Moving into an apartment

Immediately after arriving in Japan, I began apartment-hunting. I had some ideas of locations and prices through Internet searches, and had focused on the East side of Tokyo (or rather, outside of Tokyo to the East). Rental prices aside, one advantage that a mega-city like Tokyo has is public transportation; we decided to forgo an automobile. Well, we would be too scared to drive on the left side of Tokyo's narrow streets. So our basic conditions for the apartment were, in the order of importance:

a) Pets allowed;
b) A good kitchen;
c) Two or three bedrooms (so friends can come and stay);
d) Within 10 minutes' walk from a nearby station;
e) Within 60-minute commute from my work (not bad for Tokyo);
f) A reheatable bath;
g) Second floor or up.

Little did I know, pet policies are quite strict in the rental market in Japan. Once you have the above a) and b) as conditions, the search returned only a few apartments. Thus I was forced to broaden the area to all Tokyo. Luckily, I found an apartment that met all those above within a few days of search.

I grew up in a large suburban development where all the streets were so planned that a pedestrian's encounters with automobiles were minimum. In the US, the only time I thought walking was impossible was in Los Angeles; or perhaps I would just drive to get to walkable areas. The neighborhood I moved in is entirely different--one has to constantly dodge cars and bicycles. I'm going to have to learn to walk in Tokyo again.