Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back everybody. I am in sunny Japan, currently 36 degrees outside. The AC is struggling right now. Oof. What's 36 degrees in Fahrenheit? Is that like a hundred? This is just under a hundred, I think. Three to Fahrenheit? But humid here too. I don't know what the humidity index is, but warm. 96 .8. 96 .8. My name is Joey. Welcome to the Buying a House in Japan podcast. Takei is my co -host. Takei, what are we getting into today? o I'm going to rapid fire questions to you on our Tokyo property, things you've been experiencing. You've been there for three weeks now, two weeks, three weeks, right? Yeah, I think about three weeks. Sounds right. Okay. Two weeks separated. It's been a journey. We're going to, I'm going to ask you some questions on, questions on how it's been. Cool. Let's go.
Speaker: Okay. First off hottest day. How hot has it been? I heard Tokyo is going through a heat wave, right? Yeah. Today is, I think so 36 is the max hot. It's been since I've been here. We had a 36 day degree day, maybe last week. And today is going to be another one. We had a few cool days. It's probably the humidity too, but also the lack of insulation in the house. You really feel the heat here. Uh, for anyone who hasn't seen our houses, the good thing is we're separated from neighbors. So that we got a ton of sunlight, but Joey, what's the inside temperature? We have six ACs are the six ACs enough. How's the inside temperature? The six ACs. We also only have 30 amps coming into the house right now. So we can't put the six ACs on full blast each. So I put all the ones in the rooms I'm not in on the low of the eco setting and then the one I'm in rip it full blast. I, it is.
Speaker: Currently doing okay. I said it was struggling. It's not struggling yet, but I expect it to start struggling this afternoon. So I might go to Starbucks or something for the afternoon. Japanese houses. Our house was built in 1971. Do we have any insulation? I believe no. I think we were lied to. There is absolutely no way our roof is insulated. It feels the cabin my family has in Nova Scotia. When you go up to the loft on the second floor, you feel the heat increase and the humidity increase just as you're walking up the stairs. It's the exact same situation here. I know for a fact that the house in that Nova Scotia is not, the cabin is not insulated anywhere, including the roof. The same feeling I get here. I am, I'm a hundred percent confident there's no insulation anywhere in our house here.
Speaker: Oof. Okay. That's something we are going to need to do hopefully at some point, but let's see how the cold, um, I think what, what year housing is the eighties and up to the nineties, there was no installation. Is that right? No. Satosan contractor in Beppu said they still don't insulate or yeah, I believe he said even new builds you it's like something you specifically need to ask for. And it's still uncommon. Okay. So if you're hearing this and you're looking at an akiya, I think this is one of the most common things we tell people is that there don't expect installation. We're doing renovation on our spot in Beppu and praise the Lord. Saptosan, I think is doing installation everywhere, right? Walls. I'm not sure if he did roof at all. Roof, we could maybe, we could figure that out later, but okay, Jerry, what else? Other impressions on the house? You've been in there for three weeks to live in full time. What are some of the cons you're realizing? Heat is one of them, right?
Speaker: ah Yeah, so temperature regulation, I expect winter going to be the same situation, but with a cold instead of hot. We've had some ants, although like I got some nice, some good ant trap poison type things that's been seem to kill them after two days. I stopped seeing them. Other than that. cons with the house, pretty great actually. Not very many. right Okay. Here we go. I like to hear. Oh, here's a con. I just looked around outlets. So Japanese homes. This one's no different, even though it was renovated before we bought it. Outlets and rooms seem to not make much sense and there's not very many of them. So dining room I'm in has two kitchen has two. Actually, surprisingly, the room seemed to have two outlets here. Beppu was had one outlet per room.
