Bargain hunting in Tokyo

After spending nearly 6 months rent all at once but before even moving into your utterly empty flat, you won't be very much in the mood to go spending much more on furnishing the place. Not only will you need to get your own furniture, you'll also need to bring your own fridge, gas cooker and washing machine.

Luckily, there are some real bargains to be found at this stage.

Second hand goods stores are usually quite depressing places; they tend to be disorganised, and stuffed with too much of that porcelain tat that absolutely nobody wants to buy. The Treasure Factory does just about everything to not make itself look like a second hand goods store. It's clean, well-lit, items are properly categorized and prices are clearly labelled. Six-month warranties are given on larger purchases such as refrigerators, cookers and washing machines, which clearly have been serviced and thoroughly cleaned. The year in which they were manufactured is also clearly stated, so you know exactly how old the item is you are buying. But best of all are the prices - one can really find bargains here.
The whole recycling marketplace in Japan is quite big, with the Book-Off franchise spin-off Hard-Off being the largest chain. Book-Off is an enormous (and now even international) chain of second hand book sellers that you'll find everywhere in Japan, but from I've seen their prices on second hand games are hardly discounted. I've not been to the ridiculously named Hard-Off so I can't comment on their prices.

For really low prices, there's no beating the shop in your local recycling center. These are dotted throughout Tokyo and can be spotted from a great distance as they all seem to have a tall, white chimney. The city will pick up, clean, repair and put on sale the unwanted goods they consider to be sell-able. Electronic goods and appliances aren't sold here. In some places they will even deliver any purchases to your house for a fee. Here you can also buy unclaimed bicycles that were parked in no-parking zones, fully repaired, for about 6,500 yen.

If you're out buying second hand goods, why not help another foreigner who is leaving the country get rid of his or her stuff? Sayonara sales, as they are called, are happening all the time and you can find them listed in either the paper or online version of the Tokyo Notice Board. Among other things, we picked up a good sized fridge, only 1 year old, for a mere 12,000 yen from someone. Several sellers gave us free stuff as they were so desperate to clear everything out before their departure.

So what first seemed like an immensely expensive task turned out to be not so bad after all.
We didn't end up buying everything second hand, and I think we were able to furnish the entire flat (+ buy a bicycle) for the equivalent of about 2 weeks rent. With that out of the way, I'm in the mood for spending again.

Starting at a Japanese games dev

Two months after being offered my job, I was finally able to start working on the last Friday of January.

I arrived at the requested time and was shown by the receptionist to a table where two other people starting that day were sitting in silence, avoiding mutual eye contact. I couldn't help but kick off with my "Japanese Lesson 1" material and started the introductions. We were soon met by our leads and taken to our departments.

During the day we were shown around the entire office and introduced to everyone, which involved lots of bowing and exchanging the words "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" several times. This translates more or less into "Please be kind to me", and is the most common expression when meeting someone.

As usual, most of the first day working at a games developer is spent getting your PC set up. Creating a login, password, installing and setting up all the required software, network paths, etc. Learning what-does-what in Windows software is a little trickier when it's all in kanji. Luckily though, the software I need to use the most (Maya and Photoshop) were both available in English. When I'm in deep "into" my work, there's little to remind me I'm actually working in foreign country.

In addition to that, the two artists sitting nearest to me in the office are the two employees who speak the best English - it really couldn't be more convenient. Needless to say they've been a tremendous help to me the past few weeks in translating my questions (and answers), reading error messages on my screen, explaning work practices, teaching me new words, etc. etc. I'm not sure I would have managed without their help. Also since my arrival, all my colleagues have now added their names in romaji to the list in our instant messaging software, making it possible for me to read their names.

At some point during the first day I received my contract. Apparently it is not unusual to get this on your first working day, and it's only one page. Being that short it is of course pretty basic, the only striking clause being something along the lines of "Should the company get sued for something you did, you get sued, not the company". You don't need to sign - or rather stamp - it on the spot, but return it to following week.

While I'm not the first Westerner to work at the company, at the moment I am the only one. All in all, the company and the employees have been extremely accommodating. I can do my work without problems and best of all, I'm enjoying myself. So far so good!

Back online and a Ninja Popcorn Robot

Well, that took quite a bit longer than anticipated. Despite ordering our new internet connection a good week before we moved into our new flat, it's taken well over a month. This was mainly due to the fact that we needed to reschedule an engineer coming over, and the earliest opportunity was more than 10 days after the originally scheduled date that we were given (which was during working hours, of course!). When he finally did come over, all he needed to do was plug a little device into the phone outlet, dial a number and that was it!

So, we're all moved into our new flat, I've started work, we're exploring the neighbourhood, and springtime is just beginning. I've got some stuff to write about.

Below you'll find a lengthy post which I hope will be informative for anyone who's about to look for a place to live for the first time in Tokyo. It was hell to write. But first, here's a picture of Ninja Popcorn Robot we discovered yesterday. Not only does it make fresh popcorn, it talks too!