Week One Thoughts

I sit in a three-story house in the Asakusa district of Tokyo, Japan. "Three-story house" here means something entirely different than what it means in the US. If anything, people in old-style East Coast houses have a better idea of it, but it's even smaller than that.

Outside, I hear the end-of-day construction work going and the sound of the main street a few blocks away. If I close the window, it's heavily mitigated, but the breeze is nice. Just outside the window is a bar and two lines on which I've been hanging laundry to dry nearly every day. There is a combination washer/dryer appliance here, but I often stop the cycle before the drying completes because I like line-drying in the sun. I hear it is gentler on clothing.

It's hard to articulate all the things that are different here. Every sidewalk has a portion of the pavement that is ridged for blind people to follow.

I swear the sun hits me brighter and hotter, and I can't help but think it's because the air is cleaner with fewer cars on the road.

For most of the last week, I was hungry all day and ate three meals a day, but now I'm needing less food. Even my unending craving for sweets is satisfied today after one mocha and an iced chocolate drink. I'm used to being hungry most of the time, but I'm feeling--maybe, just maybe--sated by what I eat.

We've felt two small earthquakes in the space of one week.

The 7/11 stunned me. It's difficult to explain what I mean when I say there's real food there. In my head I can hear someone scoffing to me, "Any 7/11 sells food." I mean there's real food. In the States, 7/11 food is synonymous with desperation and terrible quality. Here, it's nothing to sneeze at. It's good quality, good selection, and still cheap.

The little restaurant made me cry. Sergey and I stepped into a non-chain restaurant for the first time this morning just to order a beer. Non-chain restaurants, by and large, are family-owned operations in the remodeled downstairs room of a house. The seats are extremely limited and close together. Maybe fifteen people or less fit into a place like this. As I entered and sat, I looked at the seats set low and close together. I imagined people sitting elbow to elbow, eating and drinking after a hard day. The kitchen is right there on the other side of the bar, and the owner is an elderly lady whose family has probably had this place for generations. It felt warm and intimate, and I teared up because I don't think there's a single place in the United States like this--but this layout is quite common, here. The tiny bar-restaurant is the norm, not the exception.

Today we stumbled on a Harry Potter gift shop. Walking through the shop, I fingered the robes, feeling the texture of the fabric. I'm almost positive the quality is higher than anything I've seen in the States. In the States, my impression of a Hogwarts school robe is something just short of a correctly colored vinyl tablecloth, cut and sewn in the right shape because the focus is on hoodies and T-shirts. Here, the robes are something you might actually wear to a magical school like Hogwarts. They are real pieces of clothing. There's detailed clasps on some of them. And the jewelry? There's a time-turner that swivels in all directions. Hermione's pink dress was for sale, and it looked (and felt!) like an actual dress you would wear to a cocktail party--not a crap Halloween costume.

I don't think even Boston drivers could match Tokyo parking jobs. Some of the parking spots I've seen are only accessible if you can drive sideways, and yet they are filled.

With houses this small, I feel like I could properly clean everything instead of lapsing into lazy despair.

The expiration date on fresh food is so fast. It's crazy. The comparison with fresh food in the US frightens me. What are we doing to our food in the US?

When I came here six years ago, in 2018, I was still deeply depressed. I remember during the two weeks I stayed here thinking, "It's fun to visit, but I could never live in Tokyo proper. This is a concrete jungle with barely any green. I would be so depressed." I've been modeling my long-term stay on that six-year-old assessment for the past year and a half. Instead, what I experienced when I landed was awe and enchantment. Concrete? Yes and no. Beauty, green, and cleanliness are carefully cultivated all around me. I used to find even the cultivated green spots depressing, but now I find it captivating. Encouraging. Lovely. Even if we set down roots in Tokyo proper, I know that I could absolutely live and thrive here. I have healed so much that every day looks more like an adventure than the last.

We've visited three rental listings in two days. They get snapped up so fast, here. I can't wait to find a house or apartment of our own. I can't wait to decorate it and make it ours. I can't wait to start cooking and making art and studying Japanese.

So. This is what having an adventure feels like.

For more on our journey, check out our new YouTube channel, Doofs of the Rising Sun.