High Tech Apartment in Japan

Apartment Security 

I have just finished touring an apartment building in Yokosuka. The realtor really impressed the hell out of me with a super-duper high tech apartment. It comes with one parking space and it was on the 12th floor. Yeah... 12th floor, folks. It is very common to find very high apartment buildings in convenient places such as the train station. If you can find a house near a train station with a nice parking spot, good luck. Well, let me tell you about this apartment. When I went to the realtor, Kanako Suto, she introduced me to a couple of places. One was old and one was new. I picked new. It was about 40,000 yen more, so why not? We walked to the apartment building and at the glass entrance, there was a machine and a video camera. Ms. Suto put in two keys and a hydraulic door opened up which led to the elevators. I noticed how small the elevators were. Not very big, but who cares. Ms. Suto pressed the button and took us up to the 12th floor. It brought us up in like 5 seconds. Wow... That was amazingly fast and I didn't feel a thing. I just saw the floors blur for a second when I was looking through the window. The apartment was really nice. We took off our shoes and walked in. The entrance had marble flooring and the hallway and living room was made out of plastic wood. It was very clean and everything was small. The ceiling was high (for Japanese)... it is considered a western style apartment. The air conditioner was a cooler, heater, and dehumidifier all in one. The bedrooms were carpeted and small enough to fit in a queen size mattress. The kitchen was tiny. There isn't any refrigerator or washer and dryer, but there were hookups. There was a switch on the wall where you can set your water out of your faucet at a certain temperature. There was a small balcony with things that fold out so you can hang your clothes out to dry. There was also a heavy bar where you can hand out your futon mattress to dry also! Plenty of closet space. The apartment had an intercom system so you can allow visitors to come and visit you. The system had a small tv screen so you can see who is on the ground floor trying to contact you. The room with the toilet is separate from where you bathe. The toilet had a bunch of buttons on it and a seat warmer. Very high tech. It met my rental ceiling. All for 165,000 yen a month! (not including utilities). It was only 3 minute walk from the gate and a few minutes walk from the train station. It also includes a parking space. I asked to see the parking space.... The parking space is actually a space on a conveyor belt/elevator. Yes, a car ELEVATOR! It reminded me of the giant carasel at California Adventure. The Japanese are so inventive.