to the Westin.  We had been walking for about 8 hours so we were tired! We spent the rest of the afternoon doing some work in the hotel room.  Joe ran out and got a cheese pizza (1,200 yen) from the local Pizza Hut for dinner and we started watching Skyfall but were so tired from our day that we were ready for bed around 6:30pm.  

And the Winner Is....

Entrance into the building from the parking garage

Like our Orlando and Los Angeles house hunts of the past, we ended up choosing the FIRST place we saw, but not until seeing the other 19.  It's called Roppongi Sakura-zaka Residence, a Mori Building, and we just couldn't beat the location. For all you Hyatt fans out there (Keve?) it is about a 2 minute stroll to the Grand Hyatt Tokyo.  In addition to being super accesible to shopping, public transportation, restaurants, parks and the Tokyo American Club, it is in the same building as the American School in Japan Early Learning Center (ASIJ ELC). While this isn't the main reason we chose this apartment, it's definitely a big plus. When we decide to send Annie to preschool or kindergarten, all we will have to do is take the elevator down stairs! 

The ELC also has a great outdoor play ground that residents of the building are allowed to use after hours and on weekends.  There is a great rooftop terrace with lots of room for the girls to run around and with amazing views of Tokyo.  Looking forward to lots of playtime and picnics up there.  And while we didn't quite understand exactly how it works, apparently in one of the other towers there is an English speaking medical doctor on call every day free of charge.

The apartment is a bright 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath plus a den. We really like the interior and think the only thing we sacrificed a little on was the kitchen and size of the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms. But we figured that the girls don't need much space in their rooms, and the den will probably become a space for a playroom.  It's also nice that the master suite is on one side of the apartment and girls will have their own separate hallway, and the living area can be closed off.

Floor plan with a furniture arrangement suggestion by the woman helping us from Tokyo Lease

Living area and den

Master bedroom

Front lobby with concierge.  Helpful for directions, translations, deliveries, ordering takeout, etc.

Master bathroom with Japanese style shower room. Eek

Hallway with girls' bedrooms, bathroom and laundry room

Laundry room. This is actually 2 Japanese washer/dryer duos.  Apparently they take about 3 hours to complete a load (wash and dry) so they give you two

Living Area

Roof Terrace - we have plans to green up the grass a bit

Robot park steps from our apartment

In addition to the ELC playground, there is a public playground right next door called Robot park

We return to the apartment on Monday with the agent and our helper from Joe's office to take measurements and to make sure we know how everything works before returning to the US on Tuesday evening.  After we get all the measurements, we will head back to Tokyo Lease, the main source for our furniture.  We have a decent sized budget that is designed to cover the vast majority of our furniture needs during our time in Tokyo.  Should be fun to pick out all that furniture!

House Hunting

The main purpose of our trip was to try to find a place to live so it would be all ready when we move over with the girls on June 8th.  We started the day with Mutsuko-san who works in HR at Joe's office.  She took us in a taxi to check out two international preschool/kindergartens, Willowbrook and The American School in Japan Early Learning Center (ASIJ ELC).  Both looked great and the girls would have a great time at either.  There were many other options, but we decided to just look at those two for the time being.

After our school visits we met up with a realtor from the KEN Corporation to begin our apartment search.  She was the first of three agent we would meet on the trip.  She was great and we loved her.  She was so professional, so nice, and seemed to try so hard, as did the vast majority of the people we came across.  We saw SO many places over the next 3 days (more than 20) that it became hard to keep them all straight, minus our favorites.  The pictures below hopefully give you the general idea of what we looked at. We seemed to find that location was #1, and the further we move from our "desirable location" the more space you got. Keep in mind that all the photos below are from various apartments and I couldn't remember what they were all called. Apparently the name of the buildings are very important here as many streets HAVE NO NAMES (including main thoroughfares), which we found a little odd. :)

Small galley kitchen in Roppongi apartment

Living area with den off to the side. Pocket door in wall. Roppongi apartment.

Balcony, Roppongi

Outside of Moto Azubu apartment. Cute little cobblestone tree lined street.

Living area, Moto Azabu

Big bright kitchen with eat in breakfast bar, Moto Azabu.

Balcony overlooking pond

Model in lobby to demonstrate how this high rise building is earth quake safe. You push a button that simulates a quake and then watch the water on top of the models as they sway side to side.

Huge outdoor balcony!

Brand new, never lived in beautiful apartment. On the 3rd floor of a 3 floor building. Master suite upstairs.

Renovated kitchen!! Best one we saw. Wish I could stick this in the apartment we ended up choosing.  So beautiful, eat in table and a beverage refrigerator. 

Skylight in bedroom, Custom Moto Azabu.

PRIVATE ELEAVTOR that opens into the apartment!! Amazing. Custom Moto Azabu.

Beautiful apartment by the Ritz Carlton in Midtown.

We were a bit worried coming into the trip about where we might end up living.  After the first three places we saw, that was no longer a concern.  We were confident we would fine something great.  The smallest place we saw was over 1,500 sqft and the biggest ones were well over 3,000 sqft with up to 5 big bedrooms.  Some of the places we saw we had no idea what we would do with all the space.

