Osaka house hunting 2

House hunting 2 consisted of all new developments in the Honmachi area. All were within walking distance to the train station, which is where a school bus runs for our daughter’s school. It is also a convenient location near shopping, food and businesses. That also means it’s a rather expensive and crowded area.

Location, affordable and how high?

In the middle of a city, size was something we were going to sacrifice anyway, so it ended up being less of a criteria than we originally thought. There was only one or two places where the floor plan was too weird to consider. Since we were looking at new places today, we didn’t find much difference in the quality of the kitchen or bathrooms, and they all had similar modern touches and style. So the main differentiator was location, view and natural light. Our requirement of ‘immediate move in’ limited the stock to already completed buildings… and that also meant most buildings had sold out their prime spots months/years prior via pre-orders. We saw some lower floor left overs, or locations that were a bit further out. However, the last one we saw did have a few corner units and was situated next to a big park. They had sold out of the larger park view units, but some city view units were still available. The location was about 10 minutes walk to Honmachi on the quieter west side, but that also meant fewer obstructions in terms of view and noise.

At about 60m2 (650sq ft), the place is cozy but has a large balcony. One snapshot shows the kitchen, living/dining and the smaller bedroom altogether! We won’t have to buy much in furniture, maybe we can find some inspiration from the tiny home movement:)

A kitchen for ants?

This place landed in our top 3, the only draw back is it’s a bit further out from Shinsaibashi (20 min walk) which is where we would be hanging out for food and entertainment. We made a test walk there, then continued through the covered shopping streets to Namba station (another 15min) in 90F+ heat and 10000% humidity. The total cost was 1 ice cream and popsicle paid to our daughter, and a couple drinks to rehydrate. This must be how these cafes and department stores stay in business.

Yakitori (Chicken Skewers)

With a lot of choices to contemplate, we stepped into a yakitori place and ordered up some beers and food. We saw something a little unusual on the menu, a chicken sashimi sampler! I must admit, I hesitated a second, is it safe? Only one way to find out, and it turned out to be quite yummy with the dipping sauces. My favorite sauce was the sesame oil with salt. The funny thing about chicken sashimi, was that it didn’t really taste like chicken. It had more the texture of sashimi and you could have fooled me if you said it was raw fish or ankimo (monk fish liver).

The rest of our yakitori was more typical grilled chicken on a stick. Kids seem to like stuff on sticks. The beer really hit the spot on a hot long day.