Transcript
Speaker: This will be turnkey plus furnished. Who do you think is the right person to buy this house? Beppu is so unique with the onsen culture. I think definitely someone into that. Yeah, I agree with you. Someone who likes onsen.
Speaker: Someone who can work remotely. I think this is such a killer spot. If you're a tech worker, you wake up in the morning, you hit the onsen, you go work out at any time, finish down the street, come back, you you hammer out some work. I think Beppu is on the rise.
Speaker: Welcome back to the Buying a House in Japan podcast, the number one Akia podcast in the world, Joey. How are you doing today? Good. Great to be back on the number one Akia podcast um in the world.
Speaker: We are two college friends who are sitting in our first Akia we purchased back in 2023 now. Very nostalgic, Joey. Feels good to be back, man. The journey started here October. No, more like April 2023 is when we started. We got the keys in hand for this place October 2023.
Speaker: twenty twenty three Two years later, more than two years later, two and a half years later, we have bought in total of six Akias. We've traveled the country maybe like eight times. We've been down in Beppu for more than anyone else I know other than the people that live here.
Speaker: Beppu's great. Like it's been a while since I've personally been back at this property. You were here a little bit before more recently than me, but yeah, Beppu's great. Every time we come back, you know, I feel like we think when we're not here, we're like, you know, cause we haven't been to the property for extended periods or kind of, or we start, we focus so much on Tama. We're like, Tama's great. And like, we kind of forget that Beppu is great too, but when, you know, We did a good job. Yeah. I think for the listener, Beppu is located in the southernmost island of Japan, Kyushu.
Speaker: It is the number one onsen town city in Japan. Yeah, maybe number one. Maybe in the world. I think by by a landslide, too. It's like geothermal activity is number two in the world, other rivaled by Yellowstone.
Speaker: Oh, really? Yeah, I thought I looked that up some time ago. But all right, we're back in Jisoji Luxe, as we call it. we we'll We'll do some more backstory. But Joey, let us crack the beer. Go for it. I call the premium malts. Okay.
Speaker: Premium Yebisu. Let me do the crack here.
Speaker: Woo. Come on.
Speaker: All right, beginning of the trip I said, no we're going to reduce the alcohol. We've done a pretty good job of it thus far. But like we opened the fridge in the beer fridge, which we have upstairs here, and there's just two ice-cold brewskis just waiting for us. You know, when the universe points you in a certain direction.
Speaker: Yep. So here we are. what That was good. i haven't had an ABC for a while. Nostalgic being back in here. You know, like everything started in this house, this whole journey, the Akiyemar website. Our first podcast was in this room, I believe. Was it first in this room? like Might have been. Yep. Everything started here in J-Lux and we didn't have the fancy camera equipment. a lot less pressure having the fancy camera equipment takes so much time to set like we we bought some really good stuff and it's it's it's fun but it it makes us less nimble i'd say in that like we have to set up the stuff and we have to upload like a 50 gig file of whatever but we'll get like remember our first podcast when we like clunky in here at the stands with the big roadcaster i was in this room so we wouldn't get the reverb but then we ended up just getting the blue yeti actually meant like a little bit after that when we got the roadcaster even then i remember it taking us some time to set everything up we'll get better yeah and and now look at this like this was so fast to set this up so like yeah we'll get better with the video stuff Anyone that wants to set up a podcast, I think our lightest setup is we have this like little zoom kind like micro recorder that has an XLR cable directly in. We have sure MB seven mics, I think at this point and headphones plugged in. I think this is probably the easiest way to really make a podcast. All right, man. lot has happened in the past a couple of days. Where do you want to start?
Speaker: Um, dear diaries we got Otaru, you got sick. Yeah. Um, yeah. Fukuoka. So in the past couple of days, I got pretty sick, got the stomach flu. i I suspect it could have been from strawberries that were not washed as my current suspicion. I ate the strawberries too, but i didn't get sick. Okay. I got sick. Um, unfortunately I missed the entire Hokkaido trip. I got the strong microbiome. Maybe Joey went up to Otaru where he filmed a video. How was Otaru bro?
Speaker: Purpose of this trip was to film a video. We have a, we purchased a property up there with one of our, uh, Akimara agents, Rio. And, we're planning, uh, the whole purpose of that purchase was to, uh, flip the property as well. Do a light, uh, renovation, get Airbnb license for it and kind of like tee it up, um, for a potential buyer. So, uh, went up there the house looked great. Uh, We did film the video. Again, that was the point of the whole trip there. You to hear my reflections on Otara? You want to hear about how the video went? What are you more interested in? The video will show for itself. You've been to Otara a couple times now. Give me the top three memorable, top three takeaways from your short trip up there.
Speaker: Main takeaway i would say is this, like listeners of the podcast will know that I'm not too excited about the snowy regions of Japan, despite me realizing a lot of people are. So I know I'm the odd one out here. So tropical. Yeah. So, you know, I like the tropical. I rented the place down in Ishigaki.
Speaker: That being said, i think there's a ton of positives about Otaru, and I want to sort of draw the connection. The main sort of takeaway that I've gotten is that a lot of the way that I describe Ishigaki and the things that I like about Ishigaki, kind of smaller town, feels like you're kind of running into people. um People, like, I don't know, seem like they're very...
