Tokyo Living in Temporary Housing

We have been living in Tokyo for 24 days and not settled into our permanent apartment. Living life in temporary housing. Our first stint was in a hotel, we enjoyed it which felt like a vacation not a move, then we got into our service apartment which feels more like home. We receive our keys to our apartment next Friday and cannot wait!!!

Beautiful Oakwood Shinagawa- temporary stay. We were on the 31st floor and had gorgeous views.

One of the first things we did when we moved into our apartment was go to a local grocery store. In Tokyo, there are many small Japanese grocery stores. The local Japanese foods were really inexpensive, like tofu, fresh fish, local veggies, freshly made gyoza to fry at home, etc. However by the time we got into our apartment we missed American style foods. One of our first meals we all craved was Spaghetti. Pasta and sauce was expensive and smaller portions, but it was fantastic!

One of the best things about Japanese kitchens are the Fish Griller! Since local people eat a lot of fish, kitchens have fish grillers and no ovens. I quickly learned that when you buy salmon, they indicate in Kanji whether it was salted, lightly salted or not salted. We learned by tasting the salmon. We have been enjoying the Fish Griller.

Love this built in fish griller. It can grille more than fish. We used it for kabobs and grilling.

Our view from our service apartment- the tall building was the hotel we stayed at, the Shinagawa Prince Hotel. Since we lived in Shinagawa for the first month, both in a hotel and the temporary housing, we enjoyed exploring around the Shinagawa area. Shinagawa is definitely a business area with a lot of “salary men” coming to work. The Shinagawa Station was always so busy.

View from the Oakwood Shinagawa, our temporary place. We loved the nightly views.