A Month Later...

Alright, alright, stop shouting down the back. Yes, I know, this blog has been on an extended vacation, but there are reasons people. Good, valid, unobjectionable house-buying reasons.
At the belated age of 40 (but you'd never think it to look at me), I have become a property owner, in Japan of all places. A country where land prices have been decreasing on average by 3% for the last 18 years and where an ongoing demographic implosion will probably see this devaluation accelerate in the near future.
Who's the savvy real estate expert, then, eh?
Despite being a hairy-chested foreigner, with a temporary three year work visa and extremely sketchy grasp of financial Japanese ('homu-roan'? That's the stupid movie with Maucaulay Culkin, right), I was able to buy a house and the land it rests upon. To think, I now own a little (very little, if truth be told) piece of Japan.
My Japanese wife on the other hand, besides being born and raised in the country and having eaten nothing but wholesome home-grown rice every day, was refused a loan and had to transfer of the deeds of the house to me.
Score one for the gaijin! Yeah, high five foreign people!
Anyway, the upshot was we moved from one rain-lashed, wind-swept part of Muroran to an equally rainy albeit somewhat less wind-swept part of Muroran. This counts as a progressive move in this part of the world.
As we both have full-time jobs, the move was a long, protracted process that pretty much accounted for every spare non-working moment up until yesterday. When we finally got a telephone line installed, and more importantly, broadband access.
So from now on, daily updates, people. A rash promise I know, but hey, that's me, always pushing the envelope, be it in my blogging, surfing or singing the 'ABC' song.