I started my blog when I first moved to Japan for a number of reasons. I wanted to document my experiences first hand so I could look back on my life, I wanted to share some experiences with some friends and family (especially my brother), and I wanted to prevent boredom or feeling isolated. Things started off pretty good, but even though I’m usually a positive person, I hit a few rough patches and some negativity spilled into my life. I decided to do a recap of what has happened. I’ve broken it down into 6 sections.

1) Negative Foreigners Online

Allie nailed it on the head in this comment: “A lot of other foreigner-in-Japan sites seem to be based on cynical observations of what sucks about living here…”

I was interested in seeing what life is like for others living in Japan and I wanted to compare their experiences to mine. Although there are a handful of great “foreigner in Japan” blogs out there, I found a lot of people talking as if Japan sucks, the world is against them, and there’s nothing they can do about it besides complain and have a pity party. I saw that a lot of things happening to me have happened to them as well, but they had quite a different and negative spin on the matter. Negativity can easily spread and can get harder to combat when it’s around you. So I’d stop reading certain sites and go searching for others because I still wanted to read and learn more, but the new sites usually ended up being negative too. I got some negative comments on my blog, some bad emails here and there, and a few bad comments posted on other sites. Sure, I’m a big boy and can take criticism, but this and the other events I’ll talk about all added up.

The result: I started to become negative, and I started to see it reflect in my posts or drafts of posts, and in my real life. I also started to write in a less personal and more generic way.

My solution: I kind of “unplugged.” I started posting about food, lots of food. I can’t really say many bad things about food, especially the delicious and wonderful food my wife made. Before I stopped posting, I stopped reading news about Japan. I stopped reading Japan blogs all together. From time to time I’d check out a few in my blogroll/links section on this site. Instead of blogging I started working more to take my mind off of things.

2) Douchebags in Japan

First I want to lay this out there. Do you live here, and am I talking about you? Well if we have hung a few times, the answer is no. Now back to the topic. That’s right, I’m talking about the ‘strange in a wrong way’ unpleasant foreigners living in Japan. If you’ve met a few foreigners then you might know what I’m talking about. When I first moved to Japan I only hung out with Japanese people… who spoke 90% Japanese. It was a challenge because my lack of Japanese didn’t help keep things flowing. I was starving for some good English conversation, dinner with friends, drinks, some adventure, some fun, so I started socializing with other foreigners who I met at parties, or the gym, at the bar, or randomly here and there. I thought they were all pretty much not awesome. The not awesome people included a lot of socially awkward people, a lot of negative people hating their life or where they live, some people jealous of me or my career or my awesome wife, a few people that were quick to judge others, and some old timers that were dicks. So I backed off from meeting new people for a while. The bad thing about this is I’m sure I missed out on some good friendships along the way because I overlooked a few people. But I felt there was minimal return for the time and energy I was putting into socializing and being a nice guy. Even a simple hello on the street or a nod along the way was rarely returned. Talk about depressing! I’ve been doing sales and marketing for as long as I can remember, I am good with new faces in the U.S., I am good with Japanese people, but not the native English speakers in Japan?

The result: I felt like I was getting kicked down every time I tried to stand up. So the more new people I met, the more reluctant I was to stay positive and open minded. I got sucked further into the negativity hole without realizing it. I was confused at times because I felt like there was some problem with me but I didn’t know what it was. I felt like an outsider. To add fuel to the fire, I started to think I was relating more with the negative blogs I read (which I wasn’t).  And I didn’t get it… until now.

My solution: Not all people I met were unpleasant. I think that I took my first few months of negative encounters the wrong way and too personal. Let’s face it. Life is full of douchebags, so I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge and I should have read the atmosphere better so I could adjust quicker to my surroundings. And that’s what I’ve done. In the last 6 months I’ve strengthened my current friendships, I’ve met a lot of new good people, I’ve made some great friends, and I’ve been pretty active in Japan and traveled abroad a few times. I’ve even had some successful get-togethers at my new townhouse.

