Tomodachi 2018

Carla Sinclair Mark Frauenfelder

When I moved from Los Angeles to Tokyo, I thought that I would only see my friends online. Thankfully I was so very wrong because I had the great pleasure to play tour guide, spa and dine with friends and family in my new home. I feel fortunate to know these incredible humans and for them to have chosen to spend their time with me.

Here’s who rolled through Tokyo in 2018.

Xeni Jardin

January. The year started off perfect with my dear friend Xeni and a spa day. Xeni was the first friend to visit after Ripley was born and fast forward 8 years later she texts him cute dog photos. This trip I had the chance to get to know her beau a bit better and it brought me great joy to see her happy and in good health.

Allen Pan

April. I met Allen through the Los Angeles Makerspace when he was an instructor. Since then he has become a YouTube star and now runs HexLab Makerspace.

Michelle Borok

April. Michelle moved from Los Angeles to Mongolia and we’ve kept in touch over our mutual love of cats and horses and a secret postcard club. Her daughter is named Terra and loves kitties as much as Ripley does but no one rivals Michelle who runs a conference about cats. We toured around and did gymnastics at an art gallery with Kozy who recently moved to Japan.

Michelle Kozy Terra

Sebastien Slek

June. Sebastien works at Warner Brothers and was one of the LA Makerspace’s board members. He’s also French as are so many people in my life since my son started going to French school.

Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair

July. I met Mark and Carla through the wonderful world of makers and the ‘zine they created, BoingBoing. To me they are both goals when it comes to how to live a creative and adventurous life. They stayed in Tokyo for the summer to support their daughter who was doing an internship. Also, goals.

Carla Sinclair Mark Frauenfelder

Mimi Ito

October. Mimi and I have worked together at a university, nonprofit and startup and everything I know about interest-driven learning and how kids learn online I learned from her. We were lucky to see her because she landed the night before we were heading out for the Philippines. She fought her jet-lag to see us which I think is the sign of a good friend. If you need an online summer camp for kids, checkout Connected Camps.

Rich Schiavi

November. Rich and I met at Topspin and became fast friends. We tried a startup together and still remained friends after. When we traveled around for a year after Ripley was born, Rich and his wife Mina and daughter Mahina took in my dog Funston. Needless to say I never got my dog back but he’s very happy in San Diego. Rich and I stay in touch by sending each other business ideas and talking about housing in the Japan countryside.

Rich Schiavi

Jory Felice

November. Jory was our neighbor in Los Angeles and he is our savior that keeps us connected to home. He brought us our mail and Sean’s bike. You could call him a sherpa but he’s really an angel. He’s a talented artist and I miss going to meditation class with him or bumping into him at the coffee shop. Jory came for a Safecast hackathon but the best part was celebrating his birthday at the Robot Restaurant.

Jory Felice

Joseph Chiu

November. Joseph is one of the first Los Angeles Makerspace supporters and since has become a contractor for Sean’s nonprofit, Safecast. If you need any engineering done, you should talk to Joseph.

Joseph Chiu

Jo Ann

December. My MIL traveled all the way from atsui Florida to samui Tokyo. It was her first time traveling to Asia and I think it was a real eye opener for her to see how active in the community the seniors are in Japan. 

Jo Ann

My First Year In Tokyo, Japan

Cat Parade

It’s hard to believe, but on August 1st, 2018, my family celebrated our one year anniversary of moving to Tokyo, Japan from Los Angeles, CA. A lot has happened this past year and I can’t possibly cover it all in this post, so I’m going to cover some things and will write subsequent posts that focus on specific topics including how I became a mountain monk.

Arrive_Narita_08012017

WHY WE MOVED
We traveled to Tokyo each February for the previous five years because the nonprofit that Sean co-founded is located in Shibuya, Tokyo and it was important to him that Ripley and I spent time in his second home. I enjoyed celebrating Ripley and Sean’s birthdays in Tokyo because it was non-stop fun, but I never considered making it a permanent base. After a lot of lonely weeks year after year while Sean was working in Tokyo and Fukushima, it occurred to me that despite my love for LA, it would be easier on all of us if we lived closer to his office. To be honest, I was feeling in desperate need of a change. I had become pretty depressed after my head injury and various changes in my work life. It also just so happened that we were making the move during one of the most traumatic times in US political history – a coincidence in timing not the primary reason for the move.