Speaker: protected is probably not the right word, but they invest a lot into the community there. Smaller town, but it's not dying. There is like healthy tourism scene there. So there is like, you know, kind of like there's nightlife going on. There's restaurants, there's like, you know, shops and that kind of stuff going on there. A lot of the ways that I describe what I like about Ishigaki also apply to Otaro. So I think that that that is important. Like, despite my personal preferences, I do think if you're into snow, and in in fact, Otaro gets a ton of snow, if that's like your thing, I think Otaro is a great town. So I think that's my biggest takeaway is that ah I do like Otaro. It's just the the the temperature and the snow that's holding me back.
Speaker: Otaru is like what, an hour away from Sapporo? Like how was, how was getting there from Tokyo? Yeah, very close to Sapporo. So I've taken the train. So you fly from Tokyo, Narita, there's a ton of flights every day, um, to Chitose, which is like an hour from Sapporo and, um, kind of like maybe a little bit of a a kind of triangle between the airport, Sapporo and Otaru. And so i think if you just go straight to Otaru, it's like maybe an hour and a half, uh, an hour to Sapporo. And then between Sapporo and Otaru, it's pretty quick, 30 minutes, 45 minutes.
Speaker: Okay, top thing you ate in Otaru. The food is better quality in Hokkaido. Like Japanese people say that and they're right. Like I do believe that. On this trip and on the last trip I made to Otaru, the food was so good. And like...
Speaker: like I will give that to Otaru. The food's better in Otaru than it is in Ishigaki or sort of other play, better than way better than Beppu, I would personally say. Okay. Like, Otaru, like, the food scene is is really incredible. Like, again, we went to this pizza. It's my favorite pizza place. And I i was almost disappointed. i almost thought we weren't going to go. Cause we ate a, like a lot of fresh fish and we can talk about the fresh fish cause it is amazing. But like we ate a lot of it. Um, the ice cream was really good, but I really love this pizza place, but it's like no one, I feel like most people, they're not going to Otaru for the pizza. They want that fresh fish and everything else. But then Rio surprised me on the last night as party. He had ordered some, uh, some pizzas for a takeout. So I did get to eat the pizza and I was very happy. So Otaru food scene, I think the pizza is great. People should definitely go for the pizza there. Um,
Speaker: cafe b3 um it's the only cafe as far as i'm aware that has like a real espresso machine but they do a great job it's like the massive la marzocco there and uh the um the the australian couple that own it are very friendly fresh fish so good like so so good that was my number one fomo point you sent me that like kaisen i'm like shit i can't eat food right now but that's this looks really good Again, Rio, real estate agent, and our friend Tatsu, who was directing and filming the video, had both independently scoped this one place, this small sushi restaurant called Wasabi, inside a very local market. Like, no tourists in there at all. Kind of on the outskirts of Otaru City, but close-ish to the house
Speaker: um that we're trying to sell. Nantaru Market. Highly recommend if anyone's going to. um Otaru, there's sort of two, or maybe there's more, but these are the two fish markets that I know of. Sankaku Market, which we did film in. We got permission to film in there and we filmed some of the video in there.
Speaker: Also bang in fresh fish, but prices are about double, we realize. So tourist trap, but like, I still think it's incredible quality. But yeah, price is way cheaper. Very, very local. Didn't see any tourists there. And we wo we ate at a a small restaurant kiosk in there called Wasabi and the sushi chef.
Speaker: Taisho, learned, is what you call the the master of the sushi restaurant, Taisho-san. And Taisho, so friendly. I think it was more Tatsu that got the friendliness out of him. Tatsu is the number one Trojan horse. I saw Tatsu do that a few times on the trip. So I think maybe the guy was friendly for the right person and Tatsu was the right person. But yeah, very, very friendly. So fresh, this fish.
Speaker: And Tatsu, there's like a regular, like jōren kyaku, is how you say regular in Japanese. like a regular comes in, sits down, he's sitting right beside Tatsu, and like immediately starts talking to Tatsu. Tatsu's having a good time talking to him too. He's like making dirty jokes with Tatsu, like that kind of thing. He's like older, he was 82, he said. Anyways, he leaves, and he we see him across the hall um at like another fish, it's it's all fishmonger stalls. He's at like one of the fishmonger stalls there, and he's like waving Tatsu to come over. Tatsu gets up, goes over, and he like, the guy reaches into one of the tanks, And pulls out, like, five or six live scallops. They're big, too. Like, in the shell. Still alive. The animal. And, like, puts them in Tatsu's arms. And, like, Tatsu's getting water all over himself. And, like, it's dripping on the floor. And the guy's like, go bring those to the Taisho back at, like, the Wasabi restaurant. And he'll cook it up. It's, like, close enough. The Taisho can hear and see what's going on. And so they're they're chatting. And then the guy's like, oh. Because Tatsu had been talking to the guy. And the guy's like, oh, you should date, like, this the fishmonger lady kind of thing. Yeah. And it was like a good, good scene there. Everybody was joking around. And then the Taisho-san like chopped up the scallops and we ate it right there. He chopped up the entire scallop. You know, you usually just get the foot, the scallop foot. He chopped up the entire thing. He was telling us more, you know, you're eating the whatever of the scallop there and that kind of stuff. Nice, man. Okay, food, A+, plus it sounds like. a plus All right, condition the house. how is ah you know this c Ice cream was really good. I didn't even get to ice cream, but cream we we can move on. But yeah, just across the board, a plus great food scene. Okay, the house.
