Konami Building on fire in Japan

I was lol'ing when I saw that article on Kotaku. Living right next to there, it's just the steam from the residences.

 

Were you surprised though?

EDIT: I didn't know Midtown had residences.

 

Nah, you can see the steam all of the time.

The Midtown residences are on the side behind Orange etc. The Oakwood furnished apartments on the other side close to my place. The Ritz residence is in the back part near the open green area.

 

what the hell is a residence? I know the word as meaning place to live and so on but don't see how that releates to making steam.

 

I blame the Kojima picture in this thread for my impulse purchase of MGS HD collection today.

 

I blame Kojima for the fact that yesterday at a fleamarket I scored a CIB PC big box version of MGS for one euro! :crying:

 

woah
Shou lives in a cool place

I thought Shinjuku was cool but that area must be great too

 

lol. Great photo...

 

A big bowl of Noodles haha

 

Cooking? Laundry? Showers? Generally these would occur far more in a residence than a office. Just my guess.

 

That's just the term we use for office/shopping complexes that have living areas as well. Like Roppongi Hills Residences, Oakwood Residences, pretty sure these are the official names as well. They generally have full service front desks, on-site gym (some with pools even), foreign made appliances such as washer/dryers built into every unit, etc.

 

oh right, I get you. So you're saying that on top of the office there's like company dormitories or something?

 

In this case, the Midtown Residences are in a separate building right next to the Konami office building.

The Ritz Carlton residences are on top of the office building I believe. The Oakwood residences are on top of the mall.

 

x

 

Most new buildings I've seen in Tokyo have at least a few floors of residences. There's a new counter-part to Ark Hills (which has been around since the 80's) and has 5 floors of residence.... I believe all empty. Roppongi Hills & Midtown happen to have some in their old buildings. They are definitely not office dormitories. Quite the opposite really -- they are high end housing.

 

Sort of like an American Studio Apartment then i guess. I'm not surprised many are empty. They probably cost way too much money.

 

You're probably thinking of a loft.

Like GP said, these places are high end and designed for expats on packages or higher level workers.

When I lived in Roppongi Hills, the rent for the cheapest unit type in the residence was 550,000/month for a 90 sq m place (luckily, my wife was an expat and her work paid for it). For Oakwood in Midtown, I had several staff in there for awhile and the 1LDK unit was ~720,000/month and that was at a discount. Heard the Midtown residence is something like 1,000,000/month but never been there. I have a few high level co-workers in the Ritz residence which is around that.

 

550,000yen per month for the cheapest!! Shit, I know Tokyo is expensive but WOW! I own my own house with 3 bed rooms, 2 bathrooms, living, kitchen, dinning, tatami and wash room and that only cost me 67'000 yen a month in morgage payments.

What is the avarage wage for an expat who's not a teacher in Tokyo?

Yakumo

 

Wow, Can I work for you?

 

You gotta remember Roppongi Hills is a celeb status place. Our neighbors were people like Darvish (baseball player), Mokomichi (actor/model) and artists so it's more expensive than comparable housing not in a trendy area.

Interest rates in this country are practically nothing though. As a local, you can easily get 1% and gaijin are around 2% + variable so buying is definitely the way to go if you plan to be here for awhile!

I think pay depends upon your industry. People involved in finance (investment banks, law, related infrastructure like IT) will be paid higher than someone in pure engineering for places even like Google. Having an expat package means that the company is paying for your living (rent, utilities, local taxes, everything). Those people are generally on their salary from back home and come from well educated backgrounds (advanced degrees from Ivy League schools and are in top companies). These packages are quite rare these days as the economy is performing poorly and more and more people pull out of Japan. You've got to be pretty special to get one of those packages.

I'd say for a mid level person, 8-12m a year in Tokyo isn't too far off from being average in the financial industry.