Lauralyn and I have been looking at some Gaijin Houses online, and the reviews from various sources are mixed. Some say they are great ways to meet new friends and save money, while others say they are dirty and full of scary foreigners. One thing is for sure though - they are SMALL! Looking online it seems like you can get a room in a house, complete with a cute charinko for less than US $700 / month. Unfortunately, that room is likely to be less than 100 sq ft!
I don't think it will be a problem for us, although that wasn't always the case. Before she met me, and indeed before I met her, we had tons of crap. I had a cushy office job making some good money, and so I spent it frivolously, and Lauralyn, being a seamstress and fashionista had multiple closets full of clothing. After reading Walden about two years ago, which kicked off an integration of simple living into my life, I quickly started downsizing, and I haven't stopped. Right now we have all of our things in our little 150 sq ft room in a 2-bedroom apartment in Portland, OR, complete with folding tables, folding couch and Lauralyn's hand-sewn futon, which we roll-up during the day and then fold out at night to sleep on.
As an electronic music producer and dj, fighting off gearlust is difficult to say the least but with a studio/sewing room/bedroom occupying the same 150 sq ft, I think I'm doing ok. I've been selling off hardware and this week I'm finally putting up my turntables and mixer for sale and going all digital. Combining free software (open source and pirated), its possible to have a pretty dope setup with a minimum of hardware. I hope to be bringing along my handmade Monome and using that for DJing. It's hard to say that hooking up laptops, setting up music and building alternative instruments has much to do with Thoreau's ideas of simple living so I'll title this Living Minimally and talk more about this another day. Time to get some groceries!
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