THE MOVE
Like most families with kids, we chose to move in the summer when school is out. That gave us 7 months from the time of the announcement to pack up and get on a plane. At the time it seemed like we had all the time in the world, which should have raised a red flag, but instead, we dragged our feet. We figured that so long as we got our visas, confirmed our son in his new school and made sure our cat had all his vaccines, that everything else would just fall into place. For the most part that was true, except we underestimated how much stuff we had. Our place in Los Angeles wasn’t that big and I consider myself a minimalist, however, we are a family of three and I won’t name names but there is a collector in the family. Needless to say, the two months leading up to our departure was the most stressful, emotional, grueling time in my life. In addition to taking care of our personal belongings, I had to figure out what to do with my company.

We didn’t have a place in Tokyo rented before we moved and so we had to reduce the number of items we could initially ship and put everything else into storage until we figured it out. That proved to be a huge on-going hassle and costly mistake.

Advice: Make an aggressive schedule over 6 months to sort, sell, scrap and ship your belongings. Decide if you will store your belongings in your current city (give yourself a budget to do that) and have somewhere to ship your stuff to in your next city. Also, have a point person in your current city that can manage your mail and other items that will undoubtedly pop up once you have moved.

We were very lucky that Sean was able to get us resident visas through Keio University and friends in Tokyo helped us during our transition. We are grateful to Joe for picking us up from Narita airport when we arrived and for letting us stay with him for 2 weeks while we hunted for an apartment. I’m really not sure how we would have managed without his generosity.

Joe_Pickup_Narita

This is the second time I’ve moved between countries and let me tell you, moving from Canada to the US was cake compared to moving from the US to Japan. For my first move, Microsoft took care of everything including packing and shipping my stuff and paying for a temporary residence. I was able to speak the language and was close enough to home that if I needed to make a quick trip back it was no big deal. We were pretty much on our own for this move and it was a full-time job to do it.

Advice: If your company isn’t moving you, and you can afford it, get help. Hire a contractor to help sort or sell your belongings. Hire an agent to help you find an apartment.

GETTING SETTLED
Once we arrived in Tokyo things got a little easier. We were able to look for apartments, set up a bank account, get phone numbers and more. I say “little” because each of those tasks was still pretty hard. There’s a lot of chicken and egg in this country and cash is king. This is not the place to move to if you don’t have dolla dolla bills.

We struggled to look for an apartment on our own because there’s quite a lot of discrimination against foreigners renting apartments. Sometimes it’s because of a communication barrier, sometimes it’s because foreigners aren’t good at following rules (sorting garbage is a big deal and you can’t play music loud). Needless to say, we couldn’t rent an apartment on our own so we had to hire an agency to help us. It was actually a big relief to get help and have someone take care of the paperwork and setting up things like gas and electricity.

Our top concern once we got the keys to our new house was to get Ripley as comfortable as possible before he started school. We literally had nothing and had to get the basics including beds, kitchen table, chairs, plates, towels, etc. It got pretty aggravating buying things like cutlery knowing we had a full set in storage in Los Angeles.

Thankfully we ran into a lot of cuteness during our numerous shopping trips.

Cart of Cats

Cat Parade

Doraemon

Pepper

Advice: If you are shipping your belongings overseas, consider renting furniture and other basics until they arrive.

LEARNING JAPANESE
We have tried more language apps that I can count. Initially, I used Mango to learn how to say simple sentences and Duolingo to learn hiragana and katakana (Japan has three alphabets including kanji); both are free and I love free. That being said, you get what you pay for and it wasn’t until I took a 10-week in-person course that I actually felt comfortable speaking in Japanese. It’s really important to get the pronunciation correct and the apps can’t give you that type of feedback.

Thank tech for Google Translate – we use it on a daily basis to read the ingredients on products in the grocery store. We’re vegan so it’s a must for us.

Advice: Take a course and/or learn pronunciation, vocabulary and find people to practice with – it’s the best thing you can do. There is no magic babble you can stick in your ear. Yet.

SEASONS
There are 4 distinct seasons – Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. And in-between those basic seasons, Japan experiences 72 micro-seasons. Nature is ingrained in the culture here.

