living costs in osaka

i just realised that i’ve always intended to blog about this, but never got down to doing it.

i remember worrying before i came over, whether my pay would be enough to cover living costs and so on, and looking back now, it seems so ridiculous because the pay that JETs receive is incredible.

i get about 285,000yen a month after taxes and so on are deducted. a quarter of that goes to rent, at a bit more than 61,000yen. i think this is the most that any JET would ever pay, unless you’re living in the city in an apartment that’s larger than 6 tatami mats with a kitchen and bathroom (the other osaka JETs in the bigger 2-bedroom apartment pay around 80,000yen).

utilities – gas, water and electricity – average to less than 6000yen a month. it increases a bit in winter when i turn on the electric heater and in summer when the aircon is on, but i think my expenditure is fairly low because i dont leave my heating or aircon on the entire night, whereas i know many people who do.

food-wise, it depends entirely how much i go out that month. a dinner out will often be around 2000yen, lunches 1000yen. drinks are in general about 500yen or 700yen, depending on where you go. i definitely dont scrimp on eating out or grocery shopping, and i’ve spent between 31,000yen and 50,000yen a month. i bring bento to school most times though, so i eat lunch out only about once on weekdays. dinner on weekdays would perhaps be once to a max of 3 times – it’s usually once – and on weekends, anything goes. i think i go out a lot, but that’s the price of having company and socialisation. no choice.

internet – i share that, but it’s 4000yen for KDDI’s wonderful fibre-optic service. not all apartment buildings have fibre-optic, installed, but broadband should be around that price, unless you get a package deal. usually when you first sign up they’ll give you a really good discount – for us it was 2000yen for the first 6 months, but JETs who came this year got a far better deal.

mobile phone – all depends on how much internet you use on your phone. in japan, you can only send SMS to people who subscribe to the same company. to contact people with another phone company, you have to use email or call. calling is really expensive though, but the internet is very useful. i use it to check train times all the time, and sometimes the weather. but my bills are on average about 2600yen i think.

transport – is expensive! i already cycle to school most days of the week, but i think i easily spend almost 10,000yen a month. if i didnt cycle to school, i think i’d be spending maybe at least 15,000yen?

apart from those, there’s also expenditures on things like household items ( e.g. toilet paper), toiletries, clothes and shopping, etc. those all vary, and it’s difficult to give an estimate for stuff like holidays too. but i think it’s reasonable to say that a 7 day trip somewhere in japan would cost around 100,000yen, how much more or less would depend on how watchful you are of your wallet. i think that estimate is for a comfortable holiday, where you dont splurge but do spend some on enjoying yourself.

random pictures

i've been wanting to post this for the longest time:

yes, it's of my toilet.. but i think it's SUPER cool cos the japanese are smart and have come up with a great way to save water:

when you flush the toilet, this tap will refill the cistern and you can wash your hands with the clean water too! such a wonderful way to reuse the water... and if you use soap to wash your hands, the soap will all go into the cistern and clean your toilet bowl when you flush it the next time too! i love the cute and cheap 100yen decoration for the tap too :)

and this is just a shot of the cake that i had on monday.. post-monday meeting cake-treat is going to be a weekly event i fear, and yes, i do eat cakes more than once a week, and yes i am indeed gaining weight :S

now here's a shot of one of the quite-a-few neoprints that i've taken since i came..

neoprints are so cheap here - they're known as purikura in japan. they cost 400yen, which is about $5, compared to the $11 you pay in singapore.. and the machines are a far cry from those we had in secondary school.. now, you can draw lots of stuff on the picture, and have really cool backgrounds. you can also choose to send certain shots to your handphone email address, which is how i got this picture.. everyone else in here is american or american-asian by the way.. the 3 of us at the bottom are JETs, while the guy is the boyfriend of the girl he's "dripping saliva" on, and the girl right at the back is the friend of the girlfriend.

my apartment

okay. now that i've gotten the previous post off my chest, here's another update on what else has been happening in my life.

my apartment is now ready to live in after i got down on my hands and knees and wiped both the tatami and floor. i've managed to buy some nice things for my flat. these include 2 big bowls - my predecessor didnt have any big enough to hold an serving of hot soba, which probably means that he and the person/people before him probably ate out of the pot - which have the design of a kitty on each, one in red and one in blue; a pretty mug, 2 pairs of pretty chopsticks and a nice small plant which adds a nice touch of green to an otherwise brownish apartment:

