Lisa-san says:
Finally. The hunt is over. It's only been a week and
a half, but it feels like a year and a half. Perhaps time moves
differently on this island. Looking for a place to live has been such a
roller coaster ride. We've been through a half-dozen housing agencies at
least! Let's see... we started with Joy Housing, which is right around
the corner from our lodge. Shogu was our agent and showed us five places
the very first day. The first two apartments he told us were nearly
$2000/month ($180,000 yen-- one yen used to be about one penny.
Unfortunately, the dollar aint doing so hot these days...) They were
horrid! Super tiny. The third place was
called The Sakima House (apparently
theyTop of FormBottom of Form name
their rental properties to make them easier to identify). We REALLY liked
that one, but the owner refused to come down from his $2000/month price.
That's just too steap for us. The next two we saw (one apartment and one
house) we liked, but they were pretty small.
Small.
Everything here is small. From the cars to the living spaces.
Totemo chisai (very small). If you want big (Ookii), then it's going to
be "American style." Again from the cars to the living
spaces. If there's a big anything you better believe it's
connected to the US in some way.
The Japanese people, too, are chisai. Upon moving here, both Shannon and
I were excited at the possibility of finally feeling tall. Uhuhh. The
feeling was not of being tall. The feeling was of being B-I-G. Big
in every which way. People in Japan are small in every which way which
equates to me feeling big in every which way. That's not such a fun
feeling. Sigh.
I digress. We finally decided on Happy House after a week of looking and
looking and looking... Joy Housing had nothing we liked beyond the Sakima
House, Peace Housing had nothing for us, Japan Family Housing had nothing for
us, Central Housing... now Central housing had a beautiful and spacious house
for sure, but it was too far away from where I'd be working and the price was
too high ($1600/month).
American Family Housing was our next stop. They actually
showed us a few places that we liked including the Happy House. The experience
with American Family Housing was fun. The woman, Teri, who took us around
was young…Top of ForBottom of Form
26. Married to a military man for the past 3 years. She and her
husband had just returned from living in San Diego a few months before.
Teri had a friend, Yuko, that she brought with her, who also was young.
Both Teri and Yuko were very playful, and Yuko was exceptionally impressed with
our desire to learn Japanese. She spent a while teaching me phrases and
words ("Lisa-san no meh ga suki desu." She was telling me that
she likes my eyes. She thought they were pretty. Hazel eyes?
Pretty? Okay, whatever I guess.) I believe this was an example of
Japanese cultural flattery. I wanted to ask the two women if they ever
worked for a bar. Apparently in bars, as long as men are paying for
drinks, the hostesses flatter them non-stop. It's part of the price of
the drink. Once the money stopped rolling in the flattery stops. I
think this was going on here. We needed a house, they needed a sale...
You do the math. So anyway... after hearing that the
landlord was willing
to come down to $1300 and reinburse us for replacing the stove that was a peice
of trash, we thought this house was a real contender. It was around the
corner from the ocean! Although it was in a predominantly American area,
it would be close to my work... close enough to ride my bicycle if I
wanted. It also had a lot of cute shops and restaurants around it.
The clincher was showing our newly made friends who have been living
in Okinawa for some time now, and seeing their reactions to the Happy
House. Oh they were excited! They loved the location, the price,
everything! Shannon, though, was able to move things around and found,
what he thought was termite damage under the obviously staged, trashy, gas
stove (there was no gas hookup anywere in the kitchen let alone by the stove
itself). Termite damage??? Oh no. Bad news. So needless
to say, we left the Happy House that day with our happy severely muted.
Diappointment House would have been a more accurate name. So close to
being done with our search... so close! Our friends left saying that they
felt THEY had lost the house. We were all sad.
That was Friday. Monday came (Labor Day) and Shannon and I
went out looking at yet more houses. This time it was with Sunny's
Housing agency. Nothing. Nothing we liked at all. Plus we
were run down from our disappointment the previous Friday. I just didn't
want to look anymore. Surely out of all the places we saw there was ONE
that we could settle on. Shannon and I reviewed our videos and discussed
our options.
