Transcript
Speaker: When you open that hatch, you know, I was there for a little bit watching, really kind of pungent, earthy smell came up and came up and like whole bottom floor kind of smelled very earthy. Not in a bad way, but just like no i did when you're what when the hatch is open. Yeah. Just like very, very earthy. But he was crawling around down there for at least two hours. Two hours? And I told him, I was like, wow, it was a long time down there. And he was like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Termites though. Boom, boom. Oh yeah. You show me some pics pictures. Shiro Ayi. And I'm looking at this and I was thinking well looks pretty bad. And I was like, Ooh, like, well, how, how, how bad do you think it is? And he was like, not bad.
Speaker: Welcome back to the Buying a House in Japan podcast, the number one Japanese real estate podcast. Notice that change everything? I notice you change everything. My name's Take, joined by my co-host Joey. We are in the recording live today in Tama Base Camp.
Speaker: Let's crack these bad boys. They all freeze. Kanpai. Kanpai.
Speaker: We're back on the non-alcohols. lot of people give a shit for not drinking alcohol. But they're pretty good. You know, I think ah if you've been following along, we have been trying to be like a drink less alcohol on these trips. I felt like we've done this probably trip number like 15 at this point. If anybody knows anything about Japanese business culture, you're drinking alcohol at many events.
Speaker: Yeah, so we're doing our best on every trip to try to be a little bit healthier, whether that be eating better, drinking less beer, exercising more. I think we're over time doing better. But today on the episode, I think we have a really cool one. It's been about two years since we bought our Akiya in Tama.
Speaker: So Tama is in western Tokyo, about 30 minutes west of central Tokyo. We bought this house for about $114,000 at the time. House itself is about 1,200 square feet on a 1,600 square foot lot. So very, very big for Tokyo. sho bedroom Two bedrooms. It was previously like flipped, a little bit lipstick on a pig and Man, it's been two years. It's been a bit... Two years this month, yeah. Two years this month since we got it. And today on the episode, we're just going to talk through some of the improvements that we've made, some the unlocks we've made, and some things you can expect after owning a property in Japan after two years. And some up and coming.
Speaker: things that we're going change about the house oh yeah so this hi hi hi oh by the way you can see we're rocking our moco moco japan cowboy hats if you did not listen to our rebranding podcast we are rebranding akia mart to moco moco that is in there our new brand that is rolling out in a couple weeks we're doing some due diligence with seo migration if anyone knows about seo migration let us know ah yeah How do you change your website domain name without tanking your current SEO rankings?
Speaker: That's the problem we're facing. And we're quickly realizing there's a lot of things we need to change. And we're pretty much a very small company. So we're doing it very slowly. So if you're an avid listener and you've seen our website slowly changing, you know that Joey behind the scenes changing the code. You'll see our podcast, Calvert Change. So kind of a more ambiguous looking blue kind of brown picture. So we're doing our best to rebrand things and make things a little bit more consistent.
Speaker: Yeah, but we're a small team, um so things will come a little bit piecemeal. We're doing our best to make a lot of changes at once, but it'll be yeah a little bit patchwork. Okay, Joey, let's go back and forth here.
Speaker: couple big upgrades this trip. I think this is maybe the seventh sixth or seventh trip to Tama Base Camp. in the past two years. So we've used this spot as like a headquarters for our company.
Speaker: This past week, we actually had our first party here where we rocked out about 20 of these hats. We brought everyone from our company together, had a July 4th party. America's 250th. Joey, how was the party for you Party it was a lot of fun. Yeah, we had a bunch of people here. you know We've talked a lot about throwing a party someday at one of our properties up until now.
Speaker: We'd never felt like any of the properties were ready and we'd always, we'd throw some parties, you know, invite some friends and invite people we've networked with. um But they're always downtown Tokyo at a bar, one of our friends' bars.
Speaker: Shout out at Kuma Cantina. Shout out at Kuma Cantina, a fantastic Mexican restaurant and bar in Tokyo. ah But they've always been there. And so this was the first party we we did here. We had 20 people over maybe, about 20.
Speaker: It was great. I thought it was a lot of fun. We were cooking hot dogs. I told everyone I was going to eat eight hot dogs. I made a joy chest for four hot dogs. But then near end of the end night after, you know, everyone was leaving and we came back, i was ready for more hot dogs.
Speaker: We also had a pinata. Our Italian neighbor, Linda, is an expert pinata maker. She actually made a Trump pinata. That was a surprise.