Speaker: a House is really good. So Rio had done a really good job cleaning it up because the jungle had kind of over the summer, the plants had grown and then we got a tremendous amount of snow this season. He had cleaned all that up. He had done a deep clean of the inside. It was a bright, sunny day when we saw it. nice It was clear.
Speaker: um You can see, although it's a little bit hard, you kind of have to like go up against the wall and look at an angle through the window. But you do get a view of Mount Tengu. Tengu Yama, baby. Maybe I'm being a little bit generous there. It is hard to see, but it's a great view but you got from inside the house, but you do get a fantastic view of Mount Tengu from the porch. That's great. That's where the good view is. Inside the house, you just kind of get it at a certain angle, but yeah, you do get it from the front porch. How far away is our house from the slopes?
Speaker: Five, ten minute drive. Sweet. Yeah, yeah But Otara's quite small. It felt like anywhere I put in the GPS, it was always like five to ten minute drive, every like ah across down, up and down, everywhere.
Speaker: Cool. So for listeners, I guess we've been hammering this message. We are going to sell this old Tauru house probably in May, I would say. We're working on on finishing up a couple of things to get the Ryokan license, which is the hotel licensing for both the kind of like a duplex upper unit and bottom unit.
Speaker: Rio is going to be the operator. So it'll be pretty, I think, buttoned up, excited to try this out. Not sure how we're going to sell it, Joey. Maybe we'll try an auction. Maybe we'll just throw it on the site. So I know we've had a couple people look at it, but we're just going to wait to put this off before we take any bids. So if you are interested, just stay patient. I think May is where we're really going to launch it. And i I do suspect this will go fast. It's a really good property. a really property. Otara is a cool city. You'll find out more about the specifics of the property in the video. Long story short, it's two units, it's two floors, and it's the exact same apartment. You sort of walk up the steps. It's like a garage floor, and then the second floor, and then the third floor, and the second floor and third floor are the exact same unit. So that was Otaru, only there for a couple of days. And then you met me down in Fukuoka. Yep. But before that, actually just early thoughts and we'll talk more about Tama. But Tama Base Camp, our Tokyo house, I was unfortunately sick for four days, but like I was so effing grateful. I was sick and not a dormy in hotel. Like I had so much space at the house and it just like made it realize like it's so worth it to have to have base camp in Japan.
Speaker: I was sure you were doing like Uber Eats, but let's tell everybody what your diet was. I could not hold any food down. I had bought maybe 20 packs of natto. I like wasn't, i don't know, wasn't hungry. And I couldn't go outside. i was just like, not feeling good. So we had like four apples and I think I had maybe...
Speaker: at least nine individual packs of natto per day you left i had some toast per day per day i i have cleared out the natto i had apples natto and bread and bananas that was my diet that's the brat diet just my minus the rice a substitute in natto super super good our house is minus the insulation is is amazing so much space so quiet our our neighbor linda is so helpful too she offered to bring some stuff over But man, so thankful. Like I seem to get sick at least a couple of days of every one of these sprints. I think it's just like natural for me as we push ourselves, we do all these meetings, we get really tired. Man, having having Tama, it was so freaking good. I think pushing through the jet lag too. Like i at least had been here a month. You you had to like...
Speaker: Just go for Just go for it. But um yeah, I think it made it all like it kind of things click for me. Like we're working so hard and sometimes don't get to enjoy the house. But like this is the reason we have it. Like if we need it, something happens. Need to be stay back. Like we have such a good spot ready to go. So. Too bad the only time you got to enjoy it was when you're puking. I had like one day where I was like, okay, I'm feeling pretty good. And I walked around, walked to our onsen, found like a new kind of area. And it I think actually one of my favorite parts about being in Japan that kind of got lost, I i think, over the past couple of years is just like going to a new station, looking around, being like, oh, sick, there's a cool coffee shop. Oh, that's awesome. Like that aspect of Japan is like endless. Like you're never going to explore every station. So... I think being in Tama really, really great. The biggest downside of Tama is getting to the airport or like getting to major transportation hubs. So I had taken the Shinkansen, which is the bullet train from Shin Yokohama to Fukuoka, which is like really good, actually four hours.
