guess what one of the things i miss the most about japan is?
no, definitely not the pokemon. (i am to pikachu as celeste is to minions.)
yeah, maybe the food. for the most part, cheap, decent food is possible even in central tokyo (ie. ginza, shibuya). know where to go and meals come in under £4, probably less. i've had like one bad meal there out of a month. that's impressive for me.
maybe, maybe the cheap, efficient transport. with links to almost every part of yokohama/tokyo. i lived in a not-so-well known area of the city and the nearest train station is a 10 minute walk. why use a cab when trains can get you everywhere? no, seriously, everywhere.
one of the things i miss the most is being able to walk more than a couple of minutes and not being scared of being robbed, murdered or run over, which you don't get where i am now. i miss not being scared while i'm on the bus, or not being honked at because i’m a pedestriwoman, or feeling poor when i cross the road despite the fact that i’m middle class.
i miss not constantly calculating how much money i’m spending on food because what once cost nothing can now be a significant part of my budget. for example, cup noodles used to cost less than 1.5 bucks can cost 3 bucks in some places. i miss never having to worry about rent & utility bills bc they’re all paid for in japan, but here my mum is responsible for all living costs and bile rises up my throat on the fact that rent & car alone is more than 10% of her salary.
i miss the much higher income my mum gets. i miss having a luxurious, yet low-budget lifestyle. i lived entirely on my mother’s allowance the entire time i was in japan, and i got to visit hiroshima and kyoto as well as nearby attractions such as shibuya, the cup noodle museum, hakone & mt. takao.
i might have to give up my dream of going to the school of my dreams because i moved here, where the economy is horrible, on a decision that wasn’t completely my fault, but was based on the fact that there was stability in this new place (the stability, truth be told, was a fucking lie; read: najib) where there wasn’t back there.
i miss being safe.