Then Teri from American Family Housing called about the Happy
House.
It wasn't termite damage after all. It had been that way
for two years. The owner would fix that part of the flooring and was now
willing to reinburse us for both the new stove and refridgerator. The
price was still $1300. Yeah! Joy! Happiness! The search
was over.
Then Teri called again...
We need a co-signer.
A what?! I don't have a co-signer. I know maybe two
people on this island. Can't you check our credit?
We have no machine to check credit. Owner wants co-signer.
Uhh, how about Shannon? Can he co-sign?
No. If you were with military you'd go through military
housing. But you're contractor. Not military. The owner wants
co-signer.
Ugh. Maybe we can use military housing. We have IDs
and access to all military facilities.
OK. We try that. I'll pick you up at 9:30 tomorrow
morning. We go to military housing.
Fine.
Ok, hopefully military housing will wave their magic wand and we
can be done with this deal.
9:15am on Tuesday morning. Teri calls. I'm brushing
my teeth. I hear the conversation from Shannon's end.
"Hello, Teri... Okay. What's the bad news?... Uh
huh... mmmhmmm... yes... uhh huh... No, I don't think so... No,
we're not going to play that game... We just won't take the
house..." Shannon cups his hand over the mouth piece of the cell
phone and responds to my open mouth, wide eyed, incredulous look, "The
owner wants to charge us $1500/month now because she found out how much it will
cost to replace the damaged floor."
"What?!" I cry. "What do you mean??
We had a deal?!"
Shannon hands the phone to me after telling Teri that she can
talk to me about it.
Hello, Lisa-san.
Hi, Teri. We had a deal with the owner.
I know. I'm so sorry. She changed her mind when she
found out how much it would cost to fix the floor.
But she's going to have to fix it anyway for any other person
that would move in!
I know. I'm so sorry. I told her that if she doesn't
put the customer first she's not going to be able to rent it out for
months. I'm very sorry.
Can she leave the floor as is and just drop the rent a little
more? Say $1200?
No, she's already hired the repair people. She has her
mind made up. I'm so sorry.
I could hear in Teri's voice that she was severely
embarrassed. I felt bad for her actually. I hung up the phone even
more disappointed than on Friday. Crap.
Shannon was angry. I was severely subdued. We needed
to get out of the lodge.
We drove in our loaner car to the Kadena Post Office to check
our mailbox... empty. Well, Shannon drove the car actually. I had
yet to drive. Gotten my driver's license, but was too intimidated to
actually drive. Once on base, though, I decided to give it a shot.
I was going to have to do it sometime. I wasn't looking forward to
driving on the left side of the road as I had a terrible experience in England
last November when Shirley and I went to visit her sister and
brother-in-law. The brother-in-law had wanted to just give me his car to
take out that night. I didn't feel comfortable going without testing it
first. He shrugged his shoulders and said he'd go if I felt better doing
that. So by the time we pulled into his driveway after my 10 minute test
drive, he had lost half his head of hair, and was telling me that I stink as a
driver.
That was a stick shift, I reminded myself. This is an
automatic.
I did fine. Especially after the hour of driving around
and looking for the Macaroni Grill. We had no map with us that was of any
help. All we knew is that it was on the Foster base. We were able
to make it there okay, but once there drove around for ever looking for the
restaurant. We eventually found it. I had my practice driving and
both of us felt better eating familiar food. Yumm. It had been a
long time since I ate at the Macaroni Grill. And no, you don't get to
draw on the table cloths here in Japan.
