Todd:Do you have a good apartment in Japan?

Ivan:Uh, I got one now. Yeah. It's a 2DK, 2DK.

Todd:Yeah, what does 2DK mean?

Ivan:Ah, it's smaller than the 2LDK, uh; it's got a kitchen and two rooms.

Todd:Oh, really.

Ivan:Yeah. 2LDK! Maybe that! It's like living room, dining room, kitchen, all in one.

Todd:I don't know. So anyway, what's it like?

Ivan:It's better than my old place. I used to live in what's called a "gaijin house" which is just a shared apartment. I had a 6 mat room, and a shared bathroom. Ah, not I have two 8 mat rooms, and my own bathroom, and a kitchen with 4 burners, instead of 2, uh, yeah!

Todd:Oh, wow, so you're in your new place now?

Ivan:Yeah, I'm in my new place now. Actually, the old place was owned by a company, they owned the land, and this really, really, awful woman owned the building, so I rented a room from the woman. I woke up one morning and the manager was putting stuff in, was putting flyers in people's mailboxes. I took a look at the flyer. The flyer was saying that the company was going to destroy the building within a month period, so they were warning us to get out. Well, the manager was busy taking these flyers, so that the people inside the apartment wouldn't see it and move out. She wanted to get one more month of rent from us. So I took my flyer and I went down to the company that owned the land and said, "Where can I live now? You're making us leave in a month." He said, “Oh, I feel really bad about what you told me happened, so he gave me this 2DK, which is normally 120,000 a month for 60,000 with no key money and no deposit

Todd:Wow! That's nice.

Ivan:Yeah, I got lucky.