August is typhoon season and I experienced it in all its torrential rain and wind glory shortly after arriving. It scared the crap out of me. Long-term residences are used to this kind of weather and our house is tucked in-between 3 houses so it doesn’t get too bad, but I definitely avoid the trains. They get behind schedule and subsequently getting really packed. Not to mention how humid it is after a big rain.

Advice: Don’t move to Japan in July or August if you can help it. It’s very very very hot and humid.

Mid to late October it finally starts to cool off and you can dig out your pants and sweaters. It’s also the most insane Halloween celebration I have ever experienced.

November brings Autumn Color Viewing. There are maps of Japan specifically dedicated to “autumn colors” so you can plan where to visit to get the best selfies with your favorite trees. I have a particular affinity toward Gingko and Japanese maples.

Autumn Color Viewing - Gingko Trees

Mount Takao Japanese Maple

Mount Takao Chairlift

I would be remiss to not tell you about yakiimo – Japanese sweet potato. We eat it all year long but you can buy it on the street in the Fall and Winter and it’s really oishii desu (delicious).

Yakimo - Sweet Potato

Late November is when you can start viewing Illuminations which are holiday light displays. Like autumn colors, there are maps dedicated to the illuminations around Tokyo and other parts of Japan.

Tokyo Illumination

In late December we experienced a big dump of snow in Tokyo and it was marvelous but this city doesn’t really deal with snow very well so it was really quiet walking home at night in fluffy snow up to my knees. I loved it.

Christmas isn’t really a holiday in Japan, but, there are some funny traditions that crack me up, like how KFC has become one with Santa Claus.

Colonel Santa Claus

There is an overwhelming number of ski resorts in Japan, lots of people go to Nagano as its close to Tokyo, but the best J-pow is up in Hokkaido. That’s also where you can experience ice sculpting contests.

It’s also the best time of year to enjoy an outside onsen. If you are like us and have tattoos, then check out this map for tattoo-friendly onsens, beaches, pools and more

Outside Onsen

In February, before Sakura season (cherry blossoms), is when you can enjoy ume (plum) blossoms. They don’t get a lot of airtime because I suppose they aren’t as abundant but they are quite beautiful and the crowds aren’t too bad.

Ume Blossoms

March and April are when you can start viewing cherry blossoms but it’s not an exact science so it’s a good idea to pay attention to the Japan Meteorological Society for updates.

Sakura

From Spring through Summer you’ll see various trees and flowers blooming in large enough quantities and locations that you’ll start to notice a pattern. We opted to head south to the Yayaema Islands before it got too hot.

GETTING AROUND
We don’t have our Japanese drivers licenses because the Japanese government deems US driving records to be so dismal that they require American drivers (exceptions are Washington state and Maryland) to take both a written and driving test. Our International Drivers License just expired and so that sucks. What sucks more is that I actually learned to drive in Canada and I used to have a Washington state license. I wonder if I can take in my expired licenses and convince them of my mad skills.

In the meantime, that leaves us with trains, bikes, buses, taxis and walking. It’s really easy to get around major cities here using a myriad of transportation options. In Tokyo, it has become a lot easier to rent bikes including convenience stores and parks, so keep that in mind.

Hachiko Bus

It’s a lot harder to get around the countryside. Trains and buses are a lot less frequent.

Advice: If you plan to go to the countryside or any of the smaller islands, before coming to Japan, get your International Drivers License at AAA so you can rent a car if you need to. You can’t get it once you are in Japan.

DOMESTIC TRAVEL
It’s fairly expensive to travel around Japan by bullet train or plane. The latter can sometimes be less expensive but you have to deal with the hassle of going through the airport whereas you can simply hop on the shinkansen.

There are plenty of day and weekend trips you can take from Tokyo. Here are some of the places in Japan we’ve traveled to this past year:

  • Hida, Gifu
  • Yamagata prefecture (three sacred mountains)
  • Ishigaki, Okinawa
  • Iriomote, Okinawa
  • Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima
  • Minami-soma, Fukushima

We have a long list of other places to go and look forward to seeing them all.

Until next time!

