During the last summer, I had the opportunity to stay in one of the Come on UP share houses – Yaguchi no Watashi share house. It’s located in a peaceful area with a bathhouse located right across the street. Within a mile you’ll find the Walmart of Japan – Seiyu, a few convenient stores such as Lawson, 7-eleven and Family Mart. There are also many restaurants nearby, which are definitely worth trying with your friends if you have some time to spend.

The house itself is a very modern Japanese house. Its kitchen is fully loaded, so you can show off your culinary skill to your housemates. It also boasts one of the largest living room area amongst all of the other share houses. This is the place where I used to share my food with the other housemates while we chatted over cans of beer.

When I first moved in, everyone seemed to be very busy. No one really used the kitchen except me. They also didn’t talk much, except for Mr. A. (I’m not going to disclose their names but if you get to move into the same share house, check them out will ya?) Mr.A barely speaks English, so most of the time you’d be seeing two people communicating with each other using Google Translate on their phones. Funny, but language barrier was never an issue for us.

There was another resident, Mr. B, who came from Sheffield, a city in the UK which I had been to just a month ago. Let me tell you a secret: I have never failed in icebreaking by starting my conversation about awful British food. Trust me, it’s useful 99% of the time. That 1% comes from Gordon Ramsay’s supporters.

Mr. C always came home late and you could always find him sitting in front of the TV at around 10pm. He wasn’t a very friendly person, or at least I thought he wasn’t. There was a time when I cooked too much fried rice and I offered him some of it, while he gave me a can of beer in return. I actually felt bad for offering him the fried rice, as I added too much cooking oil in it. (Pardon me, but even the best cook in the world makes mistakes.)

There was a Russian lady, Mrs. C, whom I didn’t really talk a lot with. But she used to have another friend staying in our house for a short while. I talked to that friend of hers for a little bit, and she is a reporter on figure skating. She told me she was dating someone from one of the most prominent rock bands in Japan. “This is just between you and me,” she said. Okay, this is now between you and me, do you get me?

Living in a share house is always a fun experience. You get to hear a lot about the others’ stories and life experiences. Yaguchi no Watashi is a very quiet and pleasant place to stay, although it’s a little bit of distance from the Shinjuku and Shibuya areas

-Abel Tie