Hey my name’s Adam and I moved to Japan about 1 year ago now, well 10 months I guess. I’m from the US of A and am 25 years old. I’m currently working as a Software Developer at a haken-gaisha (dispatch company) and spend my time exploring Tokyo, studying languages (if I ever make the time), and working on a video game I am currently making. Well, here’s my introduction, I guess!
Now living in Japan has been… pretty… crazy. I know that might sound bad but there are just so many things to talk about when it comes to living here and I don’t know how else to put it. There are lots of good parts and also some bad parts. But don’t get me wrong, living here is amazing.
I’m not sure where to start but here it goes. I know it goes without saying, but in Japan almost every aspect of life is so different from the place I grew up in the US (Missouri btw). Just even going to the store is so different. For one, just being able to walk to a supermarket five minutes away is something I never have experienced before. And even that comes with new challenges and parts of daily life. In America, you can get this massive cart where you can fit AT LEAST an entire person into it with some room below that. So that means you can fit pretty much as many groceries as you want and get like a month’s worth of groceries in one trip.
In Japan on the other hand all we have is a simple normal size shopping basket and if you’re lucky, there are separate carts you can put that basket on and have a… basket cart? Cart basket? Anyways, this means that unless you are rich enough to own a car in the biggest city in the world then you gotta carry that stuff back home.
And I know what you might be thinking, “It’s only 5 minutes away”. But if you’re like me and you want to make as few trips as possible then that means 5 minutes of 25 pounds of force directed into a plastic bag handle that becomes a knife in your hand. But I’ve remedied that by buying a simple rubber plastic bag handle at the 100 yen shop. All of that to say that although I love that I can just walk 5 minutes to get groceries but it comes with its own challenges and now I want a bike, with a basket.
And I suppose Europeans are not at all surprised by this. But as a car-bred American it is so new to me. Let’s just say I’m still getting used to so many aspects of life here and just, in general, how to live in a city like Tokyo. But I suppose that is to be expected living in an entire different country, that pretty much every aspect of life changes from place to place, depending on the culture of that country. And I suppose I knew how many things would be different, and even though I knew this, it just surprised me at just HOW different my life would be.