Onsen-hopping and back to the office
This is reaching you as we mark two and a half years of living in Japan. Just six years ago, we were getting ready to come here for the first time.
It’s hard to remember how everything felt on that first trip, but I sometimes get a flash of how generally impossible and wonderful things seemed. Looking back, it seems amazing that we were able to get off a plane and get ourselves around at all. Of course, I still spend lots of time lost, confused and using words in hilariously wrong ways. But, we’re here!
Unrelated: another famous floral frenzy: Azalea/つつじ at Nezu Shrine in April
Jiyugaoka life
While we’ve spent a lot more time here than I ever would have thought possible, I love our little apartment. Our tiny street now has an Italian restaurant, a French cafe and clothes store, a dried fruit shop, a hairdresser, a massage therapist and a kale salad shop. Given that it’s the size of a big alley, it’s pretty amazing that we can have all of our essential needs met.
Snapped from the couch: apartment with table set for a nabe night and tiger, crouching.
In Tokyo your neighbourhood and your train lines are very important. Our station has two lines, the Oimachi Line and the difficult-to-say Tokyu Toyoko Line. This is the line we spend the most time on. On an Express train, we’re seven minutes from Shibuya or just five from Nakameguro. Twenty minutes one way, and we’re in the middle of Yokohama. Or just fifty minutes in the other direction and you’ll hit Edo-town Kawagoe.
Kawagoe is regarded as a deeply nostalgic town, and I get it! Even if I technically shouldn’t.
Driving in Japan
Since our Shimanami Kaidō trip in March, we’ve generally stayed close to home but have squeezed in a few smaller trips without getting on (bullet) trains or planes. We’ve now ticked off Izu Oshima, Yamanashi, Hakone, Hakuba and Matsumoto. (Links included to aide future travel plans).
Matsumoto Castle: one of the things I thought I wasn’t fussed about seeing but loved
I’ve also done a bonus trip with friends to Nagano, where we stayed on Lake Nojiri, and used this as a base to onsen hop between Nozawa Onsen, Maguse Onsen, Tsubame Onsen and Shibu Onsen. Nagano has fast become one of my favourite prefectures, it’s pretty easy to access from Tokyo and full of delicious food, beautiful landscapes and nice people.
Kanaguya ryokan in Shibu Onsen- 250 years old and one of the inspirations for Spirited Away
These little trips meant a lot of driving. While Chris managed to get his driver’s license last year, I’d put off the added admin. Converting from an Australian license is generally pretty simple, except if your license has been issued in Victoria and mysteriously does not include a date of issue. To your sizeable stash of documents, you need to add irrefutable proof that you lived in Australia for six months. I eventually wound up getting my immigration records for Australia, and me and my license officer spent a lot of time highlighting the entrances and exits to make sure I ticked the boxes.
License acquired! VicRoads: sorry for all the mean things I said.
Once successful, it was time to drive! Driving in Japan is pretty straightforward, helped by the fact that cars tend to be smaller and everything is super well signposted. Renting a car is easy and pretty cheap, if you forget to factor in the highway road tolls which I like to.
Marooned but not stuck
Life hasn’t been static even if it has slowed a lot. My office has opened for the first time since February 2019. It’s not quite the same with a 25% capacity and full masking, but every time I get handed a ready-made lunch I feel a lot of emotions. Remote work, or ‘tele-work’, has been a challenge in a very collaborative role, but it’s also been great to have people from other parts of the work join our team.
I’m not going to try and guess at what next year might hold but my hope is to see some of you. In the meantime, we’ll head to Hokkaido for the first time to spend the New Year holiday in the snow (I almost wrote snowboarding but that seems ambitious).
じゃあね
Beatrix