living off base. House hunt #1

So because we have a little tiny dog and only one child we don't qualify for any of the military housing that's within an hour of this base. If DH was one rank higher, we would automatically qualify for a 3 bedroom town house right here on base and we'd have a little fenced back yard and everything would be copacetic. Or if we had another baby, we could have the town house, but since we only have one child and DH is an E-6 not an E-7, we only qualify for an apartment in one of the towers, however, they don't allow pets, so our nearest option is 45 minutes away at 1 am on a Tuesday, and 1 1/2 - 2 hours away anytime during daylight/weekday hours. For the pleasure of shortening the trip by up to 45 minutes, a person can take the toll roads for only $20+ a day. Whew, what a relief!!

Supposedly everyone who lives in that section of military housing swears they wouldn't live down here if they were paid to do so, but that kind of commute just isn't our cup of tea, so we have chosen to live off base.

For many, the idea of living off base is scary and absurd, and I guess if you are a person who has always been content living one way of life and have little interest in learning about how the rest of the world lives, then on base is surely the way to go. I can to a degree understand that it could be scary to some to move into an area where you are a minority and where none of your neighbors understand what you are saying or why you act the way you do. The differences really aren't that big, sure the stop signs will only say stop in Japanese, but hey, they all look like red upside down caution signs, so you don't really need to read it anyway. And at least you'll know what kind of money is accepted at the place you intend to do business, not like here where some places will take your debit card, some places only take US dollars and some only take US dollars or Yen, but even if you pay in Yen you might get US dollars back as change or maybe you pay with US dollars and will get Yen back as change. Half the soda machines take Yen and the other half take US dollars. Plus if you live close enough, it is quite simple to just come on base and do your shopping here so everything will still be in english.

Seriously, I don't think it would be any more confusing living out in town. It may be tough to make sure I'm not doing things that are offensive to my Japanese neighbors, but other than that, I really can't think of any reason that living out in town would be bad. I mean Japan is one of the safest societies there is. It's not like I'm opting to live off base in a middle eastern country where I'd have to cover everything except my eyes and walk 10 paces behind my husband and worry about being shot or raped because I'm not pious enough for thier culture.

Anyway, all that said, we began our search for off base housing on Monday. We went to the housing office, conveniently attached to the Navy Lodge, and filled out some paperwork and got down to business looking through one of 23 binders full of listings of local houses and apartments available for rental by military personnel. We found 3 and took them up to the translator desk (it works kinda like a fitting room, you are only allowed 3 at a time). The first one was already rented and the housing agencies for the other two were closed for the New Year holiday which is celebrated for upto one week, and would be open again on Thursday. Having done all we could for the time being, we headed off to take care of some other important tasks.

Thursday arrived and we headed back to the housing office and they again attempted to call about the other 2 houses we had selected. The one house was already scheduled to be shown to someone that day, so they wouldn't schedule anyone else to see it until they got a yes or no answer from the person. The other one we scheduled to go see that afternoon. The translator we were speaking to (they call the housing agencies for us because many agents don't speak much English) said she knew of an agent who did really good at finding big houses with big yards for military families, so we asked her to give him a call and we were able to schedule an appointment with him for shortly after our first appointment (I think this may have been bad form in Japanese society, but I'm not sure).

The first agent we were to meet with does not have authorization to enter the Navy base, so we had to meet him a few blocks away at a local hotel. He arrived and off we went to look at a house with a yard and a monthly rent of 165,000 Yen ($1853.93).

The house was in an adorable neighborhood where the local school bus is shaped like a train locamotive. The neighboring houses looked nice as we drove by and the yards were surrounded by cute little rock walls with wraught iron gates. I was pretty excited by the prospect of this cute neighborhood. We pulled up in front of the house and stepped through a little gate and up a few stairs and aproached the front of the house. As we entered, we removed our shoes and were expected to walk through the house in our socks. The house was cold and damp inside and all the walls were that ugly 1970's dark wood paneling. The shower and bathtub were on the ground floor (typical of Japanese homes) and the tiling around the tub was badly chipped and broken. The sink and bathroom mirror were cheap plastic and the floor was mustard and olive green old chipped linoleum. The floors throughout were old and chipped and the windows were tough to open. Jon stepped out onto the balcony and we all held our breaths, half expecting him and the balcony to go crashing to the ground.

After our walk through we headed outside and started walking back to the car. I lost my footing on an uneven paver and rolled my ankle and skinned my knee. Our house agent just about lost his mind trying to make sure I was okay and rushed us to the car and took off driving before DH was even fully in the car with the baby. He careened around corners and pulled up to a stop in front of a house where a lady came running out with a first aid kit and cleaned my knee and bandaged me up. This all seemed very weird to me until later I was told that in Japan it is customary that if someone is hurt while in your care or in anyway that can be considered your fault, they can ask you for gift money, flowers and chocolates as your amends to them for their injury. Sure I have a sprained ankle, but I don't need to be paid for being a clutz, if that was the case, I'd have been rich long ago. And the last thing I need while I can't be up and around as much as usual is some nice fatty chocolate! Nope, a simple apology was plenty for me.

Anyway, since we hadn't seen what Japan had to offer as far as houses, other than this house, we told him thank you and that maybe we would want this house, but that we would get back to him later. We sure hoped our next house visit would go much better.