life

Welcome To Tokyo

8:50 PM



Tea, futon, adventure time

Here I am.

After four years of paying my dues in Sendai, I've made my move to the big city: Tokyo.

It's both everything and nothing that I thought it would be. On the plus side I'm finally living with my boyfriend, there's an endless stream of fashion events and I'm making lots of new friends. However, I don't have a job, I miss my friends in Sendai and my house is disgusting.

Here is a sample picture of my current abode:


If the house from "The Grudge" was a rubbish dump...

It's a big old 1950s Japanese-style family home. Compared to what most Tokyo 20-somethings live in it's positively palatial. We could take on a lodger and have plenty of room to spare. The catch is...it's a mess. The most terrifying mess you've ever seen. The previous resident was a real-life crazy old cat lady (she had 18 of them) who was a 100% hikikomori. If you're not familiar with the term, the Japanese use to it refer to a person who shuts themselves away from the outside world, rarely if ever leaving their home. Said home naturally falls in to a state of disrepair and hoarding is common.

When we moved in about a month ago, we found that the entire ground floor needed to be cleared out and re-floored. One of the two toilets needs replacing, as does part of the roof. Luckily, the upper floor was refurbished about 10 years ago so it's in good condition compared to the rest of the house. We basically live up there and work on the problem areas at the weekend.



My new best friends

I'm not going to lie, it has been really hard and more than a few tears were shed. But now we have storage space, a fully functional bathroom, internet, brand new fridge and washing machine and best of all... 

A PRINCESS BED.


PRINCESS BED: takes up most of the space in the bedroom. No regrets.

Since the end of my glorious days as an junior high school ALT, I've been mulling over my future options. I'm not sure what I want to do yet, but the past 2 years were so difficult that I want to avoid any "token gaijin" kind of job. I decided that improving my Japanese ability will give me the best chance of that, so for now I'm attending a language school in Tokyo.

You would think that living in Japan for four years would make me fluent, but it's not as easy as that. It's hard to study AND work a full-time job, especially when you live alone. Once you reach a functional level of Japanese ability, it's hard to push yourself to reach the next level. After two weeks of language school I feel like I've improved a lot already.

And it was a great excuse to buy some kawaii stationary!



Back to school with Nameko


Pure Candy X Campus notebooks, coloured pens, cute erasers

So if you've followed me from Sendai to Dublin to France to Tokyo, thanks for sticking with me. This is the start of an exciting new chapter in my life where I'm finally doing something for ME. 

Tokyo is wonderful, scary, bizarre...

and it's mine!

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8 comments

  1. Just curious if you bought the house in foreclosure... hence the state of things

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    1. No, that wasn't our situation. I haven't heard of that happening often here but apparently it does. It might be a good opportunity for someone but I can't recommend dealing with all the mess!

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  2. Congrats on your move but woahh the house, that is one challenge!
    I totally want to come over and help you out though haha it looks like fun

    Best of luck with your studies, and everything else too ♥

    SAMI★SPOON

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    Replies
    1. OMG I wish you could come and help! I wish anyone would! Thanks for your support <3

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  3. Wow, congratulations and good luck!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! Spare bedroom is (well....will be) waiting for you and M!

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  4. Woah, a house! That's pretty neat; I imagine most young Tokyo-ites living in apartments the size of a walk in closet, haha.

    Good luck with your future! *fighting!*

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, I'm quite lucky! Just have to get through the mess first...Thank you! <3

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