Speaker: pretty Pretty funny. um Next, we also had like a blow dart kind of balloon challenge. We were going to do Suica Wadi. We didn't. We had beer pong, undefeated in beer pong. Let's go, me and teacher Carla.
Speaker: lot of fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was good to finally use this property for like a big group gathering. There were, it was, you know, it was challenging maybe with a couple of neighbors. We had given prior notice to them that we were going to be having this event. We're going to at 9 p.m. sharp.
Speaker: We actually gave them this like kind of like, i think, local Japanese gift. Joey, what was the gift? Yeah, really interesting. So we had help from a friend of ours, Akane, who's also been helping us out with a little bit of work.
Speaker: And so, you know, in in order to pray. The houses in Japan are very close and we have a little bit more space here than for our Beppu property and many other properties, but the neighbors are still closed. So we went around with Akane's help, Linda's help, and we gave the neighbors a little gift, told them that, hey, we're going be throwing... a small party here on July 4th. It's gonna end at 9 p.m.
Speaker: um The gift that we gave them, I assume it was gonna be similar to like an omiyage, kind of like the, you know, little cookies or something you would get from a train station. It was Ziploc bags. Yep. And Akane on our team and mentioned that this is like a typical useful gift for people. And it kind of caught us by surprise. But I think Linda agreed with her. so I mean, like i if if it's useful gifts, I would go trash bags like the city trash bag. That's super useful. You know, it sucks when you run out and you need more trash bags.
Speaker: um Yeah, but all our neighbors were supportive. Paper towel. Yeah, good one. All our neighbors were supportive against it except one kind of old dude. He was kind of like, hey, be quiet. but We weren't early bops.
Speaker: But we did turn it down after to that, so. I missed it. Yeah, some some someone did yell at us, apparently. But we had heard this guy yelling before, you know, years ago. He yells like every day. I think he kind of yells like every day and stuff.
Speaker: So you can't predict the neighbors in the areas you buy. I think every other neighbor was quite supportive. We're were close enough with them that I think of them were okay with the party. But that was a yesterday was a 100% outside party. I think we need to next time do a hybrid inside-outside.
Speaker: Yeah, the inside, that side may be a little bit difficult in Japanese setup because of the shoes, right? Yeah. for How do we make that easier? i feel like that's that's a little bit of the key to unlocking. Maybe you get everybody like Birkenstock-like clogs or Crocs. Or in and out. And that's what they can go out. But then when they come in, there's a sock feed and it's like easier. Mocha Mocha standals. And then another party favor. Floss, the fonts.
Speaker: Okay. What else has been upgraded since ah our last trip? Big, I would say, huge undertaking. So I got here about two weeks ago and um shout out to Brandon. I don't know Brandon's last name, but ah we met him through Linda. So Linda and Brandon both They were working hard. Tage, you miss but the whole thing. But it was rainy season. i think rainy season is just about ending ah right now in Japan. But we were we got a cold plunge. So butp up but the and let's go. and we just actually ah dipped in it for the first time. We'll we'll get to that. But um yeah, Brandon worked so hard. So it's kind of gravel outside. And a lot of it was prepping the ground. We were putting some pavers down for the cold plunge.
Speaker: I think everyone was expecting this cold bunch weigh like a tremendous amount. Probably weighs ah ah a bunch because of the water that's going into it. But like, I think Bramman did a fantastic job. I think we could probably stack 10.
Speaker: Oh, he was on there the way that he he compacted the ground. His daughter came up to help a little bit too. He was working hard. he he He has an issue with his driver's license, so he was taking the bus here as well. But not only that, this is two typhoons came through. They weren't like gliding, right? Gliding typhoons. They weren't crazy typhoons, but like heavy rain. and And Brandon was working outside in the heavy rain. You know, he had rigged up a little bit of a tarp, but like still, he was drenched. He was working really, really hard. He pulled it off, though. We got...
Speaker: the the ground red pavers down uh and we have the cold plunge in place and talking i just took for the inaugural dip what's got it branded um danny branded we found branded through linda and i think many of you guys will be buying homes again maybe in the countryside it takes a while to find that right kind of handyman or someone and you know we've we work with japanese contractors and It's hard to do custom things with them or things that have been not specialized in. So it it took us a while to find someone who would be down to be like, hey, we're not quite sure what we need. We need compacted ground. We might need electric. We might need plumbing.
