Warm feeling of home
Zalina Mohd Som’s comfy rental apartment in Shinjuku, Tokyo makes up for the lack of nearby tourist attractions
WHILE I’m looking forward to check into my HomeAway rental home (#302, 2 debroom, 6min Shinjuku St.,Wifi) in Shinjuku, Tokyo, I do have a tiny reservation — unlocking the door!
The elaborate instructions on how to unlock the front door, which was sent to me once I confirmed my booking, gives me more worry than comfort.
According to the instruction, I need to press the password that is made of a Kanji character and four numbers. But the next sentence that reads “if error, please press .... ” sends chills to my bones.
I remember how difficult it was for me to get into my rented unit during my stay in Ginza last year. I spent almost half an hour trying to open the door. In the end, I got a neighbour to help me open the door. The lock was so different to what I’m used to.
“But this time I’m not alone. I am sure one of the girls has magic fingers,” I comfort myself.
And yes, one of my travel buddies manages to open the front door of the apartment building in two tries, of course only after I tried a few times.
OUR JAPANEsE HOME
We walk into our two-bedroom apartment with bated breath. Our apartment has a warm homely ambience, thanks to the wood flooring, warm lighting and earth colour theme.
Flanked by two bedrooms and a bathroom on one side and two separate toilets on the other, the hallway leads to a three-in-one open space with a kitchen, dining area and living room in one row, before it ends with sliding doors that open to a balcony.
The kitchen is equipped with a cabinet, hot plate stove, sink, utensils, fridge and microwave oven. The dining area has a table that seats five people while the living area has a two-seater sofa bed.
Like the living area, the rooms are also minimalist in design. There are double beds, two-seater sofa beds, cloth racks and television units. With three double beds and three sofa beds, the apartment can fit nine guests at a time. It is more than spacious for the five of us.
Since the rental is for a big group, it is nice to have two separate toilets and a bathroom with a shower and a bathtub. There’s a huge washing machine that answers our need to do the laundry immediately.
We delegate the tasks of preparing dinner and doing the laundry.
But it is not easy doing the laundry as the buttons are labelled with Kanji characters. Again, we face a stumbling block. Not wanting to spoil the new-looking machine, we search the Net on how to use it.
No help, so we contact a friend in Malaysia who can read Japanese but the light reflection on our picture of the buttons gives a blurry vision.
But Angela, our host, finally replies with a graphic message. Putting two and two together, we finally figure it out just before dinner is ready.
Nevertheless, the stumbling blocks — the front door and the washing machine — are too small to mess up our vision of a lovely Japanese home.
And we look forward to that warm feeling of home at the end of the day for the next few days we’re in Tokyo.