Speaker: Unfortunately, there's two outlets, but I would say they're placed not in great spots, unfortunately. So yes, two outlets per room or one outlet per room. If you're in a more rural area, it could be the norm, but they're not in great spots. Like the fridge, for example, the one place in the kitchen where it makes sense to put the fridge, there's no outlet there. So we've got an extension cord running. Okay. Segue a little bit. How was the furniture, fridge delivery, appliance delivery? That, that whole process was it pretty easy. Thanks for handling that. Great. No problem. So bought them from Bic Camera at our train station here. They deliver, you know, they're super knowledgeable. I kind of went in and I was on a mission too. So I think they appreciated it. You know, I just kind of asked simple questions and then made a quick decision like, yup, I want to buy this. Let's get it delivered kind of thing. So it was super efficient process. I was honestly in and out.
Speaker: under 20 minutes, both times I went in to make these larger purchases. Oh yeah. Uh, they delivered within a few days. They can even deliver same day. It just, the timing didn't work out, but yeah, they can even deliver same day. The guys come in on the delivery time, very accurate in terms of, they gave me an hour window and I think they showed up at the top of the hour. They put mats down. They take their shoes off when they come in. They put mats down on the floor. They're very careful. It was four people with the, phrase it was two people with the washer dryer, four people directing the fridge. And they had a nice little like communication between the people carrying the fridge and then the want the manager, like They've done this many times before. Like they had the same, I don't remember the words they used, but one guy was like lifting in the back and the other guy's like, okay, lifting in the front and like commands that they had clearly practiced many times before. it Super efficient. They put it in and then the guy gave me a rapid fire list of things to do with the fridge. I ignored all that. I just started showing food in there right away and and started using it. No problems, but yeah, super efficient delivery. Great experience.
Speaker: Right on. And would you say the fridge, American sized? I know a lot of these appliances in Japan are smaller. And and tell me about the appliance selection process of yours. Yep. You can get an American sized fridge here for sure. It's going to be a Japanese brand, Panasonic, Toshiba, et cetera. They are, I would say in terms of, so they measure them in liters, like how much space is inside the fridge. You can get an American sized fridge. Maybe not the, we've seen those, like the you go into like a modern American kitchen of a rich person and you've seen like really big fridges. I didn't see any of those like very big Northwestern South fridges. Yeah. But like at normal sort of middle -class homes fridge, they do have that size here. That would be on the larger side. Like maybe the largest fridges they sell here would be of that size, but they've got them. I think the fridge we got is 550 liters. I don't know if anyone has a comparison point there, 550 liters for the fridge. It feels, um,
Speaker: Adequate, totally adequate. Looks big. I might remove, they they have a lot, it it came with a lot of shelves. I feel like American fridges, the shelves are more spaced apart in terms of vertical sizing. So I might just remove, reorganize some of the shelves just to make it a little bit more, some height, get give the space on each shelf a little bit more height. Other than that, it feels great. It feels like a lot of room. Okay. What about the washer dryer or is it a combo washer or what what is, yeah, Japan's got, I know, knowing washers. And so I looked into it. So it's a combo washer dryer and there's no outlet for, to vent the humidity. So I looked into that and I was like, how did these work? Cause there's no vents in the room. Uh, there's no vent on the washer dryer. So what they actually do is there's a pan underneath it.
Speaker: And it's a condensation based one. So what they do is they it like maybe acts a little bit like an AC. So there's some sort of cold coil that they pass the steamy humid air from the the dryer over this cold coil. It condenses into water and drips out the bottom into the collecting pan, which is connected to pipes in your house. That's how it actually works. So there's no dryer vents drenching this hot humid air outside. It works on a condensation method, which is kind of interesting to learn about. I bought this dryer. I went in there and I said, I do not, I want this dryer to have the maximum drying capacity. It's combo, wash or dryer.
