The reasons

28 Jul 2020

Giving up my current apartment and living without a permanent home is a big decision, and I have weighted in a lot of factors.

Better use of money

Apartments in Tokyo are expensive, especially close to the city center and large ones. My apartment is in a pretty good location. I can get to the office in less than 30 minutes by train, and it’s between Ueno and Asakusa (both roughly 10 minutes walk). Moreover it is huge for Japan-standards. It’s a 2LDK (a living-dining-kitchen and 2 rooms) with an area of 51 m² (~550 sqft), and I believe usually a family of 3-4 would live in an apartment like this. Apart from it being comfortable spacious the couch in the living room can be used for guests staying with us, which was pre-COVID the plan: instead of going home often I was encouraging friends and family to come and visit us.

Unfortunately both of these benefits provide very little value in the current situation: I haven’t been to the office since March, and there is no chance of having any visitors in the near future (currently Japan only lets in Japanese citizens, not even permanent residents and foreign citizens with families here). This means that paying 230 000 yen ($2200) for rent makes less and less sense. This is especially true considering that I often stayed in hotels for less (per night) than my rent: e.g. the APA Hotel we stayed in Hiroshima during the Christmas break of 2019 was 7400 yen/night for 2 people, so would have been 222 000 yen for 30 days.

ADDress costs 44 000 yen/month (+22-44 000 yen for a dedicated place), which is significantly lower than my rent. Still I don’t look at it as a way to save money, as I’ll probably have a lot of new expenses, for example:

• Eating out more often and buying more convenience food ADDress locations do have kitchens, but without the easy way to store ingredients, I’ll probably spend more on food.
• Transportation Having to move almost every week combined with the rather expensive Japanese public transporation means that I’ll be spending a significant amount on transportation. Even my plan of traveling by bike will require more frequent maintenance of the bike.
• Staying in non-ADDress places This could be avoided, but since my goal is to discover Japan I might end up staying a few nights in regular hotels or Airbnbs, especially in cities without an ADDress location.
• Renting more stuff Being on the move means I’ll be drastically reducing the things I own and will be renting them instead (e.g. I’ll sell my skis and just rent them when I go skiing)

So overall I look at it as a better use of money and not as a saving opportunity.

Community

With COVID cases on the rise again in Tokyo, I think it would be very irresponsible to go out to bars to meet people. I am not worried about me, as I am a low-risk person (late 20s, no known health issue), but I’m afraid of being an asymptomatic carrier. But that means I have a very little chance to meet up with friends in person, and even less chance of making new friends. I hope that staying in ADDress places will provide the possibility to meet others and also improve my Japanese significantly.

See the country

Japan is so much more than Tokyo, and I always loved exploring the non-touristic spots. Places with no English signs, and being one of the very few Westerners, I love it. Also people on the countryside seem to be much more open and friendly than in big cities.