Speaker: But man, cab driver is terrible. The worst part is like we were 15 minutes away and she took like maybe a couple wrong turns and she's like, I'm sorry, this is going to take 45 minutes. I was like, no. It's the cab. I agree. It's um it's good like right what I've been doing is taking the tax taking a taxi from around Tama, our house, and that's a mission- In of itself, sometimes trying to get an Uber to even come pick you up. But then it's the Chuo Highway that we got to take. I'll go to Nippori or Ueno and then get on the KSA Skyliner and go to Narita. Once you're on the Skyliner, like it's fine. like No issues. It's straight shot. It's it's that taxi to Nippori versus like getting taking a bus to the train station, getting on a crowded train, and then like transferring Shinjuku. Totally. that's really bad as well like yeah for the akiya buyers i think this is something that is not solved we have not solved but some just like a a super big pain point like get landing in narita and getting to your akiya and then like getting back is always going to be tough if you're in inaka areas but it depends like we're doing it frequently because we're traveling around japan like almost similar to to a tourist when we're here the amount of travel we're doing but like i feel like for people that buy a vacation home here it's and let's say it's in guma for example it's like one and one and then on the one on the way back. So not too bad. I think at least though, we are figuring out what is the best. we We've tried a little bit of everything. This time again, trying the Shinkansen. So actually taking the cab to Shin-Yokohama was pretty good. Not too much traffic. And taking the four and a half hour bullet train down to Fukuoka was very comfortable. So maybe we consider that on the way back.
Speaker: But I think by and large, the number one, if we're supposed to redo it, we just have our minivan and we drive and we take ferries. That's the... Hands down, I think the most efficient, comfortable pathing. I'm wondering about Hachioji. I don't know how many people listening out there are familiar with the the Tokyo train lines, but it's almost like overshooting Tama where we're trying to get to.
Speaker: But the but the the pro is that potentially it's only one transfer from Narita or no transfers. I'm not sure. Anyways, there's some different ideas we're playing around with, but yeah, it's the biggest pain point with Tama. Okay, well, fast forward. I met Joey down in Fukuoka. We stayed at the lovely Dormy Inn Premium.
Speaker: Again, you you if you listen to our podcast, Dormy Inn's the shit. They have such a good onsen. It's it's so so nice to jump into sauna. But Fukuoka with thoughts, Joey. How'd you like it?
Speaker: Yeah, we try to stay in Dormian. Everywhere. In any city we go to if they got it. Fukuoka. I like Fukuoka. I had spent a little bit of time there. More like more when we only had Beppu, and Fukuoka kind of like the closest bigger city.
Speaker: um was hanging out there a little bit more. I do like Fukuoka. Kind of feels like Tokyo... yeah Back when i was a college student. um But it's still crowded. like there There was a lot of people. We were there during spring break.
Speaker: yeah Maybe that is the main reason. like super Unfortunately, yeah like ah you know we do try to do the off-peak season when we can. But there was a lot of people there, unfortunately. Yeah, Fukuoka, I was just like kind of thinking about it. I were to re-roll coming to Japan, this whole Japan experience, I think Fukuoka is a better first landing point than Tokyo, maybe.
Speaker: Also, like don't know too many people in Fukuoka, but like I've never been to Japan and I wanted to live in a big city. I would pick Fukuoka over Tokyo. over osaga over kyoto over sapporo yeah yeah it seemed quite international it seems like it you know from a visa perspective i think it's a a no-brainer seems easier yeah so they've got an immigration bureau there that independent from tokyo and things go faster incredible subway system like the infrastructure seems very modern it seems just kind of like a modern more modern version of tokyo-ish i mean there's some there's some really bougie spots of tokyo but Anyways, we got to Fukuoka. We got our minivan. Really funny. i feel like we rented like the biggest van we could we're like, oh, shit, this is way too big. We thought we'd be doing some Ikea runs. That's why. So we thought, okay, let's get the big van. But even, i think we we had help booking this van and I think... our friend that is helping us we told her book the biggest van you can this fan was too this was like a sprinter it was like a sprinter prime i was like oh is this gonna fit in our driveway it was like serious van life van but uh yeah we downsized was it was too big and the road that we got to park in here and some turns we got to do at the house here in bepu small streets everybody if you're considering buying property in japan small streets okay Okay, and fast forward. We started driving to Beppu. It's about a two-hour drive. And previous to getting here in Beppu, you had mentioned earlier, kind of was like, not negative about it, but like, is it going to be in like rough condition? We haven't been here for a couple months. we're kind of worried about it. Like always comparing it to Tama. time of base camp, like always comparing it to TBC.
Speaker: And I think because we just kept doing that and we had been spending much more time in TBC, just like we had painted a picture in our heads that like, oh, TBC is so much better. So Bebby must be in a bad state, but like definitely not. What are your impressions, Joe? You haven't been here for a little bit and there's, we've done some renovations, but yeah, first re-impressions of Gisogi Lux. We finally got the outside clean. Last time i was, there were beer bottles kind of in the outside garden. Like we didn't put them there. Those were, they came with the house. Inherited. Inherited, yeah. Someone had kind of half buried beer bottles in the garden and they're kind of like right in front of the door, right in the center of the driveway and like looked at those every every time we came back every day. Finally, the outside was cleaned up and the beer bottles were gone.
Speaker: But on top of that, they had rebuilt some sort of like stone walls that hold in a tree, Mikan tree, very nicely. The outside was clean. This old rusty gate was removed. The node end, which is kind of like a half curtain that kind of hangs down in front the doorway, was installed. a Spotlight on it. The outside of the house was looking really good for the first time. Yeah. Yeah. I think the house exceeded expectations and it's just hard to, hard to remember, you know, coming, coming back though. It was, it was clean. We'd got it clean before.
