It is now autumn of 2024 and my younger son has just bought condo, not far from our place. Turn the clock back twenty years, almost to the day, and my wife and I also made a real estate acquisition, the house where we now live.

The Japan Times column below is the story of that purchase.
Some notes:
For the Japan novice, “Kanto” is the name for the vast plain of land where Tokyo is located.
But not just Tokyo. Tokyo is surrounded by various other populous prefectures –- equivalent to “states” or "provinces" –- which include Kanagawa, Chiba, Ibaraki, Gunma and Tochigi.
Plus, sitting on the very top of Tokyo sort of like a cap, is the prefecture where my wife and I now reside – Saitama.
The borders between these are indistinguishable, so it is difficult to know where one prefecture ends and the next begins. It would seem like endless urban sprawl, except, the farther one travels from central Tokyo, the more and more rural things become. Yet…
Not for us. Our house in Saitama is sandwiched into the border with Tokyo, meaning ours could be a cardboard-cut fit for almost any city residence on the Kanto Plain.
The column features two grind-your-teeth type jokes. Both are noteworthy.
First is the grass joke, which plays with a mild vulgarity. When I first presented this to The Japan Times, my editor balked. Not that he felt it crude. He just didn’t get it. He was a native English speaker too (and a fine editor as well). I had to email and explain what it meant.
So… how about you? Get it? Read below and see.
Next is the “bathtub” joke, which I first heard from my older sister, who was then adept at doing what older siblings do. She tormented me.
“Thomas Noah Wood” is my pen name, but my true moniker is “Thomas Duane Dillon.”
Note that my “Duane” has no “W,” but in the column I changed the letters to make the spelling more joke-friendly.
Our now long-departed dog, Tofu, is somewhat featured here and will certainly show up in columns to come.
Last, “gaijin” means “foreigner” and “mikan” is the Japanese term for “tangerine,” a tasty fruit that is also the perfect size for throwing.
Home, Home on the (Kanto) Range
Mar 12, 2005
For years I took my dog on walks into Saitama Prefecture so she could go pee, among other things. Now I have found similar use for Saitama myself.
For I have moved there. You see, we used to live within Tokyo limits in a rental property barely a mikan toss from the Saitama border. But all that changed late last year when…
We bought a house.
Yep, after a quarter of a century in Japan, I am at last tied to one locale.
I have put down roots, dropped my anchor, pitched my tent, hitched my pony, cooled my jets and shelved my thesaurus. After 25 nomadic years, my wife and I are finally off the fence and have committed to one side of the ocean. We own a house!
Or at least we co-own it with the bank. As to why now and not years before, the answer lies at the end of a complicated mental equation that calculates various subtle factors such as: a small inheritance, falling land prices and our dog's affection for Saitama.
The house itself is typically Japanese. Meaning it is tightly enclosed by other homes and is essentially small. How small?
Well, we have to sleep standing up. And the kitchen drawers are so tiny that we have to store chopsticks separately. Floor plans show that we own a spacious second story, but unless we lose some weight, we will never be svelte enough to slip up the narrow staircase to see. Meanwhile, I must refrain from putting nails in the walls for fear of harming the neighbors.
But we do have a yard. While it does not exactly fetch images of Mao's 6,000-mile trek, it is still functional. Especially if we define "function" somewhat liberally.
For example, it is not the kind of yard that my sons and I could toss a football about. In fact, we couldn't even quite hand it back and forth. We would instead have to share holding it in close quarters. But that’s okay. Football is a contact sport, right?
In this yard, we also have some grass. It’s not much -- just a square plot of earth -- but I’m proud of it. For in all this world, I find no grass to be greener, no grass to smell sweeter and no grass to be so soft and inviting. For this grass is mine!
I feel so fond of this grass that -- especially in our first week in the new house while my hardworking wife strove to unpack our multitude of boxes -- I found it ever so pleasant just to go sit there and ponder and re-ponder the blissful meaning of life.
Until she would yell…
"Get off your grass and come help me!"
Despite its wee size, our Saitama castle did not come cheaply. What does in Japan? While I will refrain from stating the price, I will say I have heard the same amount could have purchased an entire fleet of islands in the South Pacific. Which I would have bought instead, had the bank floated me that loan. Yet, they would only go as far as the house.
This was the first loan I had ever taken in Japan, and I entered upon doing so with trepidation. For experience has taught me well that one should never give a Japanese clerk an opportunity for more paperwork.
That's sort of like showing a vampire a scratch on your neck. I feared the feeding frenzy it would cause. A fear that turned out well-founded.
I endured checks, double checks, triplicate forms and quadruplicate frustrations -- much of it made worse by the fact that I was a foreigner. My convoluted financial history and my confounded "gaijin" name made the bureaucrats at the bank turn cartwheels of aggravation or joy -- I could not tell which.
Here is a brief excerpt of one conversation at the bank. I warn you: It’s not pretty.
My loan officer had just discovered that I had a middle name. This made doing each of the 88 zillion forms all over again. If not -- in all likelihood -- the world would end. He grinned at me over clenched teeth and bloodless lips.
"So… " He cleared his throat. "What IS your middle name?"
I blinked, then spoke. "It's Dwayne."
All movement stopped. Other clerks in the bank froze in their spots. With trembling hands, my loan officer picked up his phone and punched the number of the bank president.
"Sir, there's a foreigner here with the middle name of Dwayne."
In a moment, the bespectacled president stood before me. The roomful of bankers all leaned far forward to listen, with the suspense alone enough to support them.
"Mr. Dillon," the president began, "is your middle name really and truly 'Dwayne?' "
"Yes, it is."
"Do you mean as in… 'Dwayne the bathtub, I'm dwowning?'"
And then the bank erupted in riotous laughter and the president and loan officer exchanged high fives.
Yet -- for the sake of our new house -- I endured even that bad joke. Until at long last -- after weeks of finger cramps from filling out forms -- the house was totally ours!
Or rather will be in the year 2865 when I finish paying the loan.
But who cares? My wife and I are landowners and are now obsessed with taking care of our new Saitama property. To start, I now always walk my dog back into Tokyo to go pee, among other things. For though our address now reads "Saitama," the boundary with Tokyo is just down the block.
Yet, you, dear readers, are all invited to come pee, among other things, right at our very house.
Just keep in mind that the house is small. You can only come in one at a time.
© Thomas Noah Wood
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