I am back home. What a fun and exciting week this was. I arrived in Germany on Wednesday and was promptly greeted by a non-functioning escalator and a water tap that did not work at the Munich Airport. I just felt at home seeing that nothing changed here. First thing I did after getting my luggage was grabbing the car keys from my brother and declaring that I am gonna drive us home. Of course, my brother and my two friends, who also surprise visited me at the airport, were stoked to get driven by me and definitely didnāt pray to god to save them from this death trap of an experience.
With two hours of sleep and an exhausting 13 h flight back home, I of course just relaxed for the rest of the day and went to sleep early to get back on track the next day. Just kidding, I stuffed myself with delivery pizza and went drinking with friends the same evening. Sleep and rest is something for responsible and boring adults. The next day I also met with other friends and did some catching up. On Saturday I also did a little party with everyone. They surprised me with a gigantic, Smarties filled cake. It was amazing. I may or may not have forgotten to take a picture of the cake. Whoops. Back to old habits I guess. Man, Iām just so happy to be back and Iām actually pretty excited when it comes to the future.
For my last Japan post, I thought about doing a recap of my favorite trips, the things Iām gonna miss from Japan and the things that I will definitely not miss and also my general experience of living in Japan for six months.
Favorite Trips in Japan
Enoshima
Right in the beginning I went on a day trip to Kamakura, the nearby beach and Enoshima with a few friends. We were late by just a few weeks and the official swimming season was already over, however, that did not stop us. We just went for it and swam in the ocean and had fun. Afterwards, we also sunbathed there at the beach, nothing out of the ordinary, right? Except that all the Japanese people were fully clothed and not as much as dipped their toes into the water, let alone laying there on the beach enjoying the sun. Everyone looked at us like we were a bunch of crazy people. I mean, we definitely are crazy, but for different reasons.
Afterwards, we visited the little island of Enoshima next to the beach. The island itself was pretty cool with its shops and temples. However, the real highlight of the day was the view of the ocean during sunset. We arrived at the other side of the island just at the right time to just stand there and take the view and the atmosphere in. It was a great start into my semester in Japan.
Odaiba
Another really nice day trip was to Odaiba. The small artificial island in the Tokyo bay area has some really nice spots. Everything there looks very modern and high-tech and it is very open and spacious there, unlike Tokyo. There is a great 270 degree view from Tokyo and the bay area from the Hachitama observation sphere and there are several big malls here. Odaiba is especially beautiful during sunset, when the entire city is illuminated by the warm orange light of the sun. It looks amazing, way better than I could ever hope to catch it on my shitty smartphone camera. Damnā¦
Mount Odake
The triple mountain field trip to Mount Odake was another highlight of my semester in Japan. It was also one of the most exhausting days I had in my life thus far. There were a lot of little shrines and little stone towers on the way to the summit. It was cold af there, but as a result not many people were hiking there, so I had the entire trip and the view just for myself, without anyone annoying me there. It was great. The view from the summit of Mount Odake was incredible. All these mountains there, all of them ready to be hiked, damn, if only I had realized that a little earlier. After this hike, I also decided that the next time I visit Japan, I will go somewhere more rural and just explore the Japanese nature and hike all the damn mountains in that area. The Japanese mountainside and nature is just so damn incredible.
Yamadera
My day trip to Yamadera was the highlight of my weekend trip to Sendai. I started the day with a hike alongside a river, through a forest and finally up the mountain to the temple at the top. The entire trip was filled with really nice views and sceneries, but the view from the observation deck at the temple was absolutely breathtaking. I really enjoyed the entire day trip to Yamadera and this is also by far my favorite day of my entire stay in Japan. I definitely want to come back here during another season and see what the view will be like then. Iām really looking forward to this.
What will I miss from Japan/what not?
At the end of my stay in Japan and now back home I get exactly that question every time. What am I gonna miss from Japan and what am I looking forward to never deal with again. There are definitely a few things for either of these. The thing Iām definitely gonna miss the most are the 24/7 convenience stores in Japan. They had everything in stock that you could potentially need at 3 am in the morning. Need to get some drinks for the pre-drinking? Convenience store. Party hard until very late and you are hungry now? Convenience store. You need to get some money from the ATM? Convenience store. Itās raining and you forgot your umbrella? Convenience store. I loved it. So sad that we donāt have those here back homeā¦
Also, Japanese Fast Food chains like Matsuya and Sukiya are pretty good and actually cheap. Unlike the shitty McDonalds or Burger King menus that are expensive and taste like utter garbage, Japanese fast food is actually prepared very fast and it actually tastes pretty decent. You get a full menu with a bowl of rice with meat, salad and a soup for 500 Yen, which is more than enough to get full. Also, these stores are usually 24/7.
