18 December 2009

While Emily was at nursery I went to view two apartments in Higashi Azabu. This is normally a fairly pricey area, but the building they are in is 20 years old hence being in our range. The neighbourhood was surprisingly quiet given the busy roads close by. The block itself was small, having only 11 apartments over 6 floors, and the communal areas were rather dreary, but the flats themselves were newly-refurbished and felt nice. The second one had white carpets, so that immediately put it out of the running, but the one on the 2nd floor felt bright and spacious and had hard floors. At 84sqm and with three good sized bedrooms, it felt substantially bigger than our present one, though the fact it is on the 2nd floor is a negative point (in earthquake-prone Japan, the lowest floors are sometimes crushed by the weight of the floors above when a building collapses).

After I'd picked Emily up, we met an agent to view the 90sqm apartment in our building. I didn't feel the same excitement about going into it, but that can be accounted for by the familiarity of it as the decor was all like ours. It felt so much bigger (indeed, it is 30% larger by floor space) and had a longer balcony and frontage too. So much to consider, especially the attendant costs of moving, but I definitely feel that now I have seen what we can afford I can't settle for staying where we are even if the landlord agrees to drop the rent.

Emily was ever so tired because, yet again, she had failed to sleep at nursery: now the norm rather than exception. Amazingly she wolfed her tea, but got very upset when it was time for her bath, so I decided to give it a miss and settle her straight to bed with a story.