Living in Shibuya

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Living in Shibuya Wednesday September 6

I now live in Shibuya. I am still paying rent on my Yokohama apartment until the week after next, but that's just the way it goes. It's actually nice to have an overlap that allows me to gracefully move my things between the locations. Coming from a college town, where most leases end days before new ones start, this is quite an upgrade. Damn college landlords.

The other nice point about Shibuya is that it gives a frame of reference to everyone I know outside of Japan about my neighborhood. Point-of-view shots of the big hill leading to my apartment in Yokohama don't make it into major motion pictures. The Shibuya intersection shots do (Lost in Translation, for one; I'd call on my friend Drew to help me with other references that I may be missing).

Moreover, there are models living in the apartment beneath me. I'm not kidding. There are at least two of them, but we think there may be three. According to my one roommate, the flat is rented out by an agency, and they rotate the models every now and then just to keep those of us in the room above appeased. I'm sure it's all for our benefit.

Don't even get me started about how great it is to leave 40 minutes before work and still get there on time. That sounds like a bit of time, but coming down from 1:15 minutes is quite, quite nice. More pictures and whatnot to follow later this week.