3) Busy Working

I tried to work more and more to get my mind off of things. Apartments can be pretty small here in Japan so my office was my laptop in the living room area. Since my work is always in my face, I seemed to work on and off throughout the entire time I was awake. I started to feel overwhelmed so I stopped posting quality on this site until it came to a stop. The point was to work hard, work long, and keep my mind busy. I thought I was multitasking my work but instead I was just distracting myself when I was at home, doing things in 12-16 hours I could have done in 4. When I wasn’t working I was spending that time with my wife and few friends. On I side note, I thought working from just my laptop would be totally sweet. And even though it is sweet, sometimes I get pretty caught up and need to make phone calls to the US and take care of some business. I realize that I prefer a desk or station area when I’m living somewhere, and a laptop when I’m traveling.

The result: I was stressed out because home and work lives were too easily mixed.

My solution: I started to hang out with friends more often. And even though I stopped blogging, I started an offline journal because writing relieves my stress. I find that kind of funny now because it’s like I never stopped writing about things in Japan, I just moved it to a personal level without noticing until now. I also started studying Japanese vocabulary before going to sleep. This helped me get my mind off of work and other things.

4) The Apartment Downtown – Not Enough Sleep

When I moved to Fukuoka, I lived right in the middle of the action in Daimyo. It was great at first. According to Yahoo Maps (I think it was Yahoo), in a 15 minute radius of walking I had almost 500 ramen shops (or maybe shops that also sell ramen?), over 1500 izakayas, and countless other restaurants and shops. For the first 3-4 months I rarely ventured out of a 9 block section of town because everything was there. That’s kind of cool. But it was the loudest place I’ve ever lived. From what I’ve seen, most apartment walls are pretty thin in Japan unless the building is a 0-5 years old. Even then, you have to specify ‘quiet’ when apartment hunting to weed out the thinly built units.

Because I was in the middle of the action, a few problems came up. At night, most of the people walking around are there for a night on the town. A few times a month on my way back home from shopping or eating, I had to avoid puddles of puke. I even caught some guy peeing by the doorway of my apartment. The weekends and holidays are filled with drunken people and inappropriate salary men partying it up while taking advantage of the “all you can drink” dinner specials.

There were busy restaurants, karaoke, and bars in the front of my building. In the back, it was filled with the back of other apartments and the back of many restaurants. Many places would close around 6AM so the back of the apartments would echo with groups drunk people yelling, laughing, and singing and overly loud restaurant staff obnoxiously greeting everybody that entered or left. I like greetings like that, just not when it sounds like it’s in my bedroom. A few months after we moved in, loud construction started on a nearby building. When it was 75% finished, construction started on one directly behind my balcony.

The result: I rarely got a good stretch of sleep. The noise interrupted my business phone calls. It was loud from 8pm to 6am because of the restaurants, then loud from 9am until 5pm because of the construction. It sounded like people were yelling in my living room and jackhammers were in the bedroom.

My solution: We moved into a newly built townhouse away from downtown.

5) The Apartment – Too Small

I mentioned before that my last apartment was small. It was a 1LDK. From my understanding it means the number 1 is a bedroom, and then LDK means living area, dining area, and kitchen. The kitchen is a tiny area to cook, not it’s own room. So DK are usually together in one room. The size was about 6 tatami for the bedroom, a little bigger living room, a little smaller dining-kitchen area, and I think an above average bathroom. Entry ways were small sized. I’m 6’2″ (190cm) and the entry ways between each room were only 6 feet tall or less. Besides that, the apartment is an okay size if I just lived there with my wife, but I had nowhere to escape to because I often worked in every room on my laptop.

The result: I cracked my head once a twice a week for a year when I moved between rooms.My posture became worse because I wanted to avoid hitting my head. I really needed something to seperate my life from my work. I meantioned earlier that I like having a desk or work station where I live. A few reasons include the need to file  documents, have a printer and scanner, and the need for office supplies. With such a limited area to work and live, I had to be organized all the time and move business items around or put them some place when guests came over. That was a problem because closets are small and full of clothes so there was no place to put anything.

My solution: We moved into a bigger place. Our new place is western style with no sliding doors or tatami, and I have my own room as an office. Just like back in the US. It’s nice and now it’s easier to enjoy life when I’m not working.

