I enjoyed reading this, Sam. I arrived in Japan from Europe, via several years in Hawaii, in 1982—when one rarely met non-Japanese even in the very center of Japan’s largest cities. Your experience is as foreign to me as Japan was to you.
Incidentally, that little shopping street in Sangubashi that you mention is where I have been getting my groceries over the past 13 years…
Thanks, it is interesting how each experience is so different depending on the tech and social environment of the time. I still remember that walk in Sangubashi very well!
Around Sangubashi it is a nice quiet residential area, with still some elements of how residential areas in Tokyo used to be. I enjoy living here.
Technology certainly played a part in our different experiences. But our ‘topographical’ backgrounds are also totally different. I grew up in the very middle of a European town and was used to narrow streets and back alleys.
My parents also took us all over Europe from a very young age, and I traveled quite a bit by myself.
So I had already been exposed to a wide variety of urban scenes and foreign cultures when I arrived in Japan.
Additionally, I was in my twenties when I arrived while you were in your teens. At that age even a few years make a huge difference.
I enjoyed reading this, Sam. I arrived in Japan from Europe, via several years in Hawaii, in 1982—when one rarely met non-Japanese even in the very center of Japan’s largest cities. Your experience is as foreign to me as Japan was to you.
Incidentally, that little shopping street in Sangubashi that you mention is where I have been getting my groceries over the past 13 years…
Thanks, it is interesting how each experience is so different depending on the tech and social environment of the time. I still remember that walk in Sangubashi very well!
Around Sangubashi it is a nice quiet residential area, with still some elements of how residential areas in Tokyo used to be. I enjoy living here.
Technology certainly played a part in our different experiences. But our ‘topographical’ backgrounds are also totally different. I grew up in the very middle of a European town and was used to narrow streets and back alleys.
My parents also took us all over Europe from a very young age, and I traveled quite a bit by myself.
So I had already been exposed to a wide variety of urban scenes and foreign cultures when I arrived in Japan.
Additionally, I was in my twenties when I arrived while you were in your teens. At that age even a few years make a huge difference.