Speaker: I said, I do not like that. I don't want a dryer that like, you know, those ones that stop like 95 % of the way there for like wrinkled protection. I was like, yeah, bone dry. That's what I said. I said bone dry and they showed me one. And I said, what's, and I was like, if I wanted one better than this, like, yeah how do I get one better dry? I was like, again, just my main concern is the dryness. If you could recommend me one better than this. And the guy was like, Ooh, he was like, he went back to talk to his manager and the the manager came out and he was like, I don't think there's a better one than this and i was like that avoid yes so okay i don't agree with jerry yeah last thing on the washer dryer totally works dries to completion and's it's not bone dry when it comes out the best part about this if you remember back when we sat at our friend dmitri's house a year and a half ago when we tried to use his dryer it was like I didn't understand the buttons. There was no just like one. This is like a one button press and it just does the washer dryer full cycle. There's a lot more buttons on it, but like you just hit the Omaka say button and it it just does it. think
Speaker: Let's go. Good decision making, Joey. I'm proud of you here. Anyone listening? I think, yeah, I hear the but the dryer function in Japan just like never works. Any dryer I've ever used at my friend's houses comes out 70 % damp and then you have to hang it. You leave it there, it starts smelling bad. So great, great call, Joey. I'm proud of you. Yeah, these were not cheap though. I think in total, I think the fridge was, oh, we actually got a deal. There was like ah ah a discount on this specific model at the fridge. So I think we got about, I don't know, 20 % off the fridge, about 2 ,700 for the fridge and about 2000 for the washer dryer potentially. So maybe about five grand total. Yeah, that's pretty close. That's pretty expensive. That's definitely American prices, but I think expensive for Japan.
Speaker: Yeah. Expensive for Japan, but I, arguably, I think probably the one of the two most, there was a two most important things in the house from a long -term livability perspective. Yup. Yeah. It's nice to do your own laundry and with the peace of mind that this thing is just going to work every time and to have a fridge that you're not going to, you know, you could put a cake in there, you know, all kinds of stuff will fit in that fridge. Okay, cool. So we're going to take a up clients delivery and pro buying process as a pro. What other pros have you noticed over these past couple of weeks about our Tokyo base camp since we bought it? Tama base camp since we bought it. Very nice having the car. It reminds me a lot about, it's very comfortable in Beppu. Beppu we are like up on a hill. We drive everywhere and and great parking. It's nice having the car here. It's kind of a similar experience except in Tokyo, which is very nice.
Speaker: Cool. Very quiet neighborhood again. How are the neighbors? Neighbors are great. Got more peaches ah yesterday. It's peach season now, so neighbors have been given us peaches. One neighbor in particular seems to really like us. Hadasan. If you're listening, Hadasan, thank you. He's the guy I woke up out of bed and opened, popped my head out. Saw him. He was a little shook when he saw me. So keep those blinds closed, Joey. I think it's safer for your relationship with Hata -san. Yeah. He had trouble finding us online in the end. Oh, really?
Speaker: there There actually was an issue. I couldn't really figure it out. And then I was just like, Hey, here, what's your phone number? Cause I get show tomato SMS. So I have him on SMS and we did a help Konnichiwa text ah to each other. So it works. Cool. Keep up, keep it up. Distant from Tokyo. Hey, I know you've been going to Tokyo quite a bit. We bought not super close. I was, give me the real, how painful is it to get to central Tokyo and how often do you go? Yeah. Okay. I'll tell you the expectation we had and then the reality. So the expectation was rapid train to Shinjuku 30 minutes from our train station. We knew we had to take, we knew we had to take the bus. So I don't know, slap on another 30 minutes for the bus an hour to Shinjuku. That's not far off.
Speaker: It's true. Maybe I would say about an hour, hour 15 to Shinjuku, but the reality of the meetings we've been having that are kind of spread all over Tokyo, it is going to be another 45 minutes on the train to anywhere within reason in Tokyo. So when I have to go meet someone, regardless of where it is, unless it's at Shinjuku, regardless where it is, I prep two hours. So I will leave the house two hours in advance to when I need to go meet someone. So I would say that is the true time to meet. to get anywhere in Tokyo for a meeting or to meet somebody at a specific time, stepping out the door exactly two hours in advance, you'll get there. And usually you have a little bit leisurely of a pace. Like I'm not trying to rush run to the next, make this next train. Like I'll just get the next train as I walk to the train kind of thing, two hours. And you can probably stop at Convene if you wanted to in the train station and get a a drink or something like that on your way. So I do two hours.