6) No Internet

We moved near the beginning of November. When we moved I needed to switch Internet providers. This decision resulted with no Internet until February. There was some confusion with the order, new construction was needed, and then I overlooked a paper I had to send in. It wasn’t fun. Since I’m in a new townhouse that requires new construction to get Internet, nobody in the area had wireless that I could use.

The result: I spent 5-6 days a week at MediaCafe Popeye, an Internet cafe, and plugged my laptop into their Internet. It cost around 1,180 yen for 5 hours if I clock in before 8am. Drinks were free so I drank way too much coffee and Coca Cola. I spent time commuting, and maybe buying an iPhone would have been a good work around. Talk about stress! If there was a big issue that needed attention, I would have to run to an Internet cafe on the spot. A few times I had to take the 10 hour deal for 2360 yen.

My solution: I kept a strict time schedule to maximize my hours online at the Internet cafe. I also used some friends Internet from time to time and hopped on some free wifi at a coffee shop. Eventually things were sorted out and I got Internet installed at home.

Life is what you make it and should be enjoyed to the fullest. It’s important to focus on the positive aspects of life and learn from any misfortunes along the way.

I am back.

In America we usually do a mutual exchange of gifts, etc. I give her something, she gives me something, I take her on a date, ah… love is in the air. But Valentine’s Day In Japan is something that’s quite different for me. This is my first time celebrating Valentine’s here and there are two parts to this holiday. On Valentines Day a girl will give the guy some chocolate. It’s either purchased or hand made. The 2nd part is White Day where a guy gives the girl a gift, that’s approximately 3 times the value as he received (so I’ve heard from wikipedia). I wasn’t able to get pictures of the store displays, but they look exactly the same as the displays in America except there are tons of chicks and almost no guys wandering in that area.

Because it was too much chocolate to handle, my fiancee gave me a gift on the 13th, and then one on the 14th. On the 13th she hand made a chocolate parfait! It was amazing! It looked and tasted like it was expensive and hand crafted by a chef. It contained chocolate, ice cream, more chocolate, cake, chocolate covered crispy things, and strawberry Pocky. Oh, and hand whipped whip cream! Here are a few pictures (sorry for the blurriness, I’m not used to my friends camera yet). It was delicious.

On Valentine’s Day she gave me a wonderfully wrapped gift. It looked expensive and the presentation was great, so at first I thought she bought it at some expensive shop. She told me that she hand made the chocolate using ‘an idea’ but no recipe and a few ingredients she thought would work. And she wrapped it herself.

Here’s my blurry picture of the chocolates when I opened the cute basket they were in.

And finally here are the chocolates she made. They were powered with cocoa and had a very rich taste. It wasn’t a dark chocolate taste, and wasn’t a milk chocolate taste, it felt like a truffle when I ate it, but it was nothing I’ve tasted before.

When I opened the gift I felt overwhelmed and a little teary eyed when I ate the first piece because I know she spent all of that time and effort to prepare everything and that’s very special to me. Even when it’s not a holiday she often does special things like this to show me how she feels about me, and she is the first person in my life to ever do this. She’s so great. This was the best Valentine’s Day ever.

You’ve probably heard that things in Japan are small. Cars, clothes, roads, houses, and apartments. I wouldn’t call Japanese apartments small, but I would say they’re cozy. Do you really need a huge place to live anyway? As long as it has what you need and you spend your free time out on the town or cuddling with a hot chick (or whoever) to watch a movie. Now there’s a lot to renting an apartment but I’ll talk more about that sometime For now I’ll give you a few pros and cons of Japanese apartments as well as some youtube vids so you can tour a few places. Here are some things I’ve discovered in the last two weeks.

The Good:

• Sliding doors are cool
• You usually get a balcony
• Washing machines fit nicely in the bathroom area
• Shower room is huge
• You don’t need a car where I live, so you save money on the car, gas, parking, and you get free exercise.
• If your apartment is capable, you can get hooked up with fiber optic internet.
• Mirrors in the bathroom area have an anti fog button. That is totally kick ass.
• The “tankless water heater” is great for showers. You turn it on when you need it and you never run out of hot water.