We were reminded a couple of times on the hunt that these were not typical apartments for the Japanese.  Everything we looked at catered in some way to an expat, usually someone who was having their housing paid for by their company.  Some of the places we saw were charging over $15,000/month so other than expats, it was typically only very wealthy Japanese living in these units.  That sort of explained the unusual mix of cars in some of the garages.  Our company gives us a Prius (Annie, we are trying to get bright pink but don't think they have that here), but many other cars in the garages are Lamborghini's, Ferrari's or other exotics that would be pure torture to drive on the tiny streets of Tokyo. 

After a long first day of looking at schools and apartments, and a nice lunch at Roppongi Hills, we met a family from Joe's work for dinner at the Tokyo American Club.  We are excited about getting to be members at this amazing club and plan on it being a big part of our time in Tokyo.

First lunch in Japan

The second day was more the of same, with a lunch stop at Bottega in the Midtown Tokyo area.  It was a restaurant in the Ritz Carlton complex and along with the apartment rents and cab fares, it was the one of real sticker shocks of the trip.  Joe's fairly ordinary lunch was well over $100 but the location and views were first rate.

Fancy lunch in Midtown

We finished up the day with a an evening in the lounge at the Westin and went to bed early in anticipation of another 3am wake up the next morning.

Tokyo Pre Move Trip - Part I

Grandma Sue flew in to Burbank from Milwaukee on Sunday the 5th to watch the girls while we were gone.  A big thanks to Grandma and Julie since we could not have done this without your help!  It was getting hard for us to think about leaving them for so long, but even before Grandma showed up, Annie started asking, "Can you guys go to Tokyo now so it can just be me, Grandma and Lizzy?"  She seemed excited for us to go so she could have Granny Sue's full attention.  It was so hard putting Lizzy down for her nap that day thinking that I wouldn't be there when she woke up and I wouldn't see her for 8 whole nights - the longest I had ever been away from Lizzy was only 1 night when Joe took the girls to Pasadena for a night. The first 24 hours without them were probably the hardest, much harder than I expected, but once we got into the swing of things our days were so busy and we were so exhausted by the end of each day that there wasn't a lot of time to dwell on missing them.

We ordered a car to pick us up at 1pm for a 3:45pm flight leaving out of Tom Bradley International Terminal and wondered if we didn't cut that a bit close for a Monday.  A big black Cadillac Escalade picked us up at the house and was there 15 minutes early.  The big car was great because we had 9 pieces of luggage with us since we were trying to take a lot now so we would could leave it and have it for when we arrived in early June.  We got to the airport in record time and were in the terminal before 1:30.

Harder than you would think to get 50 lbs in a bag

We made it through check in and security without incident and went to the Star Alliance business class lounge. The first class lounge was through a separate door, but they didn't let people like us look in there for fear of infecting it.  The lounge was not crowded and had some drinks, snacks, soup and pre-made sandwiches.  We were both a bit sad about just having left the girls, so we didn't eat much aside from 5 or 6 bags of chips.

We made the 8 minute walk to our gate and boarded the second level of the plane.  This was the first time either one of us had flown on an Airbus A380 and Joe was much more excited than I was.  He even got a new pair of jeans for the occassion, which is a big deal since he hasn't gone clothes shopping  in 11 years.  We were in seats 14 D and F, which were middle seats in the front cabin on the second floor.  It felt very private since there were only 8 other people in our part of the plane.

12 hours of comfort and quiet!

Pre-departure beverage and reading.  We love USA Today

Our flight out was amazing and the business class seats on Singapore were so wide that Joe and I could have sat side by side in one seat.  We kept wishing the girls were with us since we could have all sat in those two seats very comfortably.  Service was great and we both really liked the Singapore girls.  They did a great job and it felt like they actually cared if you had a nice flight.   The food was better than your average airline meal. We were able to pre order our meals online using their Book the Cook feature.  Joe had a filet which was decent and I had chicken which I didn't really like, but I selected the vegetarian option for my second meal and that was pretty good.

Beef filet.  Good, not great

Chicken and Pasta.  Not great

They also had delicious donuts, sandwiches, candy bars, fruit and other snacks that you could order at any time.  The on demand entertainment was pretty extensive, and we were excited to see that they had the first 2 seasons of Game of Thrones (nerd alert!). But seriously, if you haven't watched that show yet, it's great. Joe slept quite a bit on the way over and I spent quite a bit of time missing Annie and Elizabeth.

In flight entertainment

We arrived in Tokyo and a driver was waiting for us at the airport. We picked up our 5 huge checked bags and made the hour long drive into the city.  The ride cost $244.  It was 6:30pm Tokyo time but to us felt like 2:30am in Los Angeles.  We arrived at the Westin Tokyo around 8:00pm, quickly checked in, and went up to our corner room (2117) on the 21st floor.

Nighttime view from 2117

Since we are SPG Platinum Members, we received lounge access for our time here, which is always nice.  By the time we were settled in our room it was around 8pm and we fell asleep soon after. We got about 5 hours of sleep that first night, waking up around 2am Tokyo time.  We weren't too concerned about being on such an off schedule since it wouldn't be the worst thing for us to stay on LA time as much as possible to make for an easier return. Most of our scheduled activities were usually over by 5pm so it wasn't much of an issue.  After a very expensive, not very impressive, buffet breakfast in the lobby, we were all set to begin our house hunt!

Floor plans to look over before our house hunt

Good morning Tokyo! The view from our room. Sun rises VERY early in Tokyo, well before 5am