Speaker: And to Joey's point, we just cleaned the outside. We never really focused on making outside look good until this these recent past recent months. Kind of like finish the project to some degree, right? feel, feel pretty good about the level we've gotten. it It's not like a masterpiece by any, by any means, but feel pretty good. Like we did good, you know, looking around this room right now. And sort of like the cleaning setup, we had dialed in more or less. Not as good as Tom and Basecamp yet, but like, hey, the sheets were clean, you know, beds made, towels ready to go. like It's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, think they did a ah really good job. I wish...
Speaker: We had a little bit longer this trip to keep furnishing. I feel like it's still missing some personal touches. You know, Sato-san did a sloppy job with some things as you look around for attention to detail, but like good enough. You know, I think we got to, I would give us a B plus on the project maybe. it Took us a long time though. So I agree with you on the personal touches. Like there's nothing on the walls. really there's something There's a few things on the walls. It's more like it's a blank canvas with ah yeah some some good furniture.
Speaker: Already put in like kitchen set up, bedroom set up, but then stop right before the personal touches. With an eye to the future, we are thinking of selling this property and, um you know, calling the project complete, moving on to um our next project here. And I do think that this is a great stopping point because we could fill it with personal items. Yep, yep.
Speaker: But that's not going to be likely what the next person or or potential buyer is going to want to put on their walls. So I think it is a great stopping point. Yeah. So how house is looking good. Good stopping point at this point. A lot of things we could do. you know Definitely a lot of potential. We had closed in ah a room for the intent of using it as an office for the business manager visa. But now that is ah a moot point. Whoever buys this should tear that open. and open Lighting game dialed in. Lighting game dialed in. I think stylistically. Someone like the... Yeah, finishing time. I would get a finishing carpenter to kind of come in here. Whoever comes in and gets it, put in but another 10K. I think you have this pretty pretty comfortable at that point. It's ready to go. It's it's good. Well, we're going to film a video. You'll see a full super tour. Our buddy Tomwa Bromwa is coming down. We're going to hit some onsens, but location is so good. Beppu is such a unique city. Like, I forget, and I'm actually surprised, and maybe it's timing. It's, like, nice and warm when we're here. Thoughts on being back, Joe? You spent probably, you spent a lot more time here than than I did. Like, happy to be back? General atmosphere impressions? Like you said, Beppu is such a unique city.
Speaker: Out of all the properties we purchased, this one has the highest walkability score. Like, we walked, and we'll probably go again tonight, to the Three Michelin Star Onsen. Still a little bit confused what the Three Michelin Star means, but it's a very, very cool onsen. Very kind of, like, industrial, modern place.
Speaker: and some unique baths in there i would say that you don't see anywhere else in japan um like the uh the drill you called it yeah so the onsen is called hilton onsen it's about a 15-minute walk from our house and i think such a good drawing point of of whoever buys this and even ourselves we were going right after this but We purchased this place specifically to be within walking distance to Hyotan. And it's paying off.
Speaker: But Hyotan, we actually got exclusive access to film there. So we're going to check out our video. I don't know when this is going to be released. But Joey mentioned the drill. It's literally like a waterfall. own like Imagine like a steel pipe like 20 feet up that's just dropping water. So it's kind of like when you look at those like Zen Buddhist monks praying or like meditating under a waterfall. Kind of feel like that when I'm in there. but it's like massaging your back and it's warm water. so, so sick. Yeah. There's the drill. There's the, um, sand bath where you bury yourself in warm sand. Uh, again, we got some, we're going to film that as well. I would also say the, uh, steam bath is so unique. One, it's dark in there, which I like. I find like most, onsen steam baths you go to in tokyo it's like so bright in the steam i was afraid like i like when you get and there's a little bit of fear you're like whoa i'm going straight into darkness yeah straight into darkness it reminds me i don't know if anybody else is going to know what i'm talking about but every time i step in there i have this thought i had like growing up this like book about pirates and It was one pirate. I don't know. i like Blackbeard. I don't know. I don't remember which pirate. Lumpy's pirate. Blackbeard, let's say. Lucas's favorite. He used to, like, it was like a challenge with him and his, like, if someone wanted to, like, challenge him with being the captain or something like that, he had, like, a kind of sweat box on the ship, and he would burn sulfur and, like, put it in his beard or something like that, and was, like, a hot sauna with, like, burning sulfur in there, and, like, apparently he could outlast everyone else, and that's him. He was, like, the the strongest of the pirate. Oh, goodness. But the water in Beppu is very sulfury. And so because this steam bath at Hyoten is just the natural hot steam coming out of the ground that they use, it's very sulfury in there. And it's like, it's dark, it's sulfury. And I think of this Blackbeard Challenge. Like, I'm Blackbeard when I go in there. right, all right. So the onsen was like really hot. It was it spring break. So it was really, honestly, too crowded.
Speaker: Like if you've never been to an onsen and you've seen like the monkey onsens with like all the monkeys in the water and like super crowded and everyone's kind of like running around. Like that's exactly how I felt yesterday. i was like, there are too many monkeys here.