Fukushima_Family

A Typical Day Living in Tokyo

Hachiko Bus

In the morning we walk or bike through our neighborhood west of Yoyogi Park in Shibuya, Tokyo, to our son’s bus stop. Along the way we pass more people walking and biking than cars. School children dressed in uniforms are walking by themselves or with friends to school, their backpacks covered in bright safety stickers.

If I’m thirsty I’ll grab a drink out of a vending machine or one of the konbinis (convenient stores). Colorful buses covered with cute characters are heading to international schools.

Small corner vegetable stands are just opening up with brightly colored oranges and other seasonal fruits and veggies.

A lot of people are wearing face masks, hay fever is bothering a lot of people. You can hear the sniffing behind their masks; blowing your nose in public is not polite.

The bicycle parking garages are just starting to fill up. It costs 100 yen to park your bike for 24 hours.

It’s a good day when I don’t have to quickly get out of the way of a mamachari (electric bike).

We hangout on the street with the other parents and school kids to wait for the bus.

Like everyday, we spot the driver that uses giant dusters to clean his parked car.

After Ripley is safely on the bus and enroute to his school, we head back to our house. Sean makes me coffee.

I head to school on the community bus. Just 100 yen gets me to Shibuya station. It would take me about 25 minutes to walk, but I use the time to study new vocabulary words. I also like the vibe on the bus, everyone is very polite and cheerful…a much nicer feel than the trains. On the bus, if an elderly person comes on, they immediately get up from their seat to offer it. On the train, that doesn’t tend to happen, there’s a lot of head down mentality so as not to give up a seat. Sean made a good point about that, if you have a long commute, you don’t want to give your seat up for someone that’s only hopping on for a few spots. That doesn’t change the fact that the seats are reserved for those that really need them.

That leads me to sniffling. OMG. From what I’ve been told, it’s really not polite to blow your nose in public. That’s why everyone is constantly sniffing. It’s accepted. Yesterday I was on the train and someone took their mask off and blew their nose. I was in shock. Also grossed out as we were in very close quarters. So I guess I’ll put up with the sniffing.

But I’m never going to get used to the slurping. We were at a vegan ramen shop at next to us a guy was slurping so he could be heard above the noisy restaurant. I have misophonia and chewing and crunching and slurping noises literally make me insane. I had to put on earphones. Slurping I guess means you like the food. I think saying “oishii desu” does a much better job. But hey, who am I to judge.

Back to the bus ride. I get off at Shibuya Station which is where the famous Shibuya crossing or scramble is. It’s always busy no matter what time I’m there. Undoubtedly there are always people filming people crossing the street. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the most photographed and video’s places on the planet. When I was a tourist I thought it was so fun, now I can’t wait to cross the damn street and get to where I’m going. 7 months in and look at me, a cynic.

I like my school. It has been a difficult adjustment going back to school, and Japanese is pretty darn difficult, but it’s a pretty awesome feeling when all of a sudden you can understand a little bit of what people next to you are talking about, or what the announcements are over the train loudspeakers.

I’ve never grocery shopped so many times in a week as I do here. One, we don’t have a car. Two, we don’t have Whole Foods. There are a few grocery stores within walking distance, but everything is in small packages, so a bag of frozen peas that we bought in the US might last us a couple meals, here, we’re lucky if one bag can be split between the three of us. I haven’t worked out if groceries are more expensive here or not, probably about the same. There are little vegetable and tofu stands which I love. We are pretty shy about buying veggies and fruits from the tiny stores because usually the owners are watching TV and we don’t want to disturb them. LOL. The other thing about grocery stores here is that the aisles tend to be narrow and short. And there are usually more people. So it leads to a very frustrating experience trying to get around people. Now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen a proper cart, you get a basket and there are mini carts for your basket if you need it. It seems to be part of the culture to buy groceries for dinner every day or every other day.

I wouldn’t call it a normal thing, but something that we did frequently in LA was go to the movies. We’ve cut back significantly because the western movie release schedule here is terrible. Sometimes movies that have been on DVD for months start playing here. And they aren’t usually very good movies. I think I need to start watching Japanese movies. It will help me understand the culture better for sure.

Sometimes we go out for dinner as there are more vegan restaurants here. I’m trying to cook more — we either eat Japanese cuisine or western. The other night we had taco night and reminisced about the tasty Mexican food in LA.

That’s about it!