Speaker: And Brandon was down to get a project managed a little bit too. I mean, we had Sato-san way back in the day. He was a kind of jack of all trades too. Sure, but it's hard to communicate. And I think we've learned our lesson like...
Speaker: We will, I think, always default and prefer to work with English language speaking contractors or handyman at this point, even if they cost a premium just because of the communication. is Even if you use Google Translate and stuff, it it's hard to convey maybe like just Western opinion of like, I think it should be done like this or this is why we want it this way. Yeah. And just know...
Speaker: Like the cost of the cold plunge. How even more sorry was it than the Costco one you saw in America? Yeah, the cold plunge we bought here was like 1 million? Yeah, which is like... With the chiller. With the tux. So we have this like a big chiller. Yeah, like kind of Hinoki looking wood tub. Inside of a large suitcase. Stainless steel inside. So it's like a a really nice cold plunge.
Speaker: Came out to, yeah, or close to like $8,000. Yeah. i was up with I was saying more than 6,000, but it could be 8,000. It's like in that range. Yeah, like 6 to 8K. And back in the US, like Costco selling cool pledges for like 400 bucks. But also like the detail ones are closer to 4 to 5K. But I was not expecting this one to be so expensive. And there's so limited options. We bought limited options.
Speaker: Doc 10? right Yeah, this is Rack 10. And so we ordered the first Rack 10 purchase at the Amazon of Japan, but like little kind of gnarly, little gnarly. Right. and Like, so just know we got this off Doc 10. It was expensive, but I do expect it to be worth it.
Speaker: That being said, we're not all the way done yet. We don't have the water plumbing yet. We don't have the electric there yet. As we kind of started installing this, we started finding maybe, i think Brandon found a couple of issues with the plumbing. So we're getting new stuff routed. We're getting a new 220 volt route outside too. So little bit bigger of a project. We were hoping to have this completely ready by the party. but um A lot of people ask me, why co plunge first? Why not sauna first?
Speaker: Time recording is July. And we were like, okay, you know, this is actually been really cold July. It's been like 25 Celsius. for Yeah, weather's great. Weather's great. So that was kind of why I think we prioritized a cold plunge first. And we thought it was a smaller project, but might actually have been like in equal size projects. we And the sauna's probably going to cost around the same amount, probably a little bit more. But we did it because the jean, I think this is i whatever call. I heard there's like a Reddit, there's like a subreddit, Japan weather, I think. And a lot of the talk on there recently has been like, people are like, oh, it's like so much cooler this year. But actually it it was the past two summers that were abnormally hot for June, July is what the sort of experts on that subreddit have been saying. So this is ah hopefully the the more norm for a Japan, June, early July.
Speaker: So what we did to actually cool the cold plunge is another lock. Joey found out we can Uber ice to the house. We Uber, like, 10 bags of ice. We just filled it up with water. We went hardware store, found little plugs. Uber eats columbini. Uber eats columbini. Fun fact, they also just don't sell, like, the giant 10 bags, 10-pound bags. right Like, one kill it kilo of ice. We had gone to Costco to buy stuff for the barbecue, we were like, go get bags ice, and they just didn't have them, so...
Speaker: Oh, is that? Cosworth didn't have ice. No, that's fine. They also ran out of hamburger buns and stuff. So maybe they were out, but July 1st, we just threw in a ton of ice. And I'd say, man, I feel good. Like, I'm i'm really, really happy we had that. ah We had that, the cold plunge that we had there every day. how you I think so. Yeah. How'd you like it?
Speaker: It was like, I think it was not even as cold as the cold plunge at the local onsen here. And that's what's 16 degrees. So this cost of 17, 18.
Speaker: Well, now we're like... How many bags of ice should we put 10 bags of ice in? 15. 15 bags ice. Put five in there. But they're like one pound bags of ice. Yeah, 15 kilograms of ice. But hopefully it should stay pretty cool. Let's see how insulated it stays. I'm definitely going hit it tomorrow morning. All right.
Speaker: Okay, next up on the list, we got electric bikes. Oh, yeah. you That was huge. So and Joey, I don't think I've biked since college in Japan, here in Japan. And it was like never ridden an e-bike here. at E-bikes, I feel like, are are made different or like kind of...
Speaker: They're more pedal assist only versus accelerate. Like my e-bike in California, because it's like... Yeah, don't bike all the time California. Have a cruiser. Or have like a... I have a non-e-bike. I just have like a rust bucket for my surfboard. Yeah, but what's it what's the difference?