Speaker: That was a tough first week when I was there where you're stacking those meetings, rushing, like texting everyone like we're 10 minutes is late. Not a good long -term feeling and nice job pacing. I think that's a much more. Less burnout pace. Yup. And then the good thing about the car is like parking is not very expensive in Japan. And because it's for pay parking everywhere, there's like, I don't think I've seen street parking. There's lots of spots available. Always. so You can always park very close to where you're trying to get to destination wise. It's the ETC card. So the toll roads in Japan are expensive unless you have this specific card, ETC cards, we're working on getting that. Cool. So I guess if driving from our house directly to downtown, like how much does that cost? So it's quick. When we went to Ropongi, that was like 30 minutes. So, you know, you can, I would change it taking public transportation. I would leave two hours ahead of time taking driving there. Probably you can do it in 30 minutes, but you know, to give yourself a nice buffer to maybe 45 minutes to an hour.
Speaker: Cool. For anyone who hasn't driven in Tokyo, it's so much calmer than you think it's going to be. Like you imagine like a New York City kind of Manhattan driving thing. It felt pretty good when we got there. Yeah, it's very nice. It's very trap. People obey the traffic. group It's not compared to driving in New York, Manhattan. and No one is an aggressive driver here, which is very, um it would be very easy to be the most aggressive driver on the road with just a little bit of switching lanes. ah seconding I try to be defensive, but yeah, cost -wise without the ETC card, probably about 3000 yen in tolls to get downtown and then parking maybe about 700 yen to park for the afternoon with ETC card. I'm hoping that drops down. I'm not actually sure what the price would be, but without the ETC card, yeah, maybe about 20 bucks.
Speaker: Yeah. The ETC card is yeah like a fast pass equivalent. Unfortunately, we're trying to figure out how to get that. I think we can get it either with a credit card or we can get it like stand alone. Something we're figuring out, we're still figuring out the whole car process itself, so we will do another episode on it. Joey and I both were driving on our international license and we got the car insured under our names. Hit us up if you need the car insurance folks, but we're trying to figure out the car space at some point. There's so many cool cars and I think we're going to, we have two cars now, Joey and Japan. That's awesome. Yeah, cool. We haven't driven the first one yet though. The Honda Life, it might smell, it had a bay, it was used with a baby. ah Maybe it maybe smells like diapers. I'm not sure.
Speaker: Let's give some Beppu updates in a second. But before that, any other final thoughts from Tama overall? Still very happy. I'm glad to hear not too many cons, any other impressions? Still very happy. The one thing I might be concerned about when we leave is humidity. So I was thinking about getting like big Tupperware things. So at least put the bed sheets in because I think very quickly when no one's using the ACs in here, it's going to get a humid and just, I don't know, could be concerned about mildew mold kind of stuff growing on sheets or I'm not sure. So I think that kind of stuff get a big Tupperware when you're gone for a while, cause Japan does get humid.
Speaker: Ring it up on Amazon, buddy. ah couple Just get more boxes. Like, you can't have too many storage boxes, I feel like, in an Airbnb. Oh, update there. Our buddy Dio, who we did a podcast with, is helping us go through the Airbnb process. We did find out, I believe, we can Airbnb time of base camp. So we could actually have this. up up about We could have this actually on Airbnb sooner than we think. It's actually interesting. So if you're going to Tokyo, you want to be an hour or two hours away from Tokyo, but next to a golf course, take a look at Airbnb. We'll post that up hopefully in the next couple of weeks to couple or a couple of months.
Speaker: All right, let's transition. Bepoo baby. What's, did you see the photos that Fumi sent over during? Not seeing the photos yet. Open up on your phone right now. Let's, I i want your real reactions. So we asked Fumi, who is our fixer down in Bepoo to check in on Sato -san, who is our contractor to figure out just how much has Sato -san been doing? He asked us, we got a strange message from him. He was like. Hey, we need more. I need you to transfer more money. I ran out of money and I can't keep working. Red flag. But I'd say he's for me sounds impressed. He did quite a bit of work. Look at the photos, Joey. I'm going to look at the photos first. I see there's a video there, too. I'm going to look at the photos first. OK, first, the looking downstairs looks pretty similar to before, although he did say that it's going to look like this for a long time because he's going to do the flooring and wallpaper and all that stuff.
