Apartment rental, part 2: "Access Denied"

Well, yesterday I got some jarring news... It seems my apartment rental application was rejected. They called up Akio (whose number I left as a contact) and told him that my application was denied and have a nice day, and when asked why they said they couldn't say. Well, this was somewhat unexpected, and indeed when I emailed Dr. Kazama about it he was a little bit outraged. After all, with him acting as a guarantor, the rejection of the application was almost like a rejecting of him. I decided to go back to the fudoyasan and find out what the heck happened the next day, but since that put me back at square one on finding apartments, I went back to my previous list to start again.

However, I also called up JISTEC to ask for advice on the situation. JISTEC is the government contracted organization that basically deals with foreign post docs like me and is designed both to pay me, and to be there for advise and counseling. So, taking advantage of that, I called them up and asked them for advice. Not too surprisingly, they basically said to give up on that place and advised me to try a new apartment rental service catering to foreigners called "transborders". A bit wary of such an obviously gaijin oriented site (they tended to be crappy or way overpriced), I emailed them anyway and got a call back in about an hour. It turns out these are a couple of very nice people just out of graduate business school from UVA, and they immediately found me 3 apartments that were almost what I wanted.

Ironically enough, 1 of them was the apartment I had already been rejected from. This piece of info is important for later in the story, so don't forget it.

So, after work, I met up with a very young (maybe college age?) american girl/woman who happily showed me around to the 2 apartments. The first one was huge and cheap, but also in a building that was built in 1971 and had fixtures to show for it. I like Japanese baths fine, but the kinds where you heat the water AFTER its in the tub are not for me, thank you. Plus it came with gas pipes instead of a gas stove. And it was right next to a large road and gas station. So, no thanks.
The next one she showed me was excellent, however. This one we needed the owner to show up with a key, and it was in a lovely little neighborhood right in front of the gates to Toudai, i.e. just as convenient as "the apartment that wasn't to be". Looking inside, it was clear this was a nice place, with stone walls and a radio controlled front gate. Plus it has a coin laundry inside so I don't need to buy a washing machine right away (or maybe even ever, although I think that might be foolish). The owner was clearly a nice guy and he understood me well enough. The girl from transborders spoke about as much japanese as me, so it was kind of a joint affair. Anyway, the amenities were very similar to the other apartment I liked, the location was even better, and the size/price was about the same. It was a bit cheaper, actually, but it doesn't include free internet, so it ends up evening out. In any case, I hesitated applying for it right then only because I had already planned to meet up with Akio on Saturday (the next day) to ascertain what the heck went wrong with the first application (so that hopefully I don't make the same mistake again, assuming it was actually because I made a mistake). So I thanked everybody, told them I'd call back the next day with an answer, and fell asleep somewhat reassured that I still had a good place to rent even if the other one had no recourse.