I’m sitting in a café in Yutenji, the neighborhood where I spent the first four months of my life. At one point in my life, this neighborhood is all I knew. That was a long time ago; this place feels completely foreign. I’ll write for a bit now and then once the caffeine from this mocha hits me, I’ll step back out and stroll through (not quite) memory lane.
June 15th, 2023
Sidewalk Coffee, Yutenji, Tokyo
June 3rdth to June 9th | Ebisu, Tokyo
Fortunately, the early morning drizzle on June 3rd subsided just in time for my short journey from Ikebukuro to Ebisu. With a 10am check out time and working late the night before, I slept in as much as possible and hurriedly packed up just time to leave at 9:56am. I felt comfortable coming to Ebisu Station as I had come once to meet relatives for lunch a month prior as well as the previous weekend to hang out with my friend Dima. Even better was the fact that the walk from the station to my new apartment was indeed truly just four minutes as Google Maps indicated! I immediately unpacked, picked up some household essentials (hand soap, body wash, laundry detergent, etc), started the laundry (one machine both washes and dries!?) and confirmed that the bed works for naps. I’ve mostly had apartment mates my whole adult life so having a beautiful studio in an awesome location with natural light is luxury for me.
That evening I went back to Dima’s rooftop, now just a short walk down this street – this time for his birthday party. Once again, I got to meet a bunch of new people. It’s funny how despite not knowing many people in Tokyo and being keen to make friends, it still takes me a while to get comfortable in situations where I don’t know most people. I suppose that’s totally normal. Within an hour, I felt relaxed and happily making new connections. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay late. Fortunately I had dinner plans at a squid restaurant with Miyoko and her son Takamasa. Takamasa and I hadn’t seen each other in something like 15 years but we both thought the other looked just as we remembered. What made this restaurant special is not just that they serve squid but that you can catch your own squid! I spent about 10 minutes struggling to catch one – maybe if there was bait, it would’ve been easier. I believe the more you struggle with something, the more satisfying success is which made the squid all the tastier. It was a unique and memorable experience and I loved the quality time with longtime friends – since before I was 3 years old!
The weekend also provided my first Japanese competitive disc golf experience. The 10am start time caused me stress. After a tiring week and needing to wake up (relatively) early, I found myself on the train with an internal thought process something like this.
“Okay it looks like I’ll be arriving in Tachikawa at 945am”
“That means I’ll get this other train and arrive at Nishi Tachikawa at 955am”
“Uh oh, 5 minutes isn’t enough time to get out of the train station and get to the disc golf course (just under a mile)”
“It’s my first time to this event and the Japanese are punctual, so I really shouldn’t be late. I would hate to have woken up early and spent over an hour getting to the tournament only to be turned around!”
“Well since I’m traveling light, my disc golf shoes are my running shoes and my disc golf bag is my running pack so I could run from Tachikawa Station. Let’s see, it’s 2 miles from that station. I could probably run back to back 8 minute miles and get there barely after 10am”
“That’s not a great plan but I think it’s my best bet”
Fortunately reality is better than theory sometimes. At Tachikawa Station, I found a train that got me to Nishi Tachikawa at 949am. I did run from there but it was a slower, less stressful run. Once I arrived, the situation was very clearly not a 10am or bust situation. There was brief registration and announcements but the tournament didn’t actually start until after 1045am. It was a beautiful warm day and my cardmates were all great. After the first 18 of 27 holes, a few of us were in loose contention for the win and were placed on chase card for the final 9 holes after lunch. I exchanged phone numbers with a couple of guys that I got along well with and look forward to playing again with Iwado san and Waseem in the future.
That evening I made my way over to Tsukiji for my second go at the board game Meetup. I certainly felt more established in Tokyo arriving at a Meetup, seeing a few familiar faces and thinking “oh great, I’m meeting up with my friends” rather than entering a room full of strangers. After The Mind and Exploding Kittens, Zach, Thesis, Sofie and I did the only reasonable thing to do in Tsukiji when hungry – we ate sushi! It was super tasty – but honestly my hopes for the freshest fish I had ever tasted may have been too high.
On the first day that really felt like summer it was quite hot and totally bright and sunny. This is the day that I made good progress on kokumin nenkin (social security/public pension). When I got my residence card back on May 2nd, I learned I had to sign up for this. However, Miyoko called the local nenkin office and found out that I would probably be eligible for an exemption. Since I am not getting paid in Japanese Yen and only have a 1 year visa, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to contribute monthly to this only to get it back in a year. (This assumes I do the work to pay monthly and figure out the steps to get it back at the end of the period.) She found out that I could go to the office in person and they would help me through the process (with English/Japanese interpretive services). We enjoyed a cute little watermelon together and then I made my way over to the office past the endless sun umbrellas that everyone seemed to be carrying. The man assisting me was great, clearly he was doing his best helping me and the experience passing a phone back and forth with the interpreter on the line was a little clunky but as good as I could hope for. By the end, it was clear that I’d hear back about whether or not the exemption was approved in a month and what to do if it was declined. Both the man helping me and Miyoko seemed optimistic! After the good yet tiring experience, I treated myself to celebratory ramen. Thank you once again Miyoko for helping me out!
Miscellaneous snippets of life & Thoughts
- Chadwick and I had a blast trail running the first half of our upcoming race; Running to Ebisu Station in the morning to barely make the train on time wasn’t awesome
- One evening, I had two matcha lattes. Despite finishing work at 130am, I couldn’t fall asleep until 430. I guess the evening caffeine caught up to me
- I cooked for the first time since staying at Miyoko’s – veggies and eggs over rice
- Experienced pure bliss with a lovely sunset over the Meguro River on a run
- On back to back days, I was told that I looked like celebrities… Zedd and Paul Rudd
- Hawaiian restaurant had chill island vibes and instantly took me back to the days living with Jan playing Spirit Island listening to basically the same playlist this place had
- I met several people who aren’t Japanese but have spent years here and are very good at Japanese (JLPT N2 and N1) – this inspires me and makes me wonder if I would like to prioritize studying Japanese to this degree
- I’ve been cutting it close on catching trains/timing in general. It’s worked out but perhaps I would like to build in more buffer time to reduce stress
- I’m struggling with the concept of what I’m doing in Japan. I’m not here traveling… that said, my time here doesn’t exactly feel permanent either.
can’t stop, won’t stop
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