Speaker: And i don't know. It's this like as a foreigner, i'm ah I'm a Trojan horse. I walk in and and people don't look at me, but they all look at you, Joey. Yeah. Like here's a foreigner. Got go with it.
Speaker: It's intimidating. If you've never been to an onsen and you're kind of like going to crowded onsen where everyone is like knows what they're doing. Like I could see it being very like, i don't know.
Speaker: Yeah. Like hard. We made a classic blunder with the yukatas and went in the wrong door or whatever. And then. I forgot the key. Like, yeah, I kind of kind of made some noob blunders. We're back though. The master bathers, you and me, and we are, we are back. Master bathers. But again, so all that cool stuff at Hyotan is what makes Beppu unique. There's so many different styles of onsen here. We have, there's wild ones up in the mountains. I might've referred to them as the murder onsen. There was a murder at one like 10 years ago.
Speaker: um There's another one that we have special permission to film at. It's also up in the mountains, no murder there, but ah quite magical. There's like a waterfall that comes down. um You walk down this like bamboo path.
Speaker: Ashiyu, there's like public ashiyu in Beppu, which is just an onsen for your feet. So if you're out walking around all day, there's like cafes with these ashiyu in them. So many unique like bathing related things here in Beppu. Yeah, few. Steam coming out of like everywhere, manholes everywhere. That's very cool.
Speaker: I would go out on a limb and say Beppu is the most unique spot that most tourists have not been in Japan. Some might be like it's inaccessible, but like the pro tip is get to Osaka, take the ferry, and then it'll drop you off overnight. And the ferry is really dope. We've we've talked about it on the podcast. It'll drop you off in Beppu.
Speaker: Spend maybe two days in Beppu maybe. two nights, maybe two nights, three days, I think is a really good, uh, time and then take the ferry back. And I think if you're listening to this, you haven't been a Bapu, you like onsen, are you willing to try the onsen game?
Speaker: This is the spot. They cook food with the steam here. Like, like feel like the list of, ah hot water, hot steam onsen related activities, like there's still, there's still stuff we're still discovering. Like the list just goes on. If you're into that kind of bathing culture in Japan, Like, Beppu is such a cool place to be. The bathing culture in Japan, like, i maybe we do a full episode on this. It's it's really unique. You and I, like, we we were in 2MD in our dormitory, and we, like, that's where I learned the bathing culture. But there's some strange things, I feel like. I'm not sure, like... Definitely 2MD got me more used to bathing Like, love sitting down and showering at that thing. Yeah, with the mirror. i like a mirror like I feel like I take my time and scrub everything better. and Actually, I was at the onsen yesterday. And remember in 2MD how like anytime someone would flush a toilet, it would get like super fucking hot. For like a second. Like a second. And it kept doing that. I was like, oh like yesterday at the onsen. Oh, yes. I felt some some changes yesterday.
Speaker: You also start to see like, I think for people new to Japan and maybe they've gone to an onsen once or twice before and been warned like, You have to really scrub your body really well before you get into the tubs. And yes, you should. I agree with that. You should. But you the more you go to these, you so you start seeing Japanese people cutting corners here and there.
Speaker: Especially, I would say, at, so there's like a look, again, another cool thing about Beppu, there's community only onsens here. And we're part of one. So I'm a little sad to lose that opportunity. But we we had a good run. Anyways, it's like this real local community only one. But what I was trying to say is like I see people cutting corners there mostly. Like they'll rinse down.
Speaker: um They'll like splash water on themselves a little bit, mostly kind of like their private parts first. And then they'll sit in the tub for a little bit. Like they'll get right in. They haven't they haven't touched soap yet at all. They'll just kind of like wash off the the more smellier parts of their bodies just with water real quick.
Speaker: Then they'll sit in the tub, warm up, and then they'll get out, and then they'll rinse their bodies. I see that kind of – cutting corners more and more often. i remember Maybe it was early after episode. like our Our local community onsen doesn't look super fancy. It's very simple. it's just like a literally cutout square in the floor. The water is great.
Speaker: But I remember like opening... that Every time we go in, there's like a different zone. It's usually an old dude who's sitting on the floor, straight up on the floor, just like... you know scrubbing concrete wet concrete floor and we're like very trained I feel like to have the have the stools and stuff so every time me and Joey go in there we have like our pre-kit and it's just like they must be like these these lux yeah these Yankee doodles coming in but yeah I'm I'm sad you know to miss that and like Part of me doesn't want to sell Beppu, to be honest. Like, this is a... We worked pretty hard to get here. And mixed mixed feelings. I would say that, yeah, like, I i do agree. Like, the mission is um we had a great time with Beppu, but we do want to mark it as project complete. For example, i'm thinking back to my forerunner. Probably clung to that project for far too long. And sometimes you got to, like, move on with projects in life.
Speaker: But I do agree. Like, we were at Hyoten Onsen. Again, this onsen we're talking about. And we did the sand bath for the first time yesterday. And I don't think we did it properly, but even then... we do it again today? Yeah, we should. Even then, it was pretty cool. We were just kind of like laying there in the warm sand.
