The daily grind
Step by step. One foot in front of the other. Over and over and over again. Every day until the end.
We are here.
Getting an apartment as a gaijin is a bit trickier than I expected. Barring the language, there are so many little details to consider. If you are ever interested in moving to Tokyo, here are a few key pieces of advice you’ll need to have under your belt:
1. Speak Japanese.
2. Don’t have a cat.
3. Shrink yourself.
And when I say “little” I mean you’ll have to get used to the idea of small spaces.
My apartment in Shanghai was fairly sizeable. I got used to a three bedroom, two bathroom apartment overlooking Xujiahui. I was paying around $2000 for about 170 sq/m, and yeah that was a deal. For almost the same amount of money, we’re tucking into a 47 sq/m box. And that’s pretty reasonable.
There are plenty of nice, small places to be had, for sure. But when you say you have a cat in tow, your options become severely limited.
Basically, the landscape looks like this:
It's also tough to find a good place in Tokyo now because so many people move this time of year. In Japan, April is the end of the fiscal year, so people find out a) they have a new job because of a re-org b) they have a better job because they got a promotion or c) they have no job. So there’s movement.
Luckily, Ann and I landed in Shimokitazawa, a super cool neighborhood just 15 minutes from Shibuya. It’s full of awesome. Even among the sea of cool places to live in Tokyo, Shimo is quite unique: it has a village vibe with an almost painful hipster sheen, but it’s actually a lot less pretentious than it seems. It’s pretty real. (Ok fine, Bear Pond Espresso is painfully hip. But it’s because they care, man.)
The view from our place is spectacular:
The neighborhood is awesome:
There’s so much more to explore and to share, but we are quite happy to finally be here.
Magical candy
Japan is magical.
I've only been here for a month now, and I'm still trying to find the words to describe what it's like to be here. Magical fits.
Magical means "beautiful or delightful in a way that seems removed from everyday life."
Magical is also unexplainable, incomprehensible and baffling.
This video captures the blur of just some what we've seen here and what lies ahead. There are so many nooks and crannies of weirdness all over the place, and I can't wait to get lost in it. And the best part is, the weirdness is normal.
When I moved to Shanghai in 2008 I was so overwhelmed. As in, "OH SHIT I KNOW NOTHING" overwhelmed.
Now in Tokyo, after seven years in China, I'm in "Well shit I know nothing" mode. I'm not overwhelmed. I'm a lot more curious and generally OK with rolling with the unknown of everything here, because this place is so desirable. Everyday life seems removed from everyday life.
I feel like a kid in a candy store. An ADD-addled, sugar-starved, overstimulated kid in the most endless alien candy store in the world.