Hello dear family & friends!
On this page I will periodically post updates about my experience living in Japan (perhaps once or twice a month), so feel free to revisit it every now and then.
UPDATES (click on the dates to go to the updated pages!):
Let's start with a picture of the room I'm living in. I'm hosted by a lovely family through AirBnb. They've been very kind - so far I've been helped with numerous bureaucratic issues like registration, or filling out application forms for renting an appartment (pending as of 28.01.23).
Here's a picture of Makoto (their son, who is 5) building a volcano in the living room:
Kanako works as an illustrator and writes books for children. She showed me one of her titles, and I think it's fantastic! The title translates to: "I want to swim home from school".
Every day this first month, I go to Coto Academy, a Japanese language school. It's in an area which, I think, is mostly offices, but you'll find plenty of small restaurants around, which serve lunch to the many office workers. Here's what it looks like from the outside:
Eating vegetarian is still not very easy in Japan, but thankfully, there's an Indian restaurant close to school, which I frequent. It looks like many of the smaller shops in Japan do around lunch time:
The first weekend, I went to the Boroichi market in Setagaya, which is a market held twice a year fairly close to where I live. I expected more second-hand goods, but it was interesting nonetheless.
Next to the language school, I mainly do two things: bouldering and playing drums/bass. For the latter, this was my first bigger purchase - a Fender Jazz Bass, made in Japan, bought from a second hand shop in Shimokitazawa:
I go play drums for at least an hour almost every day. The following picture though was taken during a session with Ben and a musician friend of his who's been living here for many years.
So far I've been to 4 different bouldering gyms. They're quite different from those encountered in Europe. Apart from what I understand is the biggest bouldering gym in Japan (B-PUMP Akihabara), most gyms are fairly small, and exhibit a fairly different style of climbing than those in Europe. So far, I quite prefer the gyms in the Netherlands.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm currently trying to rent an appartment. This is not so easy, as some places don't want to rent to foreigners, and there's generally a language barrier (although my Japanese is improving steadily). Further, many places want a proof of income/employment - which is difficult for me to provide as a freelancer. I am working with two kind employees of local rental agencies though, and expect to find a place soon. Anyways, here's a picture taken from the balcony of one of the places I viewed - it's a good example of what a typical Tokyo neighborhood can look like:
