Snowboarding is something I really got really into this year and the season is not ended yet.
Though it’s like the 5th time for me to snowboard this year, I managed to plan a trip to Yuzawa, Niigata with a couple of friends. These are the friends that I used to live with in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2. I had a chance to see them on the other day and I was talking about my last snowboarding trip. We actually have been to the same ski resort 3 years ago. It was fun but we did not have a chance to go back on the following years. This time we decided to go quickly. I did some research online and we booked a trip in a couple of days.

Affordable and efficient travel location

We chose Yuzawa for our trip because it is one of the closest ski resort from Tokyo. It’s also accessible by Shinkansen (bullet train) and that was a good reason to choose this place. As I wrote on my previous post, taking a bus takes so much time and there’s a chance that you get into traffic jam on high ways and losing so much time at the ski resort.
Yuzawa area is known not as the best snow quality but known as the convenient location from Tokyo. It’s also very affordable. We paid about 11,000 yen each for round trip trains and the lift. With all the expense including renting gears at the resort, we paid around 15,000 yen each for the entire trip. Plus we had almost 8 hours at the resort which would be impossible if we took a bus.

A perfect view from the top

March is kind of late for winter sports as it gets pretty warm towards the end. Most skii resort close by the first week of April because it’s hard to sustain the snow on the mountain. The skii resort usually have snow machines to multiply the amount of snow in on the mountain but it won’t be enough by April. of course Hokkaido would be a different story and the skii resorts there should be open until May. Temperature going up is also because there are more sunny days in March.
I love snowboarding in March because I get to enjoy not just snowboarding but also the view.
These are the photos I took on the mountain.

Less clothes without feeling cold

Snowboarding in March is probably less expensive too. In the snowy country like Yuzawa, a little bit of sun makes a big difference. It helps a lot if you don’t need to wear so many layers of clothes.
Not many people have snowboarding wear at home and I assume most of us rent an extra layer at the resort just to feel warmer. You probably don’t need it in March.

The ski resort was almost full but we did not have to wait for too long for the lift. There are actually many lift you can take in this ski resort called Iwappara Ski resort.

Make use of time until the last 10 mins

We finished the ski resort at around 4:30pm and headed to the station. The ski resort and the station is connected with a shuttle bus and it takes about 10 mins, one way. The bus is free of charge.
We had a dinner at one of the Italian restaurant we found in the station building. The pasta we had there was really good. Then we went to the Ponshu-kan, the fully automated sake tasting shop inside the station building of Echigo Yuzawa. Shinkansen station is in the same building so you can literally make use of your stay until the last minute.

These sake were mostly locally produced rice wines. It is a very good place to find a new brand. Niigata is known as one of the biggest rice producers in Japan. It is no surprise that there are great sake brands available in this place.
After this sake tasting, we checked out a few more shops in the building and headed to the station to head back to Tokyo.
Overall, it was a great trip. I did snowboard so much longer than usual and it was amazing to be united with friends I used to share a house. We’ll definitely do this again next year and I’m sure it’ll be even more fun.

Two weeks ago I took a little trip to Kyoto/Otsu. I have an old house that I run as an Airbnb house in Otsu, Shiga prefecture. I had to do some maintenance. It has been more than a year since I went there last time. On my way home, I stayed in Kyoto for a day and met Jacopo, a friend of mine who was my housemate in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2.
Visiting the house in Otsu wasn’t entirely smooth. My plan originally was I leave Tokyo at 7am in the morning and I reached there by 11am. Have a lunch at a local restaurant and prepared for the things I need to do. The only problem was that it was the typhoon day and almost all train lines were affected that day. Luckily the Shinkansen was fine and I had no problem getting to Kyoto. Getting to Otsu was a problem. Just so you know, Otsu is located only two stops from Kyoto station and it only takes 9 mins by train and there are trains to catch every 5-10 mins. So it’s pretty busy line. However, it took me almost 45 mins to get to Otsu that day. There was only one train per hour and the train car was super packed with people who try to get in. Clearly, I picked a wrong day.
I finished my things in Otsu by 3pm and I had a meeting with my financial planner in Kyoto. Fortunately, going back to Kyoto wasn’t a problem. I decided to stay in Kyoto that day to avoid being stuck in trains. The financial planner is an old friend of mine who I met often when I used to live in Kansai area. Now we’re in business terms he helps me with tax stuff which help me save money.

Meeting Jacopo at Len

In the next morning, I met Jacopo at Len. Jacopo loves Kyoto and he works in tourism so he knows a great deal about where to visit Kyoto. I always ask him if he knows some cool places for Kyoto locals. His choices never make any mistakes. He told me about Len last time I visited Kyoto but I did not have time to go there. So I suggested that we should meet in Len for lunch.