 

you can see a bit of the kitty bowls above.. and my 100yen plant below. i got the little dish below it from daiso too, and it's prettily colour coordinated with the plant - has patterns comprising 4-leaf clovers on it :)

 

daiso is an amazing place and has such gorgeous stuff, and 100yen shops in general are GREAT. i love them! and i really love shopping for the apartment too as it feels good to inject some of ME into the place. anyone walking in wouldnt know that the owners have changed, but i think it's the little things like cups and cutlery that count for a lot. heh.

here's my apartment:

the front door, which the entrance hall (i was going to throw out the trash when i went out later) with the bathroom where my towel is hanging and the toilet where the knob at the right foreground is.

this is the 6-tatami room. i dont know how my predecessor managed to squeeze 4 pple excluding himself in here.. i dont think i can fit more than 2 people unless i shift the couch into the kitchen.

a closer look at the room:

the balcony where i hang my clothes:

it's not that great an idea to move the couch to the kitchen either, because, as it can be seen from below, moving it into the kitchen would mean having it block your way in every conceivable aspect.

closer look at the kitchen area..

i think my house is pretty ok! it's a bit big for 1 person, but would be too small for 2 people. it gets dirty quite easily even though i dont open the windows (ie, the sliding door separating the small balcony from my room) nor door.. but it's ok. i like it enough :)

more about my apartment

i'm so so so so so excited!!! i went onto google maps to try and see what kind of neighbourhood i'm gonna be living in the moment i knew my address, but i cant believe i've only noticed this now! my apartment is in Riverside Sagisu, and check this out - it's actually featured on the map! just that its name is in katakana/hiragana - リバーサイドさぎす - and i only noticed this today:

all along i was sooo focused on the ６丁１目 part of my address (the shaded area marked by 'A') that i didnt notice the smaller, fainter print above!

and my predecessor mentioned that there's a whole stretch of park in front of the apartment, and it's right next to the river. and hey, it's true!! the river is circled in black, while the park is circled in red. and my apartment is around the area marked out by 'A':

isnt that cool? i think that looks like quite a long park! well, even if it isnt, it's one less excuse for me not to exercise, cos apparently people jog and cycle in the park and so on. my predecessor likes the place a lot, which helps in getting me excited about it too!

and he just sent me a picture of the room that i'll be moving into. i would love love love to put it up, because it's just gorgeous! it's far more than i expected, cos he's apparently a clean freak, and the room looks rather neat! and the furniture etc look quite nice too. i'm happy to pay him the amount he quoted :) but anyway yeah, i would really want to put it up cos i'm REALLY excited about the place now, but well, it's still his apartment and i dont have permission :( but i can show it to you if you let me know you're interested! :)

and according to his measurements, the apartment isnt all that small! he says that the entire place - kitchen, bathroom, small patio and main living area (i dont know if the genkan or entrance is included - is 10.8m. which is rather long! it seems as long as my house is, in fact! but of course not as wide - the living area is about 2.5m, which isnt as wide as the kitchen (which is more than 3m in width) due to the closet for the futons.

but all in all, it sounds pretty good and quite nice! it really looks great. i think this totally supports all that is said about how important it is to make your house look nice if you're trying to sell it. in this case, i'm willing to buy all his stuff cos his house looks good! :) oh, rent, by the way, is 64000yen per month. i get 25,000yen per month on top of my 300,000 post-tax pay for housing allowance too. so we're considered as getting 325,000 post-taxes, and after deducting for insurance premiums and pension, it's 287,884 yen. after deducting 64,000 for rent - which is 22.2% of my pay - i have about $2843 left ($1=1.27yen). sounds ok i guess.

but yup. i'm looking forward to seeing my new home!!!! :D

My address in Osaka

making a post here while holidaying in Australia - I've received my Osaka address already!

it's somewhere in Sagisu in Fukushima ward..

will blog more another day when i return to singapore.. suddenly feel like there're a lot of things to settle! reality is setting in and i'm only halfway through my holiday..