Speaker: very last so that he doesn't get it messy because that's where he's keeping his tool. So downstairs looks the same. Ooh, upstairs, the Benkyo Shih, the study rooms looking good. Although I did put my, I can see, I put a lot of markings on the wall where I wanted, uh, Konsento outlets and he did not put them there. That's fine. Okay. Next picture. I see the, okay. I can see he's adding the the bathroom upstairs and the light fixture. with the proper, with the lights fixed with the light switch we like. Okay. It's looking good. I like the, yeah the wallpaper and the floors. I think it's looking good together. Yeah. I'm pleasantly surprised. We'll post a photo for our cover for the podcast, but it's coming together. New drywall. This is looking good. Sato -san said second floor is almost done. He only needs to put wallpaper into town. Yeah, it looks right. Okay. Video.
Speaker: Okay. It's the back. Oh, night. Yeah. I asked for a sink in the up upstairs bathroom. New toilet. This is actually, thing thanks to Lauren Chang. Lauren Chang designed this bathroom up here with yeah the shelf. Perfect. Yeah. Lauren was like, I need a shelf here. I need a good work. Lauren Chang. People are asking me already when they can book our Beppu spot, bro. We got to get this. This whole youngs looking good dude looks great. Great job. Satasan kind of mood. float the yeah or New door. I don't know if I love the keys. I guess the keys are good. If we need to lock the doors and we're letting Satasan cook right now, but
Speaker: I'm just, I just wanted to finish. So whatever he needs to do to finish, I'm just like, let's let's just go for it. Okay. Okay. He put the wall. Okay. Oh, there's still a little bit of that brand that fake. fin yeah Okay. It's looking good. It's looking really good. I like what I'm seeing. Good work. Sato son. Hey. I'll give him an A. You're doing an A? After all this delay, dude? What? I'm still giving him a B minus C plus for delay. This place was supposed to be done four months ago. I'm going to send him. I'm going to tell him he's getting an A. All right. Give him the positive encouragement here. Joey, we got a couple of projects going here, but I think this is probably our next phase, I think, of these podcasts. We'll do a lot of talking about the Airbnb registration process.
Speaker: We're rapidly getting to know more and more about the space. We, everyone always ask us like, what are the r ROI and what are the numbers? We don't have them honestly quite yet, but that is something we will be sharing hopefully as we go through this process. The next immediate step for us is to furnish the place, take some good photos, maybe shoot some videos. We just got an awesome reel done. Awesome video done by our friend George. We'll share that in a little bit. Should we get, we should get George to do the Beppu one too, right? What do you think? I didn't watch the video yet. I haven't seen the video yet. oh do you do evan You're busy. what might even it has run around to i hear I appreciate that. Thanks for handling while I'm not there, but cool, man. Anything else? Feeling good. Feeling good. Yeah. So yeah, I guess the, okay. Yeah. TBC, I will say in all honesty, the two largest cons are the lack of installation. It's hard to regulate temperature and then the two hours to downtown Tokyo.
Speaker: is a little bit of a grind to do that more than maybe two or three times a week. Those are my two yeah main cons. Other than that, I think the suburbs of Tokyo is where it's at. It's very comfortable being in the suburbs. When you're downtown Tokyo, it's crazy. It's worse than New York. It's crazy. Yeah. Over tourism. Who won that? Who won the mayor race? Did the AI mayor win or the No, Koikei, the incumbent mayor won it. That was so weird. What a weird time in politics, US and Trump getting almost shod and AI mayors running. but What's happening to our world, man? tro yeah A lot of troll candidates for the ah Tokyo mayor. yeah Cool. Anyways, thanks for the update. Three three weeks in, glad to see our house is still up. Not a huge, maybe some lipstick on a pig, but overall still a good deal. Give us give me the the rating.
Speaker: We might have a mole in the yard, according to the name. We might have a mole in Japanese, Moguda. Okay. mora All right. Awesome, man. Good luck. Moguda base We'll call it until we exterminate the mole. All right. Cool. Catch you later. Bye.