Photo: Instagram

Len is not just a cafe. It’s also a hostel too. I’ve met one of the founders of this brand and they have some hostels in Tokyo as well. I love their design and concept. I’ve been to one of the places “toco” in Tokyo but visiting Len for me was the first time. They’re really good at building a space like this and their space is always designed to becomes the hub for the locals.

I went in Len’s cafe space and had a onigiri plate for lunch. The interior is modern but at the same time, it partially looks DIY and that’s something I really like. Look at the wooden table cut out of a giant tree. I asked the guy in the photo and he told me this piece is a real tree trunk. I love the lighting too. They use antique bulbs.

Usually there are two food menu available for lunch and I had a onigiri plate there. Jacopo told me that there’ll be more choices at night if you come here at night. Sometimes there are some music live performance are going on in this space. The sofa seat in the back of the cafe is super nice too.

I was surprised to realize that Jacopo knows almost everyone working in Len. He introduced me at least 5 people during the lunch time and it was fun.
I guess I’ll end this post with a beautiful photo of Kamo-river in Kawaramachi.
Have a nice day!

Four years and Ten days. That’s how long I’ve lived in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2. So many things happened during this period and it changed the course of my life.
My housemates and I decided to plan a big farewell party before I move out of this house.
When we plan a party, we usually think of a theme. Birthday party, Farewell party, welcome party, something like that. but this time, the theme was “strawberry”. I don’t really know why. I guess someone in the house craved for strawberries.
Anyway, the this was the invitation.

Writing down party theme, time and location, people coming on the shared whiteboard is our party tradition in the house. We also make it “bring your own food” and we never collect money from guests. This way we can welcome the last-minute guests and the ones who don’t show up.

The party was scheduled to start at 8pm but our housemate Maud was there the whole afternoon to prepare for her cakes and muffins. I came down around 6pm to cook some hard shell tacos. Our Thai iron chef, Win was cooking Thai grilled chicken which smelled so good. There was so much food on the talbe by 8pm and people started showing up.

I was surprised to see how many people showed up after 30 mins. The living room was full of our guests!!

Lots of people with lots of food. I’m glad my tacos ran out very quickly. I have to say Win’s grilled chicken was fantastic and it was only available for 10-15 mins.
There are tables, chairs, sofa in the room so our guests can take any seats available. Some people were standing and that’s OK too. There were more than 20 people at the party so there weren’t enough chairs anyway.

Me and my wife Momo had some birthday presents for the birthday girls and boys. For Batiste and Maud, I got them a baguette-looking cushion and slippers. They look perfect with real French, right? This printing is also funny because it looks so real in pictures. I hope they bring this cushions to the airport.

For my neighbor Yui, we got her a taiyaki eye pillow. Cute, isn’t it? I thought our present has to be something about food.
We unexpectedly got some gifts from our housemates too. Flowers, soft toys for babies, and cute socks!

and of course, Nintendo Switch time!

It was very nice to party one last time before I leave the house. I lived here for four years and I made countless friends during this time span. These friends I met in this house are not just friends. They are like family to me. I didn’t say goodbye to any of my housemates because I didn’t think this was the situation. I know this friendship will last even if I leave the house.

Thank you, everyone, for the party! See you really soon!

It’s already in March and it’s the usually the time when we say good bye to some of the housemates. Our dearest housemate, Win is one of the people leaving the house at the end of March. He is going to start schooling in Saitama. He is from Thailand and working as a Thai food chef in Japan. He is super good at cooking and he can reverse-engineer almost any food in the world. It’s almost 100% proven as he sometimes cooks a certain dish for the first time and it somehow ends up good. He will be moving to another Oakhouse sharehouse in Saitama so we may see each other again in the future.

Win switches his work place every once in a while. I know at least 3 restaurants he worked. I’ve visited all three of them. All good. He only works in the restaurant that serves good food. Besides, he told me there will be a legendary Laos chef who used to work in a famous restaurant in Tokyo. I have no idea why he is working in a small restaurant like this but Win seems to admire him. At this point, I knew I had to visit this restaurant.

Win is the last Thai guy leaving the house which means we’re going to miss his Thai food a lot. Me and a bunch of people in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2 decided to visit his Thai restaurant in Asagaya before he leaves Tokyo. On the national holiday of 21st in March, we visited this place for dinner.

“Savaidee” is the name of the Thai restaurant located within walking distance to Asagaya station. Great location, 5 mins by walk, and all the dishes are reasonably priced.

