My crib

In the tradition of MTV`s "My Crib", I`d like to present you my new home here in Tokyo. I stayed in the youth hostel at Yoyogi Park for the first few days after arriving. Although it`s good value since you get a single room for the price you`d normally pay for a private room, it felt a bit claustrophobic soon since the room was small and I had a lot of luggage with me. So I startet researching shared home agencies and beside "Sakura House" from which I rented last time, I found "Create Shared Houses", a smaller agency that is not so much catering to foreigners. It turned out that you get more spacious rooms for less money there. And the service was really good too, the lady helping me spent almost an hour showing me pictures of different available rooms, giving advice on transport and right the next day I could have a look at the most promising-looking place and moved in the next day.
The house is located in the North-West of Tokyo, in the Kita-ku ward. It first looked a bit far, but considering that it`s linked to a major fast railway line, it`s better located than the last place, plus it`s slightly cheaper (which is dearly appreciated considering the very strong Yen) and more spacious. My room even has a little balcony and there is lots of light in it, the furniture is functional enough and the common area is pretty spacious too. It`s situated in a quiet residential area and you don`t hear trains too much either although it`s close to the station. My collocators are two Japanese and a Korean girl, so good opportunity for practising the language. They do speak pretty good English though, so if it gets tricky explaining something in Japanese I can resort to Shakespeare`s language still.
I have moved all my stuff in now. I had left some stuff back in Tokyo last November and brought two big bags plus hand luggage, so there was a lot to carry over. I managed to do it in two runs, completely overloaded in a rush-hour train (the first time) which was pure horror. But it`s done. I went to Muji in Shinjuku and IKEA in Saitama prefecture to buy some storage boxes and decoration and now my room looks pretty nice. Not sure how long the plant is going to survive though...