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!