The Ofuna Kannon watches over the city, right across from JR Ofuna Station and 10 minutes from my house.

Tired of the commute and the rent hikes (by then $1,200 per month), I got on the JR Keihin Tohoku Line and rode to its terminus, Ofuna Station. Impressed by the scenery and the huge white statue of the Goddess of Mercy looming over the city area, I began my search there. I went to real estate company after real estate company and had doors slammed in my face. Some agents told me up-front, "We don't work with foreigners." Others stared at me blankly and one herded me out . One agent tried valiantly to sell me to a landlord who wouldn't even leave his living room to meet me in his front yard. "She speaks fluent Japanese and works for a Japanese company. She's been here for a very long time." From inside, the unseen landlord growled, "NO" while his wife wrung her hands and laughed that kind of nervous laugh that Japanese use when they're extremely uncomfortable.

Eventually I met an aggressive agent who found me a place within the week: a private apartment built into the back of a new house in a beautiful neighborhood. I met my two landladies: cultured, kind individuals who offered to lower the initial rent rate so I could afford the key money. They later "adopted" me, acting both as neighbors and surrogate parents. They brought me food when I was sick, offered moral support and language help, and we took frequent vacation trips together. This was by far the best place I'd lived in: paradise by both Japanese standards and my own. The apartment had two 10' x 12' rooms--kitchen downstairs and bedroom upstairs--a small "unit bath" and a closet for a washing machine. I paid $800 a month in rent.

The entrance to my castle

I wouldn't wish the horror of my move on anyone. I thought I'd save money by renting a truck and getting two coworkers to help me drive, load and unload. On a cold, wet day in March, we loaded up the truck and got lost driving across town. At our destination, my coworkers parked the truck in an empty lot across from the alley that led to my place. But they forgot that dirt lots turn to mud lots when rained on. The truck sank into the mud, and we had to call a towtruck to get it out, to the tune of $250. Then we had to drive the truck back across town to drop it off at the lot where we'd rented it, which we finally accomplished at three in the morning. Moral to that story: hire a moving service.

This is the bedroom on the top floor, very Japanese with fresh green tatami on the floor. Nothing beats the smell of new tatami. I hung my laundry on a pole outside that main window.

Since I'd lived in a fully furnished apartment before, I didn't have much by way of appliances. The landladies gave me a phone line and two ancient black rotary phones, which I kept because they were cool. They also had a neighbor friend haul over a TV he no longer wanted--a wood veneered behemoth that heated up the entire kitchen when turned on. After I scrubbed off about 5 years worth of accumulated cigarette tar stains, the ugly thing worked fairly well for at least a year. I bought a tiny refrigerator, a computerized Western-style washing machine and an electric sweeper. For the first two months after the key money and cost of outfitting my new home, I was $2,000 in debt and living off cup ramen, but so what? The scenery was great and the work commute actually shorter than from Bay Avenue.

I lived in that legendary kind of close neighborhood where everyone knows each other and gets along great. Aside from my landladies, the Yagis next door were there to watch out for me. The head of that household was in his 60s, didn't look a day over 50, and extremely active: played baseball, gardened, and hunted wild boar in the mountains. He had a row of boar skulls tacked up on a rack in his garden, and was one of the few Japanese on the island who was registered to own and carry a firearm (a hunting rifle). The Yagis introduced me to their friends the Oharas, who owned a stationery shop down the street. We went for mountain hikes and had barbecues together--they were always amazed at the kinds of Japanese food I was willing to eat. Yagi-san would often drive me to the train station on his way to work.

On Friday nights, I became a regular at "Flower You," a florist shop on the main street with a coffee shop/evening bar tucked away in the back. I always joined in on parties they had during the Bonbori Festival in August. We'd set up a barbecue and tables and a keg of beer in front of the shop, eat and watch the fireworks and lanterns in the river, and when the festival ended, we'd hand out free long-stemmed roses to the people heading home. I loved doing that because it really startled the Japanese to see a smiling foreigner handing out roses for no apparent reason. Some loved it; a few ran away.

Don't ask me how this backstreet neighbor got his SUV in here. He must have climbed out through the sunroof. Most notable is that there are natural gas lines on either side of that car, and if he hits one....

Okamoto, Kamakura-shi

Size: Two 10' x 12 rooms, entryway, unit bath (1DK).

Rent: 80,000 to 85,000 yen per month, utilities not included. 480,000 yen "key money" deposit.

Pros: Convenient to shopping, supermarket, medical clinic. 15-minute walk from the train station. Convenient to both Kamakura and Enoshima. Gorgeous surroundings (hey, we're in Kamakura!). Nice, friendly neighbors. Fresh, new tatami upstairs, hardwood floors everywhere else. Gas oven, range and water heater included. Light fixtures included as well as curtains downstairs and shoji screens upstairs. Ports for natural gas heating. It was more of a miniature house than an apartment and included a garden and an outdoor shed for storage. Wonderful landladies.

Cons: A long haul from Tokyo via crowded express trains. Tiny bathroom with non-traditional tub. The place became a haven for humongous spiders during rainy season. Try explaining to the pizza delivery man that your apartment is in the back of someone's house.