Speaker: What do you mean between... you but You were kind of like, oh, I haven't been on a bike in a while. That's what it felt like. I haven't been and on an e-bike before in Japan. I feel like they're different. We started going off-roading. The only bike half in Santa Cruz I read is just like straight line to the beak. Sorry, Kawaii. We're like a big, big-ass longboard, so I can i can't maneuver, but...
Speaker: It was a lot of fun. The trails were a little slippery. Trails were a little slippery. I think that was the highlight of today, i think. we We took the e-bikes for a run. They worked flawlessly. We got deep in the forest. and Surprisingly, you know, Western Tokyo, is there's there's like...
Speaker: a few massive parks and they all kind of connect and uh you know you can go from one d like you felt like we were kind of like deep in the forest for few little bit there super fun um yeah if and e-bikes are great panasonic e-bike is what we got New law in Japan, though. I was a little hesitant to ride. So it's like the, you know, you can get tickets much more easily.
Speaker: Now, I feel like you you're not supposed to ride on the sidewalk anymore. you're supposed to have a helmet on. you You can't have an umbrella with the bike. Can't have any of arms and ear. Yeah, you have to have your helmet too, though. so yeah Yeah, we do have helmets. But there's like all these things. And I feel like They like the cops are saying it was like a big advancement in April. Oh, you know, it's always been the law. Everyone, we're just going to start enforcing it. And seems like they've been enforcing it, but still kind of like enforcement varies. So it's still kind of like very certain. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: I was concerned because, um you know, I'm aiming to apply for a permanent residency at some point and I don't want any like a blue ticket misdemeers or blue tickets or whatever it I just want to avoid. Well, so traffic ah violations is a specific thing that people are getting denied PR for. Shooks. Yeah. So that's why was little hesitant, but I did.
Speaker: Are you bikes cost about... I think they were like $800 to $900, maybe close to $1,000. We got like some used Panasonic e-bikes and they're awesome.
Speaker: So if have bought a house or looking to buy a house, I wish we had bought these sooner. But also we just didn't have like the storage space. We had we had other problems we were dealing with. And maybe we bought the car, but we have bought the bikes before the car, maybe. Or the car is maybe less necessary now.
Speaker: Now that we have B bikes. I guess so. I mean, I slipped that car. It's so necessary. yeah yeah Now we can, like, even though we're in a more rural area of Tokyo, I feel like we just connected. We can connect things so much easier now. Like biking down the station and locking our bike and going into central Tokyo is going to be a lot more pleasant.
Speaker: Or Mukava Cafe. Mukava Cafe. We have McDonald's now we can bike to. We got the world's our oyster now, I'd say. That one big A supermarket. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. um all right what other upgrades for tama are we are in process or have we made since the last trip minor garden upgrades linda's been doing a fantastic job taking care of the garden out there it looks great um we just dropped some little pavers down build a little path i didn't play around different solar outdoor lights i've been putting some work into the outdoor lighting game there is that everything up to date before we go into planned future things
Speaker: Yeah. I think one just feeling we have now is like when we come to this house, you know, it's no longer like critical, like, oh, we need to get this done to make it comfortable. well We've hit like this cruising altitude now where we like, we come back, we know what we have. Oh, I have another. mean No Ikea trip. No, I, no forced Ikea trip. Like things are like, okay, it is comfortable. Yeah. I'm sure if we went, if he magically appeared at Ikea, we'd find stuff to buy though. But True. No like, okay, we got to figure out this room. Let's go to Ikea to do it. Every script prior to this has been like, okay, we got to go. We buy some big Ikea things. We got to break the cardboard down. we're like all sweaty and like, oh shit, we forgot this. And it's just like been back to back kind of like...
Speaker: We need this. We need this. But I feel like we've hit that point now where the house is furnished. And now we're just putting like minor tweaks on it and making things better. Meal kits. Is that what you're talking about? My four. Okay. I think ah if you've been listening to us, we've been trying to get healthier. And with that, trying to eat out less because we just Japan has such amazing food. But it it is kind of like if you eat ramen every day, you will feel like shit. Tonkatsu Indian curry, which I love by your way.
Speaker: So ah we have started a meal delivery. We got a meal delivery service where someone's like home cooking meals catering like yeah and and package it in these like kind of boxes and we got like I think 10 days worth of five maybe weeks worth of meal that we just stuck in the fridge.
