News from the Gaijin Ghetto

Backtrack: Temp Housing in Azabu Towers

[Note: These backtrack posts are things I jotted down sometime around the week that we arrived in Tokyo. I had limited access to the internet at the time and therefore these are the posts I meant to write back then, probably with a few embellishments. I'll demark the Backtrack posts with a Green title, for your convenience.]

When we moved to Tokyo on a "package" provided by "the Man," part of the deal was that we would have temporary furnished housing upon our arrival that would allow us to set ourselves up in the new locale. Needless to say, we didn't get "set-up" in the time allotted; Joni went straight to work and I was being run ragged with the kids, so the furniture buying didn't happen quite as we had hoped. Nevertheless, "the Man" actually did right by us here, providing us with housing in one of the more desirable properties in Tokyo -- the Mansions at Azabu Towers. (The term "Mansion" here being used in the Japanese sense to mean any reasonably large Western-style apartment building. We currently reside in a mansion of slightly over 2000 square feet, which might be labelled "cottage" back in Connecticut.)

We lived for a week or so on the eighth floor of this place, and right off the bat, I have to admit that my third favourite place in Tokyo so far has to be the Azabu Towers living room panorama of Central Tokyo at night. Azabu Towers sits on a hilltop with a quiet, residential area below, so the view is significantly better than the eighth floor would otherwise suggest. From our window, we could see an array of Tokyo's more interesting and beautifully lit skyscrapers. More interestingly, the Shuto Expressway -- one of Tokyo's major arteries -- runs as a double-decker freeway, which is in turn elevated above Roppongi-dori, one of Tokyo's smarter avenues.

From the eighth floor of Azabu Towers, watching the serpentine traffic slithering along the expressway in both directions, with the hustle and bustle of the local traffic on the ground level below, I felt as though I was observing an ant farm, Ridley Scott movie or the San Fernando Valley coming off the 405 at night. A very cool start.

The other interesting feature about Azabu Towers was the neighbourhood. The block consisted of three properties: Azabu Towers, which I've already described, the Tokyo American Club -- a snooty little perk that some US companys give their Tokyo expats that lies somewhere at the junction of country club and lonely hearts bar. The third and biggest resident on the block is the Russian Embassy compound in its full Stalinist grandeur. What odd bedfellows the TAC and Russian Embassy must have been during the Cold War. I'm sure there are plenty of great stories there…something I'll have to dig into.

BTW, during our stay, there were always no less than a brigade of Japanese police in full riot gear (the Japanese police busses, no lie, had windows covered with wire mesh).

I asked an officer if there was some unusual risk that warranted the heavy police presence. He looked at me baffled and said in earnest halting English, "No, Russian Embassy." I suppose the Japanese would rather bear the expense of extremely high security costs rather than face the potential embarrassment of having somebody harm the Russians on Japanese soil.