Friday, September 21, 2012

About bills and living space

I'm waiting for my camera charger to come in, so I'll add pictures later when it does.

Room:
-Single apartment. 1 room, 1 full bath
-Furnished (some apartments more so than others depending on what previous students left there)
-Washing machine/dryer hybrid in the room
-5 minute walk from the school

Bills:
-Rent: 12000 yen/month
-Gas: Did some number crunching. We get a flat charge for gas that's just about 2,000 yen. Each m^3 of gas is about 790 yen. A 10 minute shower cost about 160 yen in the sense of gas. Rough estimates but relatively close.
-Water: About 5,000 yen/2 months. You will always pay the same price unless you go over your water budget, which is pretty much impossible.
-Electric: About 1,500 yen/month
-Health insurance 2,000 yen/month. This is an estimate for now as we didn't sign up for it yet.
-Phone bill 1,200 yen/month. This is for the most basic plan. The phone was free.
-Internet : 840 yen/month for the best internet plan we could get.

There is no WIFI at the apartments, so 2 of us decided to get internet and split the bill 420 yen each. The school is signing us up with health insurance. Don says it's easier this way. We believe it's about $20/month but I'll update that for sure later. Electric and gas/water as you probably assumed depends from person to person. The gas company representative told us that in the winter time, students have had bills of about $300/month because they would constantly leave the room heater on. In the end it all depends on how careful you are. Also, BRING LOTS OF MONEY when you come here. It takes a while for the stipend to kick in so you'll be without money for a while. We are unsure of when we will get our first stipend. I brought about $1700 and after 3 days I'm down to about $1500 (I bought pots and pans and groceries and stuff), so I think I'm pretty set. One of the other students on the other hand came with only about $100 and now has no money until who knows when. Also, try and find a way to get in contact with the students who are currently here before you come up. They can tell you what exactly is in the apartment, what they are willing to donate/sell to you and what you may need to bring yourself so you can decide if you wanna bring stuff from home or try and buy it out here.

Also, US plugs will fit in the outlets here if they are 2 prong. 3 prongs wont fit and you will need to buy an adapter. Try to buy an adapter for your 3 prong plugs before you come here as I've found them a bit difficult to find up here.

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