Speaker: And we had like, you know, we're talking about some business-related stuff. And kind of had like a good little brainstorm session. and So that kind of got me thinking like, if we could set up this property to be almost like a corporate retreat. I think that would be really Exec retreat. exact Sorry. Yeah. Exec retreat. Um, cause yeah, that was a cool, like almost like work related little brainstorm in the hot sand bath. And you know, there's all this kind of bathing and spa culture here. i think it could be really cool. There's mountains, there's hiking here. Like there's lots of stuff.
Speaker: Totally. And I, I think like we've designed this for ourselves, but it really is like a, if you have two co-founders that just need a hammer out work, like, both our properties are optimized for that. Like we have two bedrooms, we have whiteboards. I really like our bank you'll just do here, which is like study room. It's like, we have no distraction distractions. If it's based off a sound of metal, this one movie where this guy every day would just get a donut and have to like write in ah in a solitary confinement type thing. And exact sound of metal exec retreats, I think are an interesting play where we just design stuff for ourselves and see if other people,
Speaker: want to use it. Um, cause all our properties, I feel like we didn't plan this, but all our properties, like, well, we want to be able to do work there too. And it's like the two of us who we need both of our kind of private yeah rooms as well. And like kind of just naturally, like we built it around almost as if it was an exec retreat type situation. And like we could write an itinerary like honestly going to Hyotan and like just like digging a hole and laying in the sand for 20 minutes and just talking about business. I feel like ah it was like a very focused no phones like let's just let's just talk about things and although we didn't bury ourselves deep enough. We learned. Today I'm burying I'm digging myself a coffin bro. I'm going down. Yeah, man, I think sad to see this place go. Many people are going to ask, like, what are you guys going to, you know, why are you selling? Like, we're going to so much hate from people being like, why you guys selling your Akia? told you it's not worth it.
Speaker: going to say screw you to those guys. But what would be your response to them, Joey? what are we What do we want to do? Like, why are we why are we trying to sell this? I actually don't believe people are going to be upset, but I do think that for me, it's... I've personally learned more in the past three years about what I really like about Japan.
Speaker: And I've been clearly pursuing warmer and warmer places. So I find that where I want to be is in a warmer place down in Ishigaki, Okinawa. And then we always have the house in Tokyo. Tokyo is like, Tokyo is more for work for me, the way I see it. That's where all most of the real estate agents we work with are. So I find myself spending more time in Tokyo. And now with the place in Ishigaki, I believe most of my time is going to be split between those two. So I think
Speaker: It's a natural time to reflect on the Beppu property and realize like we got we we put in a lot of effort. Beppu is an amazing place. But again, thinking back to Project Forerunner in my life, like cut while you're on top, like move move move on while you're on top, mark it as complete. Almost like at one time in my life, I also had a lot of crypto and it was like,
Speaker: and not Not a terrible amount, but ah yeah I had bought it for very cheap and ended up being like $300,000 at one point. And I didn't sell them. I remember when you guys were buying in Bali in 2015 and like yeah you, Lauren, and Mike were like, it's go Ethereum's going up like double. yeah I never like took profits. you know I always kind of just kept it because it had gone up so much. i always thought, oh it might keep continue going up. So I do believe in like taking profits along the way.
Speaker: Now, cause I never did that. And then I kind of had to sell at it at a much, much reduced amount. So I do believe in like cut projects while you're on top early, you know, sooner than you, while you feel good about it for running to took on too long, take some profits along the way. If in the sense that like, Hey, we had a great time.
Speaker: Let's, let's like, you know, move on and kind of like. free up that the mental space that this project is taking on and and move it to somewhere else. So for me, I think Beppu, like none of our business would have happened without Beppu. Like none of the adventure we've been on for the past three years have happened with Beppu. Fantastic property, fantastic place. But I think that the the wisdom here is is, yeah, move on while you feel really great about the property. What did say? Like Rolling Stone doesn't... Rolling stone gathers no moss. Is that a Bob Dylan quote or at least Bob Dylan said it? So we'll attribute it to Bob Dylan for for now. That's good. Yeah. Like we, we bought this Akia with like none of this business, by the way, www.akia-mart.com is one of our websites is our website. We can help you buy this property and many other properties in Japan, but none of this would have started had we not just like gone and bought this and we had no idea that this would spin up but i'm personally excited like we were foolish mortals when we did this first one i feel like we had tore down walls we we didn't really know what we were doing and we've learned so much from this first repetition that i like i'm personally excited you know whatever we sell this for to reinvest it into another bet booth spot actually i think
Speaker: Beppu is on the rise. Like just looking around being here, it is it is pretty crowded. it is pretty bustling. It's very international. There's an international university here. We actually just put a job posting out. There's like five students that applied for that. And I think we're going to try to meet, hopefully. It's time for the next, like I do a lot of pottery and I feel like pottery pieces done here.
Speaker: It's time to to take what we learn take what we learn from this spot and and do it again. So I'm i'm still bullish on Beppu. I do think there's the burned down lot we've talked about. like Our property is quite like outside of the house is quite low. It would be nice to have a little bit more space now that we've had that space and in TBC. Rolling Stone gathers no moss. We're going to be the Rolling Stone.