Lastly, public transport actually works. At least in the bigger cities. The trains are usually on time and donāt randomly function anymore. Or at least they feel punctual, as there is a train there every few minutes. Also, you can get pretty much anywhere with public transport which is pretty nice. It may take over an hour to get there, because Tokyo is gigantic, but you will get there.
However, the working public transport system comes at a cost. A literal cost, that shit is expensive af. Something like a weekly or monthly pass doesnāt exist and if you want to get anywhere further away, which is everywhere in Tokyo, it will easily cost you 300 to 500 Yen for only getting there. Double that if you actually want to get home. Paying that every few days if you want to do something adds up and easily takes up a major portion of your budget. Also, to get anywhere outside of Tokyo is even worse. The Shinkansen costs 10000 Yen for a mere one-way ticket to get anywhere. What the fuck? Your cheap alternative is taking the night bus, which will still cost you around 5000 to 10000 Yen for a round trip. And that only works, if you actually plan everything way in advance. At least for that price the transport actually worksā¦
Even worse than the prices of the public transport are the amount of people during rush hour. The trains are filled to the brim with people. The trains are so full, you cannot move at all whilst inside the train. It is ridiculous and I am glad that I will not have to deal with this shit ever again.
Lastly, the plastic consumption in Japan is disgustingly high. Every time you buy something anywhere you get a plastic bag with it. Everything is individually packed, yes, every single piece of chocolate in the box of chocolate you want to buy is gonna be individually packed. The abundance of vending machines to buy drinks from is both a blessing and an environmental disaster. Fucking mind boggling. Get your shit together Japan.
General Experience in Japan
Japanese people are pretty much exactly like people say they are. Always very polite and helpful, but also quite and introverted. Well, unless they are drunk, then they turn into loud and very outgoing and at times obnoxious people. Itās pretty funny. The over-politeness can at times be a little confusing and annoying. Especially when you are the customer somewhere, once I asked a guy if they had something in stock and four out of five of the sentences he said were him apologizing and one we donāt have that here. I wasted like 10 seconds of my life there. The things I could have done with those 10 secondsā¦
Also, I realized that Tokyo just isnāt my city. It is big and crammed full of people and the buildings seem to squeeze you in even more. To get anywhere, where it doesnāt feel like this, you have to drive for at least two hours in any given direction. The size of the metropolitan area is just way too big. This also results in a multiple hour journey to get to national parks and mountain areas. You cannot just randomly decide to go somewhere into the nature, it just takes too long to get there.
This also leads me to my next point. I would never move to Japan, if I had to live in Tokyo. I would get crazy here. In addition to being so crammed, the work life in Tokyo is horrendous. All the people are constantly working or have to go out with their colleagues. They are often times completely burned out. Thatās just not the way I would like to live. However, I can actually imagine myself living in rural Japan. My favorite places in Japan are all in more rural places and I love the Japanese countryside. Not that I actually plan on moving there. I meanā¦ maybe? Nahā¦ Orā¦.
I definitely plan on visiting Japan in the next few years again. This time I will plan my trip a little better and actually have an idea on what I want to visit there. I will definitely go somewhere more rural. Maybe to Nagano again, this time with more mountain hiking and nature.
The Life of Ash
Doing this blog was a great experience for myself. I had a lot of fun writing the posts for my day trips and my bigger adventures in Japan. It also encouraged me to take more pictures, which was kind of a problem for me in the past. All these posts are kind of a journal for my stay in Japan and itās great to look back on it now and later on in my life to read about all the things I did there. However, in weeks where nothing substantial happened, writing a post became very tedious and boring. There is also a lot of pressure on me to do something that I can then write about, even though I really donāt feel like it. Sometimes I did some random day trip just to have something to write here. When I started this blog I basically had two options. Either write weekly posts or write a post every time you have something to write about. The second option makes more sense in theory, but I knew that without a set deadline on my posts, I will barely ever write one. Even if I have a great trip and something noteworthy to write about, I will just postpone it until there is no point in writing it anymore. So I intentionally decided on the first option, to write a weekly blog post. And despite the numerous boring posts, I still think it worked out wonderfully for me.
I fully intend to continue writing posts and I am not going to abandon my blog in the future. However, from now on there will not be weekly posts anymore. Whenever I do some day/weekend trip or some bigger traveling things, I will write a post about it, but otherwise there will be nothing. Because the posts will be infrequent from now on, I will notify people about new blog posts somewhere (probably on my Instagram).
Anyway, this whole journey in Japan and this blog were a great experience and I am more than glad that I actually pulled through and did all of this. I am really excited about whatever comes my way in the future and I am really looking forward to continue to have great adventures that I can share here.
Thank you for reading and also for accompanying me on my journey through Japan and a little through life in general :)
See you around
Ash