Speaker: Joey was the first one to receive it and he like quickly realized they we need a microwave if he did have my go if. Yeah, so like go it's like Japanese home cooking, right? If you want the Japanese home cooking pre-packaged, ready to go, but you just don't want to spend the time cooking, me and Tiger are doing a bunch of stuff every day when when we do these work trips. um We thought, you know, this would be a great way to eat healthier. And we I tested, actually, when I staying at your parents' place in Saratoga but um with a different sort of like Japanese lady that like caters meals work really well umm so we decided to give it a try here too. Yara Jinko-san she might be ah i think she listens to our podcast Yara Jinko-san yeah yeah and like the the meals are very healthy it's better than eating out at a restaurant so much like we used to do and So yeah, it's a great idea.
Speaker: And ah the meals came delivered. They actually were FedExed to us in like a FedEx cool, but not a container. And they arrived the door. I just picked them, unpackaged the box, put them in the fridge. And then was looking at the instructions and they're all set up to be microwaved. um So they don't need any cooking, um but they are not intended to be eaten cold.
Speaker: So we had to go get a microwave. I think the progression of many our listeners, again, who are thinking about buying is like the first couple trips, you'll probably go out and eat all the time. Then you'll probably start getting small kitchen in place where you might cook breakfast, I'd say, and then maybe still go out and eat. Then we started getting Uber Eats. If you're in Tokyo, that works. If you're not in Tokyo, I don't think so. And now we have progressed to the ah have meal delivery and cook when we have time.
Speaker: Yeah. And like also, you know, this is two years later that we're finally getting in our kitchen together. But in a little bit in our defense, most of these work trips, we would be here for a few days and then we would to a different place in Japan. We'd do some other stuff there. So like a lot of our work trips have been travel. So it's it's really been like, you know, um But we decided this time around, we're not going to leave. And so we're it's time for us to figure out the kitchen and food situation. We might be a unique case in that. Like we are trying to do these work trip and me business meetings while upgrading the house. And I feel like between those two is just like so difficult. But I feel like other people going to the same. you It's so easy to go eat eat out. Everyone's busy. I do recommend like once you get settled down, going for these meal kits is awesome. We just make some fresh rice. We have like... 10 things we can choose from when we just microwave them and it's, um it feels good. Yeah. I want to find that cooking Obachan in Okinawa as well. Definitely should. So meal kits have been huge. Let's see. Anything else, Joey?
Speaker: Microwave. It's a constant struggle with our espresso machine, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah. This is the espresso machine. I can't, I'm sure I met, we mentioned the podcast a little bit before, but basically we bought a Goudja Classica, did some modifications to it right after we bought it. Those didn't work. And for the past two years, it's been so flaky, this machine. And I finally just undid those modifications.
Speaker: And now we have the stock machine, but there are issues the stock machine. That's why you modified it the first place. And so now we're trying to figure out, okay, well, what are the bare minimum mods, say, at this thing working against? They're a constant struggle. I'm voting we just get a new espresso machine, but Jerry's an engineer at heart and trying to fix it. So we might get it, but I think next next trip, espresso machine. if we get it working well, then there's a better gift to give somebody and what if we upgrade Okay, I think those are most of the things we've gotten to date here. Let's see. do to do I think overall the general theme of just these upgrades so far has just been like quality of life, slow upgrades,
Speaker: We want to spend more time here in the house and in Tama. While many people might come to Tokyo Spa and just want to have a place to sleep. So it's been an interesting journey. But I think our house, Tama Basecamp version 3. I feel good about now.
Speaker: V3. V3. All right, Joey. Tell us about what's coming for V4. V4. Wow. Getting the, just to go back to a cold plunge really quickly, getting that finalized, a few more things we need.
Speaker: ah The electrical hooked up to the chiller unit. The chiller unit needs some sort of shelter. The guy that sold us the cold plunge and the chiller was like, this chiller unit is 0% weatherproof. So we got build something for that because it's going outside.
Speaker: Plumbing to get water to it. Maybe like some sort of sail overhang thing to keep the sun off of you. um so getting all that set up for the Cool Plunge and finishing that project, up and coming, coming soon.
Speaker: um After that, long time coming, insulation. Let's go. we finally, we had talked to this company two years ago, a year and a half ago, i can't remember, but a while ago to um,
Speaker: Double glazed the windows. So put like a second, you know, layer there. So you're a secondary window. Secondary window. So there's an air barrier, more insulation on the windows and also insulate underneath the floor. So the biggest issue when my brother um and sister-in-law were here recently. Shout out to Adam. Adam and Tim.
