i didn't get kidnapped

while my life here is taking more shape, I am reminded that I am still the main author of my life. Even in another continent, it feels just like home because I am my own home.

study vs working life

I kind of miss working. It’s funny because everyone who works here misses their school days and tell me studying was the best era of their life. They never had so much free time or could do so many activities.

For me, since I started working on my first internship, I loved being an employee. When I was a student, I felt like I was always on the clock. With work, I have so much time to do other things. I am aware that I work in a comfortable field, where I am not exploited and work-life balance is a must.

At the time I was having this thought, I was sat in a bougie office space/ book store where you pay by the hour. This would have been the typical place I go during my work day to change the environment a bit. I have done this in Amsterdam multiple times. This place was 10 euro a full day, in ams you need a 100 euro monthly subscription.

I didn’t quit my job because I was not happy with my life or anything, so for me, that was still a great and entertaining era of my life. I feel like I am still an “employee”. Of course, my work is now just studying, but I still have similar behaviours as before: trying different study/work places, being off in the evening… Even with money, I give myself a monthly salary.

It feels like I am just working remotely from Tokyo for some weeks. Who knows, this image I am creating will probably exist at some point in all the years I have left in my career. At this point, maybe I have 80 years left.

get out of my comfort zone

These days I have been thinking about my comfort zone and how it’s good for someone to occasionally challenge themselves. Things like travelling to far away places, going to restaurants on your own, managing a foreign transportation system, trying classes where I can’t communicate with people… These are all things within my comfort zone. Yes, I am aware that a lot of people would never classify these activities as common or comfortable. Still I am very used to them.

Picture this. A mountain 4-5 hours from Tokyo that has recently had many heavy snow warnings. There is a narrow path full of snow you need to walk. Many warnings that falling on the side of this path would result in a rescue team call, high possibility of serious injury, or worse. This path lasts 20 minutes and is uphill. Now picture a girl alone with her camera strutting through the snow. That was me. While I have never really been into such snow, nor I had any friend in a 200 km radius, I thought this type of experience is absolutely in my comfort zone. So many snow is unknown to me, the cold is foreign to me, but trying these things and adapting to them is just right up my alley.

That’s why I have a dilemma now. Now that I am creating this new life here in Tokyo, it truly feels like the same life I had before. I am more aware that changing cities doesn’t change anything, you are you anywhere you go. However, as much as I think I am an amazing person, I want to be better and grow. I want to challenge myself doing things that I am scared to do. But I struggle to think what I could be even afraid of.

I don’t have the answer yet, but I do know I will stop with finding more classes in Tokyo. I will still go to Taiko, jazz class and bouldering, but I will try not to fill my time with another one. Trying new hobbies is something I love, but it’s something I have always done. Same with going to libraries and cafes to study.

I am thinking of finding a part-time job just for the funsies, but with my level of Japanese is a bit harder. I will see. Should I get a boyfriend? Kidding, I want to get out of my comfort zone, not destroy my mental health.

Any ideas on what I should try are more than welcome.

i didn’t get kidnapped

So, in this episode of how low is my survival instinct, I booked a private guide from Tokyo to the Japanese alps. The mountains are far away, they are currently on a national heavy snow warning and there has been many closed roads and accidents in the past week. Still, I felt like if I didn’t go, I would have to travel to Japan another year only to do all these places. The area is massive and with many different towns to go.

These mountains are not very well communicated with public transportation, so even if it takes 30-40 minutes by car, it can take 3-4 hours by bus and train. To travel all the area of Nagano, you need to rent a car. However, I don’t even have my license so I was in a bit of a conundrum. The hostel situation is not great either because there are just a lot of skiing resorts around so the places tend to be expensive and for groups.

The best option would have been me not going there at all. I didn’t have the time nor the money to make it a long trip, including hotels and more transportation would have been a chaos and very expensive. Still, I really wanted to see the igloos and the snow monkeys. Even though I had given up on a full visit to Nagano (for now, when I get my license in like 10 years you will see), I found a private guide that did these two things in one day. You leave at 8 am from Tokyo, you arrive at 9 pm. I couldn’t convince any of my friends to do it with me, as they actually do have a functioning sense of danger. So, I decided to book the private guide alone.

Driving 5 hours to the mountains with a stranger did feel a bit icky, but yolo (literally). The day of the trip I realised I was, very gladly, scammed. The advertisement I saw talked about a private guide and how they would fit the group (of one) into a car or a bigger car if many booked the trip. What they forgot to write was that the car was actually a bus with many, many people doing the same trip. I was quite happy I didn’t have to spend the whole day with a stranger. Now I was spending it with 40 more.

A bit of a summary is a lot of driving, the nature was super amazing, met some interesting people, the snow monkeys were cute but I would never recommend anyone doing it in one day. And tragically, because of the heavy snow, we couldn’t go to see the igloos.

Next time, this will be me. For now, we only have this polarsteps: Snow monkeys and a lot, A LOT of pictures and videos of the snow.

i didn’t get kidnapped part 2

On Friday, I went to a trial lesson for a rock-jazz music school. I went to Akihabara, the anime geek district. The school I had to go wasn’t directly there but some streets further. While I was walking these streets, I saw this was the after-work bar area for Japanese people. There were many taverns and local restaurants. The price wasn’t crazy high for being so close to Akihabara. Though the area is more for broke weird people than other famous ones in Tokyo. After the taverns, I started to walk a more residential area. Oh yes, a dark and isolated neighbourhood. Again. Just like in the taiko class.

I found the Hot Music School I was looking for, yes, that’s the name of the school. It was a shabby, old-school place. I opened the door and found myself with a tiny house, with some very old decoration. The entryway was 1 sqm and then, we had some beautiful dutch stairs. I heard nothing, but I seemed to be in the right place so I went up.

In the middle of the stairs, there was a hole in the wall that I guess represents to be a door. There I found a small room with a couple sofas and a desk. To go into the room, I had to duck as the ceiling was around 150 cm height. There, two men were looking at me. The younger one told me if I was there for the trial. Then, he told me to sit down and if I wanted coffee. All this in Japanese. He was the secretary of the school and he spoke no word of english. The other men was my teacher-to-be. A drummer who also speaks no word of english. So, it was me uncomfortably sat in a sofa with my coffee, a mandarine and my recently bought snow boots, being interviewed by a equally uncomfortable man sat in the other sofa trying to communicate with each other through google translate and a very limited Japanese vocabulary.

After the interview, I went with my teacher to another floor, where we found another oddly placed door in the hallway. There were two drum sets and some bongos inside. We then tried to communicate with each other with the power of music. Besides some google translate interventions, we managed to do some progress on our own.

When the class finished, I went alone through the dark dutch stairs back into the hole in the wall. There, the secretary was waiting for me with all my belongings. He told me how the school works and the prices. Then, I enrolled myself to the school since I found this shabby school an insane, total vibe.

The day almost ends with some empty omakase (sushi menu by the chef) close to the school, but since I didn’t want to spend that much money that day and I would come there again, I rain checked it. I ended up eating some cheap ramen in Akihabara. It was salt ramen, I actually enjoyed it a lot.

first week video

Finally I finished my video of my first week in Japan. For me, it feels like a long time that I did these. I have practiced with my camera way much more now, so I am slightly annoyed on how I did some shots, or even how I edited some parts of the video. Still, I had quite some fun and this is a very nice memory. My trip to Kawagoe is still one of my favourite ones.