Second house in Chiba
In 2019, my husband and I decided to have our second house at a place of 1.5 to 2-hour driving distance by from our home in Tokyo. Both of us love beautiful beaches, but our home in Tokyo is located far from the sea, so our priority for the second house was a house or a condominium which is located by the sea. Our options were Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Chiba, and Ibaragi prefectures and we really enjoyed finding the candidates houses and condominiums before we chose the one we bought. We discussed a lot about what is the ideal second house like, or what is our ideal weekend in the second house like. Finally, we decided to have a 35-year-old second-hand condominium in Chiba, located by a beach. The condo has an in-house hot spring, and the residents have free access to the hot spring. The type of the spring is so called “Kuroyu”, the color is black, and it is a kind of thick as a feel of skin, and good for moisturizing our skin. The condo is just as an usual other condo, not a fancy one, but both of us feel something special when we spend our time in the condo.
Fresh Fish, Vegetables, Various Ingredients
As is often said that, there are nothing which cannot buy in Tokyo. It is very true because I can buy whatever in Tokyo, probably. But I really think that the freshness of fish, or vegetables is far better in Chiba than in Tokyo, because vegetables sold in Tokyo mostly come from the neighbor prefectures like Chiba, Kanagawa, and so on. In a place like Chiba, they produce and consume in the same place. To bring vegetables to Tokyo, it takes some time and during the moving, the freshness is lost little by little. And also it costs and it affects the price. Unconsciously, we buy less fresh foods with higher prices in Tokyo.
We often meet unfamiliar vegetables in a market. They are small in quantity, so it is rare to find them in Tokyo. In the market they sell them with telling how to cook them, so I can try even though I don’t know how to cook and eat before. I enjoy such an encounter.
Yes, it is affordable!
The second house, delicious foods, when we talk about such kind of topics, usually people think that they cost a lot of money. But as long as my experience, in Japan, still I can say that it is affordable. I am not a rich person, and neither is my husband. We are just an usual DINKS couple of middle age. I think that in other countries, the price of goods are more expensive than that of Japan. Before, I thought the prices in Japan is higher than other countries, but it was wrong. Now things are cheaper in Japan. I am really happy to live in Japan.