The bad:

• If you’re getting no help from your job or friends in Japan you’ll need about $5,000 USD to rent an apartment. You’ll be paying the landlord some stupid fees you won’t get back + first months rent + some other things to furnish your apartment. If you factor the landlord fees into your average monthly rent then it becomes affordable I guess. If your monthly rent is $800 USD you can expect to have a down payment around $4,000 for rent + fees. Then you’ll need to furnish your place and it can cost $1,000+. That part is lame when you compare it to the US.
• You can easily hear your neighbors
• Small closets + small rooms = not enough place for your clothes
• Small bathroom area + washing machine = not enough space for bathroom stuff.
• No hot water unless you turn on the hot water heater and then waste water waiting for it to become warm. This means washing your face in cold water because you’ll get lazy.
• If you have a car, parking space can be expensive depending on where you live. I’ve seen it range from 0 to 20,000 yen per month.
• If you mark the wall or dent a door you’re going to lose your ass when you move out. You’ll be charged 500-1,000 Yen per pin tack hole you put in the wall.
• They don’t come with a refrigerator, washing machine, oven range, or light fixtures (that’s something new to me)

Read the rest of this entry »

Does this exist in other countries? I’m talking about Love Hotels. There are different themed rooms to choose from, they make money (nearly 3 trillion yen in annual sales), but the downside is they’ve been associated with with gangs and red-light districts. Booooo

I read about Love Hotel investing today on Yahoo:

Japan’s secretive love hotels are opening up to European investors as one player in the sector prepares for a debut on London’s stock market this month.

Japan Leisure Hotels, which owns five love hotels worth some 21 million pounds ($43.68 million USD) in Japan, hopes to lure investors to its IPO with an 8 percent dividend and promises of fast growth — shedding light on a sector that is often associated with sleaze and organized crime.

Japan’s 25,000 or so love hotels have long provided discreet hideaways for couples, some featuring Karaoke machines or vibrating beds. Guernsey-based Japan Leisure Hotels rents out rooms for short stays lasting only a few hours, but the company’s director believes this system doesn’t just appeal to thrill-seekers…

Read the rest of this entry »

Nova English teacher = you’re screwed and that sucks. Over 4,000 teachers are out of a job! Over 400,000 students haven’t gotten a refund! Nova is bankrupt! This is all total shiznit! It looks like things have come to an end for Nova English teachers that are here on a work visa in hopes of some income and a cultural experience. You’re probably left with very few options such as… finding another job teaching english, or working at some short term job, or working at a bar/club frequented by English speaking Gaijin. (Here’s another job search related link) If you can’t find a job then you can always head back to your home country. For some of you it may not be possible due financial difficulty (aka not being paid by the man) which basically means you’re screwed. If I were in a situation of not being able to find a job replacement I’d either save the money I had to buy a ticket with (while spending the rest partying it up) or in the case I had $0 I’d have my friends/family wire me some money or buy an e-ticket for me to get the hell out of dodge! If you plan on getting a plane ticket you should act soon because after December 20th the rates go up due to the holiday season. If you wait longer than that you’ll just be super screwed. By the way I can’t imagine having a family and working for Nova and not getting paid. Nova carries a debt worth 40 billion Yen. They might have to refund students before paying out salaries and who knows when that could happen. It could be six months or longer.

I read in many places about emergency loans this, emergency loans that, hoping to get an emergency loan from the Embassy blah blah blah. Good luck with that! I can’t find any information on the web regarding this type of loan. The U.S. Embassy website (tokyo.usembassy.gov) mentions nothing about a loan or emergency funds for people employed by Nova. They do say this:

If you require financial assistance, you could request that your family wire funds through the U.S. Department of State here or purchase an e-ticket on your behalf.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just picked up a Living in Fukuoka guide book from the foreign registration office. It’s pretty sweet and talks about how certain things are different in Japan, where to take some Japanese language courses, how to sort your trash, what to do in case of an emergency, how to get a Japanese drivers license, and a ton of other things. I’ll definitely post some info from the guide book so others can get answers to their questions. Until then you can do some research on the Fukuoka Website.