It’s finally been a year since I moved to Tokyo!
As you know, I’ve been a Shizuoka citizen for 28 years, but I’m finally getting used to life in Tokyo.
As you know, I’ve been a resident of Shizuoka for 28 years, but I’m finally getting used to living in Tokyo. I’d like to write down what it’s like to be a native Shizuoka citizen living in Tokyo.

Sorry for the lack of coherent writing. I’m not feeling very well today.

My love for my hometown has not changed
Having moved to Tokyo in my late twenties, I don’t really feel like I’m “living” in Tokyo.
After spending a year in Tokyo, I’ve learned the names of major places, main roads, and commercial facilities, and can explain the streets in a cab. I can also drive a car without a navigation system, and I’ve learned a bit about busy times.
However, no matter how long it takes, I still can’t get the feeling that this is my city to live in.

I think this is a problem that stems from my age. The younger you are when you come to Tokyo, the more you will feel that you are living in the city. When you are in your late 20’s like me, you feel as if you are living in Tokyo as if it were a place you have visited many times before.
Every 1~2 months I go back to Shizuoka City for a few days, and even though I don’t live there, I still feel like I am living in Shizuoka.

If you don’t have money, you shouldn’t come to Tokyo.
In Shizuoka, you can reach the level of “enjoying life” with a monthly income of 200,000~300,000 yen. The rent is 60,000 yen and you can get a newly built 1 bedroom 41 square meter apartment. Eating out is inexpensive, and the cost of a drink is usually 2 to 3 thousand yen. With a monthly income of 400,000 to 500,000 yen, you can live a rich life even if you save money.

However, living in Tokyo requires a monthly income of at least 700,000 to 1,000,000 yen to live a rich life. The 1LDK 40 square meter apartment I mentioned earlier costs 160,000 to 200,000 yen. Eating out at night requires more than 10,000 yen for a good meal, and 20,000 to 30,000 yen per person is the norm.
A 1LDK 40 square meter room is spacious for a single person, but if you live with your girlfriend, you’ll need a larger room and the rent will be 200,000-300,000 yen.
Are you still wasting your time in Tokyo? If you want to live in a 2 bedroom house and go out to eat with your girlfriend once or twice a month, you need to have a monthly income of 500,000 to 600,000 yen.
If you want to go out to dinner with your girlfriend once or twice a month or live in a 2 bedroom apartment, you need to have a monthly income of 500,000 to 600,000 yen. Even if you go to the trouble of having a good meal and drinks at dinner, there is nothing left if you are forced to take the last train home. If you think about it, you have to be a rich person to enjoy living in Tokyo.

A mere 3 km feels far away
Living in Shizuoka City, 3km seems very close to me since I live by car. It is the distance between Shizuoka Station and Higashi Shizuoka Station.
I sometimes go for a quick drive to Hamamatsu and back, so I can easily travel 200 kilometers round trip.
But when you live in Tokyo, 3km seems like a long way. A straight line from my house to Ginza is 3 km, but it costs about 2,500 yen by cab, or an extra 2,500 yen by train plus walking. Even if you go by car, it’s too crowded or there’s no parking.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway is congested in the suburbs, so a very long day trip of 200 km is a chore unless it’s free.

Tokyoites are used to having small rooms.
My parents’ house in Shizuoka has a 30 square meter living room, which is equivalent to three 10 square meter rooms.
It is quite spacious, but it is feasible when you go to the countryside. But in Tokyo, there are 500,000 apartments for rent, but only about 100 of them have a 30 square meter living room. You need to pay close to 1 million yen for a luxury apartment to have a 30 square meter living room.

Many people live in very small rooms, barely enough for a sofa and dining table! Even so, the rent is almost 5~10 times higher than in rural areas….

I hate to admit it, but Tokyo has great food!
Whenever I go to the countryside, I hear people say, “The food is better in the countryside than in Tokyo! I’ve heard that, and I thought so too.
But unfortunately, the food in the countryside tends to be of a lower level in general. Perhaps it is because there is less competition, or perhaps the ingredients are very good, but the technique is often lacking. In Shizuoka, tourist areas such as Numazu and Izu are the worst because of the large number of tourists.
There may be a few good restaurants, but about 95% of them just serve freshly caught fish chopped into pieces.
“Some of the dishes are so good that you might as well cook them yourself. Google reviews are unreliable, and the only way to find a good restaurant is to ask local gourmets and food lovers.
When it comes to French cuisine, the regions are devastated, and there are many restaurants that do not serve authentic French cuisine, but only mysterious arrangements (creations) that are not tasty.

The only way to play Tokyo is to spend money.
Even if you have the money, in Tokyo you are limited to two things: buying something or eating something. The only way to play is to play with things and systems that someone else has created. This is also due to the extreme urbanization and lack of nature.

Photography has decreased drastically.
Due to the extreme urbanization, we don’t go out with our single-lens reflex cameras anymore.
It is very difficult to create imagination in this environment because it is all created. “I think we can consume, but it is difficult to create.

Getting around by car is too inconvenient.
There are an amazing number of luxury cars in Tokyo. Is it true that there are many luxury cars in Roppongi? Verified with real snapshots! There are a lot of great cars on the road. However, with the chronic traffic congestion in Tokyo, it is doubtful that even 5% of the performance of these cars can be extracted. If you are driving from Tokyo to Osaka, or to Kyushu or Hokuriku, it is worthwhile, but if you are only driving in Tokyo, a foreign car is useless. It’s like buying a top-of-the-line computer and only using it for Twitter.

Conclusion
So, living in Tokyo, I am in a state of chronic fatigue. I’ve learned a lot and I haven’t learned much, so it’s a 50/50 split.
When I lived in Shizuoka City for a long time, I thought, “How wonderful life in Tokyo is! Everything is here, and I’ve never seen anything like it…” I used to think every time I went on a trip to Tokyo.
When I moved to the city, the place I had been looking at with a glimmer of hope from the bullet train was nothing but an apartment building in Shinagawa to Shibaura. Shibuya is a kids’ town, Shinjuku is dirty and full of Chinese people, Azabu is a more traditional town than I expected, and Ginza is just a place to go.

Hmmm… I’m not feeling very bright today! It’s hard to say that I’m always dull, but I’m sorry for being so unorganized. So that was my first year in Tokyo.