I can't comment on Tokyo, but I can speak a little about Fukuoka, the city I live in. I live on lots of vegetables which are mostly locally grown, truly fresh, and pretty darn cheap when in season (daikon for instance usually costs a little over $1 for a huge root; shitake about $1 for 6-7 nice shrooms; all kinds of greens, my favorite being mizuna and horenzo (spinach); and on and on!). Fruit are excellent in quality but tend to be expensive. When in season they can be reasonably priced, even the melons. Fish is generally very cheap, fresh, and the variety will blow your mind! All meat is pretty expensive except chicken and pork. Japanese tastes favor very fatty cuts, so if you like lean meat your in luck since it is the cheapest! Rice is expensive but variable in cost and quality. Noodles of every shape, size, composition are everywhere with ramen and udon being the kings, followed closely by soba (buckwheat noodles). Even prepared noodle dishes tend to be cheap, in the $5 range. And I could go on. If you stay put in an area you'll lean the good deals. The funny thing is that today McDonalds is one of the cheapest choices on the street and many young people are eating the stuff, god bless them. In general the Japanese people still eat a much better diet than Americans, and the portions they eat are far less. It will be interesting to see if radical change will come with the young generation and its exposure to western fast food. I hope not! PF

We had the choice between two condos, one was flipped-reno'd, the other hadn't been touched in 20 years. Neither were interior condos but they faced the sun slightly differently. The flipped condo had lots of mirrors installed everywhere. It never occurred to me they were manipulating the light on purpose, but now that I think about it, perhaps so. I can say the mirrors were off-setting to me because it did seem like old-style, even if it'd just been renovated. We went with the never-renovated unit that had the problem of so much light, the circa 80s yellow walls and yellow oak floor made the place seem on fire every afternoon.. unbearably too much sunlight. I guess you pick your battles! Since you have yet to buy this condo, my advice it to see if you can go over there and spend a long chunk of time, to see how the sun affects the place as it moves over the hours during the day.

We cook in so my kitchen is a big deal. In the past I lived in a somewhat similar kitchen as your second one (that had corners and not doors). The stove and fridge were in about the same location. The sink was much closer to the stove. The middle had an island. at the end of that island was a pedestal and rounded counter and so no issues bumping posts. What happened is that we ended up cooking mostly at the island in front of the stove. In that kitchen I wished the garbage was on the island area (I tend to throw stuff in it as I am working) versus me turning around. I disliked traveling around the corner of the island to get to the fridge (bump hips alot). It also had 42" walkways. They just felt too tight for more than one cook/person. The mini fridge was also toward dining. Loved that drink fridge over there as people would then NOT come into the workspace. BUT then 42... there was no way to pass the normal refrigerator doors when open. once people choose to sit in the stools in the walkway - it was hard too. Hard to open the mini fridge door and not bump the stools. Hard to pass in back of - most would turn sideways. I would move the mini closer to the dining area at least. In my present kitchen I have 44 in front of the stove and 48 in front of the dishwasher. The 44 is too tight to cross comfortably in front of when the door is open. The 48 at dishwasher is much better.

To expand on that, goulash is an ancient dish (i.e., soupy stew--some people call it soup, some call it stew, some say it's neither) that predates the availability of both tomatoes and red peppers (paprika) in Europe. It knows no political boundaries and can be found "native" all over middle Europe. At some point post Columbus, paprika became the renowned seasoning of Hungary (though considering the movement of borders in the region between then and now, saying exactly where that was, beyond Budapest, is beyond absolutes). I'm not sure I remember right, but I think German goulash (as in what has been made by home cooks there, popularly, in the last 50-100 years), is more beef saucy, and Hungarian is more red (paprika and tomato?). But that probably drifts family by family. When my father called leftovers stew "goulash" however, we knew it was a joke and not really goulash. :)