Speaker: The biggest issue... that they saw with the house was when you go upstairs, it is just so hot. Like the the temperature difference is throughout the day here is really crazy. And just in general, even downstairs, like when I first came back, to this house two weeks ago and the ACs hadn't been on. Even the downstairs was hot and humid.
Speaker: So I think better temperature control regulation is what we're going after here. And this has been a long time coming. I think they're charging us maybe like 2.5 million yen for both the windows and ah under the floor insulation.
Speaker: You've heard us say it if you listen to couple podcasts, a lot of these homes do not have any insulation. It's like camping. It feels like this house is the same, even though someone came and redid the floors or repainted some of the stuff here.
Speaker: and So big, big upgrade. Long time kind of mean it's been a little bit of a complicated thing in with our roof. This is a steel frame building, actually. So the steel actually absorbs the heat and makes the roof quite hot.
Speaker: But um again, joe as Jerry mentioned, costing about, I'd say, 10, 15 to 20K-ish, probably all into Redo. all Add second Windows for all our Windows. I'd say we have...
Speaker: Probably like at least 20 windows upstairs and downstairs. We're getting like a nice wood finish. This should help a lot. The fleet and we saw advertised today at the at the home center, the hardwood at the what's it called? Like the Home Depot here. um They were advertising like when you double pane this and they were like it was 18 degrees and then with the double pane you can keep the room at eight degrees or something like that. Like a 10 degrees Celsius difference.
Speaker: And I think we're going to get some government subsidies with this too, which our contractors will do. They're actually coming in and doing it all in one day, which I find amazing. I think it's it's two days now. you want to term me Okay. Yep. You got to talk about that too, but they're going to come in one day and do all the windows. um I think after that, we'll probably redo some of the blinds, but from a, we'll report back to see how effective it is. But I imagine like all our windows, what it's like windy, like shake and they have like, probably don't close completely. So I imagine this,
Speaker: the second level of windows will significantly help this house. Yeah, and it's cold in the winter, like, ah you know, hot in the summer, cold in the winter, this house. So hopefully, you know, it'll ah you know we can regulate the temperature inside.
Speaker: On the floor side, we actually had no opening. A lot of Japanese home have access to the crawl space, and we did not. So they actually had to come in and open the crawl space, add a little hatch.
Speaker: We had some guy go under. I'll let Jerry tell the story a little bit more, and we found some unpleasant surprises down there. Yeah. So the guy comes over and, you know, they, a sorry, it was in two different times. um I think the subsequent days. So the first guys came and they cut the hole in the floor and they installed the hatchway and then covered it back up. And then the following day. Someone else from the company came and he actually went underneath and like, when you open that hatch, you know, I was there for a little bit watching really kind of pungent, earthy smell came up and came up and like whole bottom floor kind of smelled very earthy, not in a bad way, but just like throw i did when you're what when the hatch is open. Yeah. Just like very, very earthy.
Speaker: It's just straight dirt underneath. Yeah, just dirt. Anyways, and I was on a call. I was on a call with you and like some other people. I remember right back. yeah But he was crawling around down there for at least two hours. Two hours? And I told him, I was like, wow, it was a long time down there. And he was like, yeah, yeah. But I guess he did a good job.
Speaker: He took a bunch of pictures and he checked a few things. He checked moisture. He checked general, just like, i don't know, in general, how how it's looking down there. Can they even insulate? And that came back. Thumbs up.
Speaker: Termites, though. Boom, boom. Oh, yeah. He's showing me some pictures. Shiro-Ai. And um not only that, but Torrance had eaten part of, I think it's the joists or whatever. And where like one joist goes and then another joist sits on top. He had kind of like crunched it in a little bit. And I'm looking at this and I was thinking looks pretty bad.
Speaker: And I was asking him, I was like, he spoke English. And i was like, ooh, like, what how how how bad do you think it is? And he was like, not bad. That's so okay. that's a That's a good sign. But um he said they need extra time. They can't do you the full job in one day anymore because he was like, we need to drill some holes and put poison in.
Speaker: Damn, this is our first house to officially have the termites. But we've helped a lot of customers ah kind of navigate this and to like my general feeling and I don't understand termites well enough is like the termite treatment is a lot simpler here in Japan versus the US. I feel like you've got to really spray and like us most of the times tent the house Real estate houses, if you're selling the house or buying the house to get rid of tournaments prior to buying.
