House Hunting and Happy Birthday
Went for a drive this afternoon to go and hunt down a house. Normally in Japan people use a real estate agent to act as a go-between when trying to find accomodation, but we want to live in a rural area and most people in rural areas find accomodation through friends and acquaintances so this is quite a new process for me. We are thinking of Hachimori, Akita, or, Owani in Aomori, or a little further afield in Iwate near Morioka.
Hachimori would be pretty cool as it is on the coast - so not too much snow in winter. And also it backs onto the Shirakami Sanchi. From wikipedia:
The Shirakami-Sanchi was one of the first sites entered on the World Heritage List in Japan, along with Yakushima, Himeji Castle, and the Horyuji area Buddhist monuments in 1993. The Shirakami-Sanchi is usually said to contain large areas of forest not covered by the World Heritage listing. However the level of preservation in these areas is not as high as in the central listed area. The World Heritage Site area has never been opened to human activity or trails other than mountain climbers’ paths, and is planned to be protected in this state.
A very beautiful place with some good tramping.
We found a few houses just by driving around and now we have to track down the owners and see if they would be up to having us live there. Being a foreigner shouldn’t be too much of a problem (like it might be somewhere snotty like Kyoto) - the main worry about having a foreign tenant for a Japanese landlord is the question of communication. So if one can speak some Japanese then it is much easier to find a place to live here.
On a completely separate note, today is my Mum’s birthday. So all the best and happy birthday Mum. Happy 345967884568974859678745 years old!
Just kidding - I don’t think she is quite that old yet 
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