Almost all the menu are either 580 Yen or 680 Yen.

As you can see on the top photo, it is not a big restaurant, only around 20-25 people can fit. There are not only Thai food but also a bunch of other south East Asian foods as well.
My favorite dish here is the Pupappon curry. It’s a curry with soft shell crabs. Amazingly delicious. I know I can eat this food every single day.

Win is genius in making original sauces. He just knows what to mix for the right food. We ordered some Thai spring rolls and it came with a chili sauce. My favorite sauce for the night was the “Laos sauce” which came with steamed glutenous rice. It literally made my day. It doesn’t taste like anything I’ve tasted before yet it was addictively goes well with rice.

The whole meal was about 1500 Yen each. It was shockingly inexpensive for the amount of food we ate and also the quality of food we shared. It always makes sense to share the food as we get to try many kinds of dishes at once.
I’ll definitely come back to this place and recommend my friends.

It is very sad that I don’t get to see Win anymore in this restaurant. I know it won’t be the same without him.

Photo by Batiste Perron

If you plan to stay somewhere accessible to Asagaya, make sure to visit this place. This is probably the best Thai restaurant you can find in Tokyo. Here’s where it is. Enjoy!

Looking for an apartment in Tokyo is such an ordeal for most people, not just for people who come to Tokyo for the first time in their lives but also for people who has lived in Tokyo for years. I, for example, have been in Tokyo for four years and Oakhouse Kichijoji 2, one of the Oakhouse shared houses, has been my house.
I recently got married and a baby girl is on the way. I realized that I might not be able to stay in this house anymore, simply because of the size.

My housemates in the living room in Kichijoji 2

To be extra clear on this topic, Kichijoji 2 is a house big enough to fit around 20 people to live with. There are about 18 private rooms (each around 10sqm, or 6 Tatami) and 1 dormitory room where 4 people share bunk beds. There is a big common space including a living room with two sets of couch, kitchen, shower rooms and laundry space, even a backyard!

Backyard BBQ in summer in Kichijoji 2

The size of the house as a whole isn’t a problem here and my wife and I don’t mind sharing a house with other people. We actually love it. It’s fun, convenient, easy to hang out in the common room etc… It’s the lifestyle that I’m going to have in a few months. I am having a baby. and this… is a game changer.
My wife and I talked about this many times. We thought about staying in Kichijoji 2 because we love the life in here but we finally agreed to move out. The private room isn’t big enough for a family like us.
Soon after, I started looking for an apartment. I started by looking into websites where real estate companies updates every single day. This is almost the only way to look for apartments in Japan. It’s fairly easy and efficient to go through with this process as long as you can read Japanese. Go to the websites and search by the conditions. There are many conditions you can choose, like rent range, Train line, Station name, location (how close from a near-by station). I save the apartments that I’m interested, contact the local company who’s posting the information, make an appointment via email or phone call, check out the house to see if you really like it.
I repeated this process again and again for two months. Here’s what I learned.

1. An initial cost is a bitch
Let me get straight to the point. It costs around 5-6 months of rent to move in an apartment in Tokyo. That’s how much you need to spend just to move in. Let’s assume you’re looking for an apartment. For one room apartment in Tokyo, 70,000 Yen is the average rent. Here’s how much it costs.

—————————————————————

(Currency = YEN)
Rent (first month): 70,000
Management fee: 3,000 to 5,000
Deposit:　70,000～210,000 (one to three months of rent)
Key money:　0～140000 (one to two months of rent)
Agent charge:　70,000 (one month of rent + 8% tax)
Insurance:　10,000～20,000
Key exchange fee:　20,000
Cleaning fee: 50,000 to 60,000

In total: 300,000～400,000

—————————————————————

In my case, the rent range was around 100,000 because I was looking for a family size apartment. The total cost for the first month was around 500,000 to 600,000. I was very surprised to see this number at first but I was even more surprised that almost all the apartment in Tokyo charge this much. First, this is a lot of money for just moving in an apartment. It really doesn’t make sense to pay this much if you’re only planning to stay there for short term (short as in even for a year). Just remember, most of the money you pay here doesn’t come back when you move out of the house. I hear the deposit doesn’t fully come back in many cases.

2. No houses are equipped with furniture or electronics
There are none. People who rent a house are expected not to leave anything behind when they leave the premises. They have two choices. To throw away all the furniture or somehow find someone who want them. What a waste! In Japan, no one likes a furnished house.