Speaker: But it seems like they've they made a sound pretty pretty chill. They made it sound chill. Okay. so And someone else, i that I think Keaton once told us that he was like, ah, it's not such a big deal. If you have tournaments, you just get rid them.
Speaker: Yeah. It's just worse if it goes unnoticed for a long period of time. So hopefully this guy said, not bad. So hopefully we caught her at a good time. Okay. Okay. So upcoming, we're installing the floor, the windows. We're going to get rid of termites.
Speaker: That being said, I think that there was a big earthquake here ah recently. It might have been like that same day that guy came over or afterwards. And as the house was shaking, I was thinking about the termites.
Speaker: Yeah. But I mean, overall, i got we're not reinforced concrete. we're still We're steel framed, which I think gives me a little bit more confidence. I think it's just the roof. I think it's like a hybrid, this house. Something like that, right? and if It's not fully steel framed. Okay. Well, to my understanding, it's steel frame and wood hybrid. Hopefully, the house is still standing, right? Yeah, some bad earthquakes. There's been a lot of earthquakes in Japan, basically, right? Yeah, i mean... How old is the house? 1970 something. So it's been, yeah. righthe's to in Now Fuji is going to explode.
Speaker: I see all those like AI warnings by the government. Like what happens in Mount Fuji explodes? That was the big one that I felt here. It was like a earthquake. Yeah. Like somewhere on Mount Fuji in Yamanashi. There's a big one in Al Mori. There's been some in Indo Philippines. So little scary, huh?
Speaker: Okay, what other things are we upgrading? Let's see. So we have those. As we've maybe heard, or as you guys have maybe heard, we're rebranding our company to Mokomoko. With that, we have new colors. And I think something interesting this trip is I think we're going to design this house to be more Mokomoko on brand. So... painting the walls, changing the curtains. We have a very set a color guide from our designer, Irene.
Speaker: Shout out Irene. We'll have on the podcast someday soon. I think the constraint is fun, and that's a Ray of Rick Rue in the chapter in his book as well. yeah I think having the constraint, and it and it kind of gives the room the design direction. It gives direction to the design decisions of the room.
Speaker: ah you know Is this on brand? is as part you know Is this part of our color palette? So I think like Some easy things we can do, paint the walls, change the curtains, change some of the art on the wall. So I'll kind of match the color scheme. Yeah. So you'll see this background. I it's real playing right now. And we we do intend to make this kind of room, our podcast studio, kind of making this house a little bit more of a content house as well, too.
Speaker: We had earlier this week, we've had a couple of new folks on the team who love the content, Gabe. So you'll probably see new faces. We'll also introduce them over the next couple of podcasts.
Speaker: But yeah, really setting this spot up as a home base has been really beneficial. I don't think we thought about that when buying this house. Then it just has naturally evolved to that. And although we're not in central Tokyo, there's like everyone. We had 20 people come without an issue here yesterday. And no one seemed to complain. But yeah, maybe we're the only ones that complain when we have to go to Tokyo.
Speaker: They have been tired, like Carly, go back to Chiba, two hours. nowo So like some people did travel for. Other than that, things that we want, sauna, where we're really pumpp pushing hard. it is, i think we're going to be simpler now that we've done a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker: we've looked around and we're figure out we're in the house. So I don't know. Brandon helps us with the sun. I think he learned a lot of lessons through this. Now want to pour in heavy rain or you know rent the right equipment. There was an issue with it's like a thing that tamps the ground down. And ah yeah, because he had some issues with the driver's license, he couldn't go rent that as easily. um So I think like, I was talking him to him a little bit about it and he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely need that for any subsequent projects. Not going to try. He was trying to do it tandem by hand for a bit for, for days. And yeah, it was just a tough, very tough.
Speaker: Let's see. you Other than that, I feel like this house is now getting like small touches, little bit more style, a little bit more taste, working on the lighting. I think we are on to year three and very, very excited and proud of how far we've come.
Speaker: It did really felt like camping still the first year. Year two was getting some of the furnishing and art in and finally, like I guess, better touches like curtains. And now year three, it's ted Turning up the taste and design, I would say. I have a memory of that first summer. I think like we were both here, and then you left, and I stayed for a little. It was really hot.
Speaker: But I have a memory of like sitting on the camping chair in the living room kind of area there, and there was an upturned cardboard box, and I had got like ah you know the kind of like small bento stuff. It's a grocery store for dinner, and I i have this memory of eating the... he like because The grip of Caesar Bento on the cardboard box sitting on the chair. They were like thinking like, this is great. Yeah. I think that's, that's the fun part, you know? and And I think a lot of people who are are buying these places, you can, you're in the dark in the dark, you really can't rush.
