New digs

Baby room
Originally uploaded by kuckibaboo.

That’s right. We’ve moved. I’ve been so busy dealing with the reality of it that I haven’t had the time to mention it previously. So here are the details.

Our previous apartment though quaint as it was simply was just too small especially for the amount of money we paid for it every month. So Sean mentioned to his office that we would like to check into the “possibility” of moving (our housing is supplied by his office but we pay for it). That was on Thursday, March 30th. When Sean showed up for work on the following Monday his supervisor had a list of available housing all over the city and had already called our landlady (whom we lovingly refer to as the “Dragon lady”) to tell her of our intention to move. I can’t express how fast this reaction time is for any kind of request done thru a workplace office in Japan. Especially since Sean works for a prefectural (similar to provincial) government office. Record setting indeed. The most promising apartment was is West Obihiro in a Government of Hokkaido Employee Housing Complex. Built in 1987 is was a good twenty years younger than our apartment at the time, with 3 bedrooms, 83 square meters of space instead of 43 and it was better than half of what we were paying. The only thing was we couldn’t view it. Just doesn’t happen with that kind of housing here. So we crossed our fingers and took the plunge. By Friday our moving day was set for Saturday, April 22nd (11 days before the babies due date!). Wow!

We had a great group of friends help us move and everything was moved to our new place in 2 hours and 15 minutes. By the end of the day on Sunday Sean and I had unpacked half of the boxes and we were well on our way to being settled.

Now we’re at the point where just the sight of cardboard makes us cringe. We only have the spare room to finish and I think that can get done in a day. The best part is indeed the fact that we have a room dedicated entirely to our baby on the way. We went out and bought a crib on Saturday and it was the first room to be completed. Nothing throws a pregnant woman’s nesting instincts into overdrive like a baby room full of boxes less than 2 weeks before her due date!

I’ll post more photos of the rest of the place soon.