Beau's Blog

It’s noon on May 26th and I’m once again at Hon Dana Café on the 3^rd floor of a large building in Tachikawa. I’ve felt compelled to use my café time as opportunities to explore but this café was too perfect so I’m back! It’s a beautiful sunny day and I’m in the midst of moving from Hino to Ikebukuro today.

May 6^th, 2023 | A Productive and Fun Tokyo Saturday

I woke up keen to make progress on finding housing. Prior to coming to Japan, my plan had been to stay in Airbnbs for a month at a time until I was more sure of the neighborhood I wanted to live in. Once I got here, I realized a couple things.

1. The train/subway system around Tokyo makes getting around SUPER CONVENIENT
2. Renting longer term (via a sharehouse or even a normal apartment) is way cheaper than Airbnb

I spent the morning looking at different sharehouses and listings on a Facebook group for Tokyo expats looking for housing. If I was going to live in a sharehouse and have less living space, working from home would be less convenient so I also explored coworking spaces in Tokyo. The two biggest challenges for me in having a sharehouse + coworking space plan seemed to be:

1. Many coworking spaces aren’t open late enough for me – need 1am or later
2. The trains in Tokyo don’t run late enough – they stop around midnight (is anyone else shocked at this?!)

I found what looked to be an awesome coworking space in Shibuya where if I bought a monthly membership for ~$200/mo, I would have 24/7 access. I then looked for sharehouses in walking distance and found one so I scheduled a tour of the sharehouse for the following week.

After spending a few hours on that, Mom and I headed to Asakusa to explore the neighborhood. On the way, we stopped at a bakery and were blown away at an amazing chocolate croissant – Mom said it was the best she’d ever had! And it was less than $3. Definitely a better deal than chocolate croissants in the US. We meandered through the streets, tried some fried manju and decided to get yakitori for lunch. This was weird for me. Nearly my whole life, Mom has been a pescatarian so going to a grilled chicken shop for lunch was very notable.

As we finished lunch, I felt the impact of the “late to bed, early to rise” routine so we hurried back and I napped for nearly 4 hours. For dinner, we went out with Miyoko to a local Spanish restaurant. We enjoyed many dishes but for me, the mushroom ajillo and basque cheesecake were the best. I hadn’t heard of basque cheesecake but apparently it’s popular in Japan, is in between a rich NY style cheesecake and a light Japanese style cheesecake and konbini (convenience stores) have them. While I love a full on dense NY cheesecake the most, I’m a sucker for really any cheesecake!

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May 7^th, 2023 | Chiba Storytelling & Shinkansen to Uozu

I woke up feeling both excited and nervous about the most adventurous day in Japan yet. After breakfast, Mom and I walked to the Nezu train station in the rain. Dad had given me a new rain jacket for Christmas and this was the first time I got to use it in the rain! We took the train east to Chiba where we were to spend the morning with a group of elderly women Japanese storytellers Mom has been friends with for many years. Mom explained to me on the train that different people attending would each contribute a story at the gathering. She would be telling the story of the 3 Little Pigs, but a less traditional version of the story which highlights the importance of considering multiple points of view. For example, the first little pig isn’t simply a lazy short-sighted thinker but instead didn’t splurge on a house because it was a bull market and wanted to invest more in the stock market. To my delight, on arrival we first played some fun games (that didn’t require Japanese) involving sitting in a circle and passing bean bags around. Afterwards, different people shared stories. While it was wonderful to be a part of a group of people who clearly enjoyed each other’s company and had shared interests, it was pretty exhausting for me to be fully focused on struggling to understand every single word and not having much understanding to show for it. When it was time for Mom to share her story, I joined her and helped with getting the audience engaged with the English phrase “And he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down!”

After the storytelling, we went to Denny’s to hang out and catch up more. At this point, I was unable to attempt to keep up with the Japanese but was glad Mom had a chance to connect with her friends. From here, Mom and I took the train to Ueno station where we got on the shinkansen. There was a surprising little mistake with the train tickets but that was resolved and before we knew it, we were speeding towards Uozu on the bullet train! I ate a fried chicken and macaroni sandwich because it sounded weird. I suppose the macaroni sandwich was kind of like the macaroni pizza I ate in Wisconsin actually. It was fine, not great – but a new experience!

When we arrived in Uozu, we walked over to the hotel – a 4 minute walk from the station. Mom’s cousin Kazuko met up with us and she and Mom chatted in the lobby. Mom and I had dinner in the hotel room and then I watched some Jomez disc golf before bed. Watching disc golf was the experience I had so far which felt the most like I was back in the US – simple, fun and familiar.

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May 8th, 2023 | Getting it done in Uozu

We came to the city of Uozu on the western coast because this is where my grandmother Taka lived. She passed away 2 years ago and this is the first time Mom has been back since covid started. Mom has been coming to Uozu for many years to help manage her move into assisted living care, her finances and more. This trip to Uozu should be the last time Mom needs to come to Uozu to deal with her mother’s affairs so it is a big deal.

We started the day with a short walk around town through the rain (thank you hotel umbrellas) including an obligatory konbini stop for snacks. When we got back, we counted cash (Japan is far more cash-oriented than the US) that Mom would use to repay her mother’s debt.

While Mom went off to do that, I stayed back at the hotel, bought a WordPress subscription (finally got around to it!) and worked on the blog. At this point, I had been thinking and talking about the blog quite a bit for months so it felt great to make concrete progress here. Afterwards, Mom’s other cousin Terue came by and three of us went out to lunch at a spot looking out over Toyama Bay.

We then went to the family gravesite just outside of town. I had never been before so this was very much getting in touch with my family roots. I was never close with my grandma and yet a quarter of me is from her. It’s funny the concurrent truths in life that don’t seem to totally mesh but are both fact. We went back to the hotel, napped, worked with a dinner break in the hotel room and then sleep.