My room in Kichijoji 2 (Oakhouse rooms are equipped with enough things)

So, you need to buy everything when you start renting an apartment.
To fully and nicely furnish a house (as big as 45sqm), it costs more than 600,000 yen even if you try hard to buy everything online. I know this because I furnished two Airbnb houses from scratch last year. Even if it’s a smaller apartment, it would cost at least 400,000 yen. Money, money, money…

3. Contract renewal fee
This is the most mysterious, irrational fee I know in my life. Basically, this is the payment you need to pay every two years to renew the existing contract. Let’s say you’ve been living in a 70,000 Yen room for two years. To continue living in this apartment, you need to pay one month of rent additionally to the rent. Of course this fee never comes back to you. Some people try to leave the apartment without renewing the contract, simply because they don’t want to pay. but these people have to pay for initial cost (which is usually much more than the renewal fee) to move in other apartments anyway. So, not renewing the contract isn’t always a good idea.

As you already have noticed, the cheapest way to live in Tokyo is this. “Find an apartment so perfect that you have no reason to move out and live there for the longest you can”.

I was so desperate to know that it costs this much to start renting an apartment in Tokyo.

I tell you what I did to avoid all those fee I mentioned above. Oakhouse actually run many apartments in Tokyo and they’re quite reasonably priced. and moving from Oakhouse sharehouse to another share house doesn’t cost you much. The moving fee is as low as 10,000 Yen to 30,000 Yen (depending on where you are and where you’re moving to).

Tachikawa garden town. This is where I’m moving in.

I chose to move in one of the Oakhouse Apartment called “Tachikawa Garden Town” and I paid 30,000 yen for an initial cost. This is ridiculously cheaper than all the other options I had.
I think Oakhouse is doing a great job here.

Good luck finding a good apartment!

Shima

A common space in a share-house is somewhat special in every share-house in Japan. It is not space entirely belongs to you but it is the space you can use whenever you want. This contradicting concept applies in our house, Oakhouse Kichijoji 2 where at least 10-15 people come to living room every day to use kitchen or living room.

No personal stuff in the common space but…

Some cook and dine, some watch TV or movies, some bring a laptop and work on something. It is a multi-purpose space and it’s very nice to have it. but you might want to somehow upgrade the house in the way you like it. For example, how about putting games in it? Is it even allowed? One ground rule… is that Oakhouse usually doesn’t allow anyone to put any personal stuff in the living room but there are some exceptions. Although it is not specifically said, it is generally OK to put things as long as it’s something that you use with other housemates. Books, for example, are kept in a bookshelf in the living room. An electric piano and a guitar belong to me but I share with other housemates. It is generally fine as long as “the stuff” doesn’t make the common space look messy.
This is just something I noticed in Kichijoji 2. It might not apply to other Oakhouse share houses.

A new toy

I give you an example. Here’s what I got on the other day. Jenga! I love Jenga and I used to play the game with my family every once in a while. At some point, I thought “I haven’t played that game for the longest time”
So I got it on Amazon and it was delivered on the next day.

Jenga or any type of game including board games doesn’t really make sense to keep it in your private space. So I put it in the living room. See what happened.

Again, this might be the only case in Kichijoji 2 house and I might get in trouble for writing this tips lol

Think of something that benefits everyone in the house

Our living room is about 30sqm (around 18 tatami) in size, big enough to do most things you can imagine. Oakhouse might have rules to maintain the house but it’s not natural if there’s nothing at all. I guess it makes sense to put things that anyone in the house can use. Oakhouse doesn’t throw away things right away. My advice would be to try putting something in the common space and see if anyone in the house or an Oakhouse manager says something.

Anyway, the common space is something very useful. Hope every Oakhouse residents use in a nice way.

Nintendo Switch is probably one of the most successful game consoles ever built. It has been sold out for 10 months in Japan now. I waited 9 months to get my own Switch. I hear it’s not so difficult to buy one in other countries for some reason, though.
Anyway, two of us in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2 owns a Switch now, including me. Both of us, Sam and I have been playing Switch for quite some time but last week was the first time we played the game called “One-two Swtich”. It is one of the first games that Nintendo released at when they launched in March, 2017. It is supposed to be the game that demonstrates the true potentials of what Switch can really do.

Basically, one-two switch is a collection of mini-games. We first played the one called “quick draw”. It’s a game that two players hold each controller and try to shoot the other when the game says FIRE!

Switch controllers have gyro sensors which measure angles of Switch quire accurately. You end up shooting the ground if you’re too quick to pull the trigger (button). You have to point the controller to your opponent and fire only at the right angle.
The most interesting/innovative part of this game is that you’re supposed to look at your opponent’s eyes, and not the screen.
I’ve heard of this system but I only fully understood how it works when I played it by myself. I like this idea because it feels like you’re having an eye contact with a real person and it makes the whole gaming experience much more live and meaningful.

This is when they’re waiting for the sign.

The moment of “FIRE!” then you shoot the opponent.

As you can see, above, it was just stupidly fun even though it was such a simple game.
After you shoot, the Switch tells the recap of the shooting angle and the timing.

This time was a miracle? Two players shot exactly at the same time. What are the odd??

One more remarkable thing about this game is that you don’t have to be good at gaming to have fun.
In fact, girls were better at it when we played.

Only two people can play this game at once and there were about 8 people in the living room when we started playing. So we came up with the tournament.

Tournament! We just simply wrote down our names on the whiteboard and did a tournament so that everyone can play.
It was a good idea because this game is not only fun when I’m playing but also when I’m watching other people play.

Playing Switch with housemates is so much fun. I think Oakhouse should buy one console in every house!

Yesterday was such a memorable day. The day it snowed in Tokyo and it was SO MUCH SNOW!
More than 20cm of snow and it’s been 4 years since it snowed last time. It usually doesn’t snow so much in Tokyo. Usually once or no snow within a year. but yesterday was exceptional.

Many things were going on. Let me show you one by one.
It was cloudy in the morning but it wasn’t snowing at that point. I headed to my office in Shibuya and there was no problem.
It was that there was a sign in the station saying “trains are expected to be affected by snow”.

It started snowing by noon and it only got heavier and havier. My colleagues started canceling meetings in the afternoon and that was a good call. It didn’t take too long to hear the company-wide announcement saying the trains might stop due to the snow and everyone in the office should go home by 3 pm. The announcement was thorough. It also said the entire office is going to shut down at 6pm. This is when I realized that this snow thing really is a big deal.

I left my office at 2:30 pm and the train was already a bit late. A few hours later, my housemate shared a photo of the Shibuya station.

Then I found photos on Twitter.

渋谷の井の頭線乗り場が入場規制かけられててまるでコミケ会場のよう pic.twitter.com/aJP46P61Oy

— 普通怪獣ハミかん (@hamichika_1021) 2018年1月22日

I have never ever seen anything like this…

People often describe Tokyo as a convenient city to travel. Thanks to the train lines (way too many of them), usually there are multiple routes to get to the same destination. But this isn’t the case when it snows too much. Tokyo simply isn’t built for this.

The same thing happened when there was a huge earthquake on March 11th, 2011. Millions of people couldn’t go home because the trains stopped.

This time, fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as it was before. The trains started moving (slowly) a few hours later and everyone did go home eventually, except for the ones who were scheduled to land at the airport though. One of my friends only went home on the day after.

In the meanwhile, I was at home finishing my work of the day. I’m glad that my job happened to be remote-friendly. I was happy to stay indoors but I took a walk to Inokashira park with a housemate anyway. After all, it was such a special and a beautiful day.

A snowy inokashira park (left), a bridge at the late (middle), the inokashira lake (right)

And also, these people were also having a good time.

If you see snow in Tokyo, you know what to do now.

I wrote about my housemate Joon who started a company while living in Oakhouse Kichijoji 2. (He still lives in our house too!)
His business is called “Cottea” and I wrote more about his business here.

Some of us who live in the house were actually involved in early stages. Maud as a UI/UX designer designed the logo and helped him build the website, and also did the art direction. Shohei, a professional event organizer, help Joon in his store once in a while. I’m mainly working on the online marketing, writing and editing their online contents.

Joon and his business partner Seongwon invited me to their party last week celebrate their success and Christmas.
I realized that there are many people involved to launch Cottea. It was great getting to know their web developer and interior designer who did a great job on their website and the store in Aoyama.

The party was held in Seongwon’s tower mansion in Kachidoki. There was a party room where they booked in advance for us.

The two guys in the white shirt are Joon(left) and Seongwon(right). They were in the same unit when they were in the army in Korea.

Joon and Seongwon brought a cake for me and Momo (my wife) because we recently got married. It was very nice of them!
I’m so glad that I met Joon in Oakhouse. When we met, we had no clue that we will be working together like this. Living in Oakhouse gave me opportunities to meet all these cool people. I really appreciate this.

The cake we shared after the meal. It was delicious!

At the end of the party, we did some game and received their gift. It was Cottea’s coffee!

Visit their coffee shop in Shibuya if you’re around Shibuya, or simply come to our house Kichijoji 2 for a cup of coffee.

Shima