Green is the coolest color

Mar 21

The post everyone has been waiting for: less blabla, more photos!

Finland called…

Snow outside. — ...and they want their weather back.

On Wednesday morning, I opened my curtains to witness this nonsense. I wasn’t expecting to see a takatalvi here, especially since we’ll get +20 °C later this week. But it was quite beautiful to see snow landing on the sakura trees, that are now slowly starting to blossom.

Sakura trees — It was snowing all morning, and I passed by these sakura trees on my way to the city hall.

I am living in 多摩市 (Tama), and I needed to go register my address and get a health insurance card in the city hall. Basically nobody spoke English there, and the bureaucracy was quite crazy again: I interacted with at least 7 different people while doing the registration - it felt like every form I had to fill had a different person responsible for it. But somehow it all worked out.

That’s something that has really surprised me many times already: People really want to help - or do their job well - and they just find a way to communicate regardless of the language barrier. It makes me feel increasingly confident in my inability to speak Japanese.

Green path — 多摩市 is really green. I walked from the city hall to a train station, and most of the way looked like this.

After finishing the city hall business, I walked and trained to the IKEA in 立川市 (Tachikawa) to buy some necessary things. It was a weird area language-wise - the cashiers at Konbini (convenience store) and IKEA spoke very convincing US English to me. And, to my surprise, it didn’t feel good but somehow wrong. Somehow fake? I realised I actually like living in 多摩市, where I have to struggle every time I communicate with someone.

Mountain view. — Heading home from 立川市 on the Tama monorail. I could see the western Tokyo mountains through the window. Mount Fuji is the big one. I think.

Parking day

On Thursday, I slept well for the first time. I woke up feeling quite tired thinking “oh no, is it four o’clock again” - the time I’ve been waking up most mornings. But, behold, it was actually nine, so I slept more than eight hours. Juhuu, bye jet lag!

I took the morning reeeeeally slow. I almost started getting annoyed at myself for taking so long to leave the apartment. Then I told my brain to shut up - the previous days were so intense when I was doing all the necessary stuff with very little sleep, that today I deserved a holiday.

Lunch in a park. — Lunching in the park. I'm excited to see it again when all the trees have leaves or flowers.

I spent most of my beautiful holiday in 桜ヶ丘公園, Sakuragaoka park, which is some 10 minutes walk from my home. I bought some onigiri from the grocery store and ate it in the park for lunch. I was a bit surprised that even in the park most of the roads were concrete. But I also found some smaller footpaths where I really felt surrounded by nature.

Trail in a park. — This was good for my blood pressure.

Tree in a park. — This just made me generally happy. Everybody needs a little support sometimes.

My green home street. — My home street. My building is the tall one on the right. I like living here because 1) there are many trees and 2) the houses are quite cute and so are their gardens.

Tamabi

On Friday, I went to see my university, 多摩美 (Tamabi). I wanted to check out the way there since school starts on Monday. And, in the evening I made a really nice soup. Mmm, soup.

Tamabi campus view. — A random shot from the campus. Lot of nature here too. And a silly little snow pile fighting for its life in +15 degrees :(

I think you get the idea. Not all of Tokyo is gray concrete. Even though I’m looking forward to exploring and sharing those parts too.

But for now, I have been increasingly happy with my lucky choice to live in and attend a university on the west side of the capital. Which is apparently the side of 緑, midori, green.