Speaker: I think furnishing a place, it it takes time. It takes multiple trips. Maybe if you're here, like in your sole mission was a three month trip to upgrade and make it better. You can make big strides. But we found that taking your time and um there's only so much trash and cardboard box that you can go through before i feel you get burnt out.
Speaker: Oh, trash upgrade. Oh, big one. a Big one. Sit. Don't jerk. So we have like a small, actually, it was a pretty good upgrade when I first got it. I just got it off of Amazon. It was maybe like three mon, like 200 bucks. Just some sort of like, um what would you call it? Small kind of metals storage box, storage container thing that like when, you know, because the trash is specific days here and sometimes something will fill, you know, one of your trash bags will fill up. But it's not the trash shape for a few, you know, maybe a week later. Where do you keep that full bag of trash? We just got an outdoor storage container, but it's quite small.
Speaker: And some parts of it kind of broke, like some of the like connecting bits between the the metal walls have broken. We've been kind of like, you know, working with it and wrestling it for, you know, past two years now. It's worked really good, but it's always been just a little bit on the small side.
Speaker: And we were just at the hardware store today and we saw a really, really nice one. This is like, you know, a condo building. We have that slalic. Yeah, it's like the hydraulic a lift lid, but it's still kind of um narrow and thin. So it'll work well on the side of our house. I think of this podcast, that's the biggest pro tip I would give someone like,
Speaker: You don't have just standard trash cans like you do in the U.S. here for recycling. And if you leave these bags out, which are relatively small bags, like the crows will 100% get them at these some points. And, you know, especially if you're here and, you know, you're you're putting stuff out and you're you're going through a lot of trash and putting like have a lot of bags, you need to have one of these kind of containers. So.
Speaker: Big pro tip. If you bought a house or looking to buy a house, get one of these storage containers. What is ours called? actually know they forgot. Clean, cooking green keep up green clean, Clean keeper is a brand new moment, but go off Amazon. Very, very helpful. Just have a storage box that bugs, animals and and crows cannot get into before you have your your trash day.
Speaker: Yeah, and even when we put our trash, like crow the crows here are so bad, but like even at that, there's a lot of crows. But yeah, we have like a, you know, when it's trash day, or so we have like a little garbage can with ah like a locking lid that ever we put the trash in.
Speaker: Okay, so yeah, I mean, these small things you, again, you learn with experience over time. It's been a lot of fun, really Yeah, I do think you just can't rush a lot of these things. But trash trash cans, bikes, I think were a huge one.
Speaker: Insulation, cold plunge. Those are the those are the four my four upgrade tips for every Akia if you are going to buy something. you One more time, what are the four tips?
Speaker: trash Trash bin, bikes, insulation, cold plunge. Cold plunge is good, yeah yeah especially the summer. Man. And sauna, hopefully sauna, Kyle.
Speaker: You know, that would be fantastic to have, know, the sauna, cold lunch, outdoor shower. Let's go. Tama Base Camp Version 3. Excited to have made it this far. We hope that if you are visiting Tama, Western Turkey would give us a holler. We'd love to show you around.
Speaker: i think we're going shoot another video tour soon. Again, a lot I don't think we posted a video tour since our very first time in here. So, looks very, very different. Very, very proud to... have it and showcase i have the other one now. The first beer tour is still camping. Camping chairs, cardboard boxes. People are like, you guys are, you freaking, what do they call it? a beerf free The fridge. The beer fridge.
Speaker: it's We've come a long way, Joey. come a long way. Now we could use that beer fridge to put the printer on top because now we've sort of turned that corner more into a home office kind of area. We're good. We're good. We have an awesome fridge here. I think we will keep this simple. Yeah, I agree. All right, man. Good stuff. Time of Base Camp version three.
Speaker: Come visit us soon. Yeehaw. Yeehaw.
Speaker: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Buying a House in Japan. If you find the show helpful or at least entertaining, give us a five-star rating. Takes five seconds and really goes a long way. If you or someone you know is looking for a Japanese home, check out Akiyamart.com, our English-friendly site that lets you browse over half a million listings. That's A-K-I-Y-A-M-A-R-T.com to find your dream home in Japan.
Speaker: If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at akiyamart.com. You can also find us on Instagram as well as TikTok, where we post properties, tips on the home buying process, and updates on our own purchases and renovations. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.