So back to the drawing board. We had an appointment with
Mickey's Housing. Mickey is a 77-year-old, Okinawan woman who has her car
designated with the "elderly driver" sticker in front. She has
a very vibrant, loud, and forceful personality... Just think "grandma on
steroids," Shannon suggests. Her car was loaded with little
nicknacks of all kinds: stuffed animals, figurines, and toys that could have
come from any happy meal in 1977 all fixated to her dashboard. She told
us that these little nicknacks were for the children that got bored when they
were riding in the car with their house-hunting parents. Her English was
good enough that conversation was possible. One of the first things she
told us was her age. She then turned her arm over showing us her inner
forearm so we could see how young her skin still looked. She also told us
that she has 5 children, 20 grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.
Later, she would show us pictures of the married and unmarried
grandchildren. (She seemed to focus more on the unmarried one.)
Mickey showed us an American style duplex first, and we were
none too interested in it. She decided to show us one more "Japanese
style" duplex but told us not to be "too picky." We didn't
even need that advice. Despite the distance from Camp Lester where I'd be
working,
this duplex was acceptable to us. Spacious with enough
personality to suit us. The neighborhood seemed nice... Japanese
neighborhood which we like. It was a short distance from the Pacific
ocean, and I was done looking. Shannon seemed to take an immediate liking
to it. I just wanted to be done. If he liked it and was satisfied
then so was I. Let's make a deal!
First Mickey wanted to take us for "break time!"
She pulled into a KFC that was right around the corner from the duplex, and
bought us some iced tea.
She tried to get us to take some chicken, but we
politely declined. She wasn't having it. After a minute of
prodding, I accepted some coleslaw. She bought enough chicken to share
between the three of us. Shannon ate one piece, and I caved and ate a
half a piece giving the rest to Shannon. Both the chicken and coleslaw
are apparently Japanese style, and I'm not a fan. Mickey finished the
coleslaw so I wouldn't have to throw it away.
It was at this break time that Mickey discovered my ability to
read and speak some Japanese. She Seemed duly impressed. So much so
that she went around the KFC informing the restaurant staff and other patrons
of my skill. Everyone seemed pleased that I could speak the five words of
Japanese that I can. Shannon, even seemed more impressed throughout the
meal. Apparently, my Japanese writing skills are somewhat news to
him. To tell you the truth, they're kinda news to me as my Japanese
lessons were over 15 years ago. Shannon stared wide-eyed at the little
scrap of napkin that I used to scribble down phrases and words that Mickey was
teaching us. I wrote them in horrible, I'm sure, hiragana (the Japanese
alphabet) with English pronounciation underneath so that we could remember them
later. I felt very proud when Shannon repeatedly doted over my writing
skill. That was my favorite part of this day.
We left the restaurant and headed to Mickey's office. She
instructed me on directional terms: "go straight" (masugu ikimasu),
"go left" (hidari ikimasu), and "go right" (migi
ikimasu). She also showed me the best way to drive from our new apartment
to Camp Lester. "I drive with you when you get your car," she
offered. "We pick it up tomorrow," I answered.
When we arrived at her office she immediately loaded Shannon up
with a black t-shirt decorated with white Japanese lettering and a fluorescent
green and white "Okinawa phoenix" drawing on the back. For me,
she let me choose one of three different colored purses. I took the black
one. I'll be sharing that t-shirt with Shannon-san, I immediately decreed
in my head. I added just to be fair, he can share my purse if he
wants.
Another couple and their two young children came into the office
while we were filling out our paperwork. Mickey shot out of her seat and
returned five seconds later with strands of candy packages and cookie boxes for
the little ones. (I forgot to add earlier that she had stopped at a gas
station on the way to view the duplexes to give a gift to a young man she
claimed had helped her tremendously with her car air conditioner
problem.)
Paperwork signed, Mickey accepted our partial payment, and she
drove us to our lodge. On the way, she mentioned that a lieutenant would
be moving out of one of her houses in December, and she would be happy to show
us that house. She said it was a very nice house with a yard, and because
she likes us very much and wants to make us happy she would help us move in for
no extra charge if we like it. Sounds good to both me and Shannon.
We'll see what comes to pass.
For now, though, the only thing that matters is that we have a
place to call our own. Everything else will fall into place when it's
time.
Recent Comments