Speaker: It's funny. I think we've talked about this on podcast. So we have our Japanese entity, C Corp. It's called Takamori KK. And i I don't remember when we were making our o making it, but I come back to Beppu, the nameplate says Takamori. It has like a little wooden sign that says Takamori. And we had I think we had taken this inspiration to name our company Takamori because a previous person that lived here was Takamori.
Speaker: But our favorite Tonkatsu spot that down the street, Tonkatsu Yamamoto, shout out to them. I think on our last day like of our first trip to Bapu, they had like this one picture of Saigo Takemori, who was like a general. I think we've done talked about him on the podcast. I don't remember the history. something yeah we We ended up naming our ah company Takemori KK. So this is really where it all started.
Speaker: I think if anyone were... To look like, why is this a company retreat? Or like, is this ah actually headquarters? it checks out. It just has so much takamoni on it, which I find funny. Okay, man. this might This is one of the last maybe podcasts we record in this room. This is where a lot of the magic happened. I feel like we spent lot of time just like laying on this carpet, drinking beers.
Speaker: My friend Lauren came through. I remember me and Lauren were doing a three-minute like ab crusher type like thing. That was kind of fun too. Yeah. We've had a lot of friends come through. They've liked it.
Speaker: House, again, not an A-plus by any means. There's a lot of opportunity around. But I think, Joey, who do you think is the right person to buy this house? Beppu is so unique with the onsen culture. I think definitely someone into that. Again, kind of like I mentioned, if you're into snow, like Otaru, yeah um if you're into the onsen culture, this house, I think that it's a quiet it's a smaller town. So if you...
Speaker: don't love how busy like tokyo fukuoka those kind of places are like bepu is a great town like you don't got to make reservations at restaurants here which is great i would say it is pretty busy though like maybe we've just been walking around the tourist areas but yeah it's i think it's like a mid-sized city in japan compared to yeah tokyo fukuoka ishigaki where you got to make reservations like you're not making reservations here at restaurants which is something that i think is a big plus for bepu Yeah, I agree with you. Someone who likes onsen, someone who can work remotely. i think this is such a killer spot. If you're a tech worker, we have it already kind of dialed in
Speaker: You wake up in the morning, you hit the onsen, you go work out at any time, finish down the street. You come back, you you hammer out some work. Like this is a really good like... Laundry. I would add laundry here, actually. That's probably like the the big upgrade I would do. We have a whole extra room. We should just put a laundry machine there.
Speaker: Sauna, laundry machine. there is yeah like that you You'll see it on the video, guys, if you're interested in it. There's like basically a whole extra room that we walled off, again, as Taki mentioned, for the business manager visa. So, yeah, just know it's like what you see plus one. Yep, yep.
Speaker: All right, man. I feel like we did a good job. Overall, i was I was worried, kind of like haven't seen it for a little bit. What's the condition? But looking around, pretty good. We didn't need to do as much. We could have done more, but we can always do more. Podcast listener, if you've been with us since the beginning, you listened to our first impressions, The Sato-san saga. This is where it all happened. do we invite Sato-san just to like party? We're throwing pizza party. Should we? Is that is that weird? No. I think, again, kind of like. No, no, no. All right, all right.
Speaker: Cut our losses there with Sato-san. Sato-san's a funny story. But yeah, this is ah this this is where it started. if you want like Again, we're selling this place fully furnished as well, too. So it's like true you can move in and start personalizing it, I think is the other kind of big. I think our design sense is pretty good as well. but i mean good and Good enough, yeah I think, for someone to come in and not like worry. like When we first got in here and slept, then we were worried about the tiny bugs. and like You don't got to deal with that. Yeah, this will be turnkey plus furnished. We're not trying to make a ton of money. We just want to recoup our costs.
Speaker: we We spent probably a total of 80K-ish here. At least 80. Probably more, but I don't think we're in a charge way more than that. Again, we want to make sure this goes to a good person who's actually going to use it and and enjoy it. We'd hate to see it just like fall apart and and no one keep maintenance of it. Any ah final final thoughts on the Beppu or Jisogi Lux? Why do we name it Jisogi Lux, just to end it actually?
Speaker: Jisogi Lux came from Maslina Lux, which is the name of a building we stayed in when we first, like, we took a trip um together to Montenegro and stayed in Take, and his fiance had purchased a condo. kind of on the coast of Montenegro there. And the building's name was Maslina Lux. I believe Maslina means olive in the Serbian. And ah I think that it all started truly at Maslina Lux. And so this was kind of like a, yeah gee so that's where its namesake comes from. Gisoji Lux and Gisoji is the neighborhood area. So yeah.
Speaker: We call it JLUX for short. And then, yeah, other than that, listeners, thank you for being with us. We might record one more podcast, but the the simple audio setup with the beers, low room, it's it's been a journey, Joey. Farewell to JLUX.
Speaker: Let us know, listener. Reach out to us at podcast at akia-mart.com. If you are interested in coming and staying in the spring, I think it's a really good time to kind of maybe like try it before you buy it kind of thing. Maybe we do something like that. Yeah, for sure. But yeah, Beppu underrated. Irregardless if you want to buy this house, good opportunity. If you've been to Tokyo a hundred times, give a Beppu shot.
Speaker: it is it is It is dope. Let us know. Thanks, everybody. 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. If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at akiamart.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.
