First Days

We moved into our apartment on September 2nd but first we had to get all our luggage to Tokyo.  A family in the new ward we are attending offered to let us keep our luggage at their house for a few days.  Our van is small (so that it can fit down the streets here!) so we couldn't fit all the luggage in even on one trip.  For a few days it was kind of brutal with all the driving.  We had to get the kids to school (over an hour away), drive back to the TLF and get some of the luggage, drive two hours to the city and drop off the luggage, then drive an hour back to the school, and then back an hour to base.  On the last day we had to leave the TLF on base by 6:30 with every last remaining thing.  That morning when we dropped off the kids, it was pretty ridiculous having the kids get out of the van while climbing over all our food and bags and blankets and junk.  Mike had to meet someone at work before we were allowed to get the keys to the apartment so Felicity and I met up with two ladies in the ward and they took us to the Empirial Palace and showed us how to use the subway system.  After, we met up at the apartment and did the walk through and got the keys.  Our apartment is great.  I never thought we have three big teen boys and two girls and go back to living in an apartment.  It's been 16 years since we lived in an apartment.  We live on the third floor of a small building with just nine apartments.  The elevator is tiny and we can't all fit in so we usually just use the stairs anyway.  When we were looking for apartments we couldn't find much that would fit us and be in the area we were hoping for.  There were more, larger options, further away but we knew we wanted to be somewhat close to work and church so we could walk to both.  For the housing allowance, and from what we were seeing online, we assumed we would only find a place for around 1400 sqft.  This place opened up and we thought we needed to jump on it.  The realtor told us that there were some expats expected to come to Tokyo in the next few weeks and so we needed to make a decision quickly before they came and snatched things up.  He did a virtual walk-through and we told him we would take it.  We met him in the city a week later to look at the apartment and two others, just to make sure, and this was by far the best choice for us.  This apartment has four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms.  It is about 2,000 sqft and has a parking space and a lot of closets for storage.  We also have access to the rooftop area, which isn't huge but is a really nice place to go.  We can see the spire of the temple from our roof, which is really fun.  We didn't have internet for the first nine days of being in the apartment but we felt that was better than staying on base for nine more days and having to drive for so many hours a day.  We were able to get loaner furniture from the base (two tables, some red couches, and beds) and they delivered those the day we moved in so that we could have some beds to sleep on. These photos are all from the first day or first few days after moving into the city.