Days J1-2: Seeing my Sister after Years

May 19, 2024

To make a long story short, my sister lives as an expat in Japan and has been there almost the entire time as my expat life in China. She speaks the language fluently and lives with her husband and two daughters in the center of Tokyo. After many years I finally made a visit. As for why it took so long, one of the reasons is living in China you're constantly saturated with anti-Japanese propaganda. While you know mentally that what they say isn't true, it is still very potent and acts as a deterrent to making a trip. You could argue that's a similar reason for why it's taking me so long to visit Taiwan, but will also change shortly. Part of life transformation and making moves to leave China means doing exactly these kind of trips. You have to see for yourself that what the CCP says about the rest of the world is just not true.

Geopolitics is, unfortunately, quite brutal and nasty. That's the world we live in. I'll admit the western media is unfair towards China, but it also works the other way around. The CCP isn't doing themselves any favors by trashing all these other countries. Both sides blaming each other keeps the vicious cycle going and adds fuel to the fire.

It is certainly the way forward to make these kind of social trips and make connections to understand the world better. Japan in particular was so amazing that I had to ask the question as I have repeatedly in recent years: why the hell wasn't this done earlier?

The trip to Tokyo was indeed very short and without a bike for the first visit. Yet the first impression was how remarkable it was for such a massive urban center of Tokyo to see very low private car ownership. This amounts to a large reduction in background noise and general chaos which is in stark contrast to the car culture that plagues most world cities. As a result, Tokyo is safe and walkable! Things are also very peaceful and quiet, even in the middle of very densely populated areas. The train network is quite extensive and packed since that's how people get around. Even late Friday night it's extremely crowded.

It was quite mind blowing to see throngs of people out and about this late on the weekends and having massive fun in a large city as this. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: Shanghai is a no fun city. It didn't start out that way, far from it. There is every possibility that Shanghai could have been a world class city on par with Tokyo, Bangkok, and New York. But we forever lost that opportunity when Emperor Xi came in and went to great lengths to suck away all the fun. A typical Friday night in Shanghai is dull and boring. It doesn't even come close to what we saw in Tokyo.

We also saw tons of potential in all the nooks and crannies like small restaurants and bars etc.. There is also a significant fitness culture with people training for marathons on the weekend near the financial center. What blew us all away was how polite and civilized the public are. Even in Starbucks they speak in hushed tones. In that sense, Japan is most similar to Thailand. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I think Tokyo has massive potential for future opportunities and adventures.

One of many countless nooks and crannies

Inside the Emperor Meiji memorial, basically this is like the Central Park of Tokyo

I didn't realize just how much sake is a thing here. It was decreed by the emperor. Maybe that's why the above picture is so blurry

This particular trip was done with my wife over the weekend, and we stayed at my sister's guest apartment in the city center, in fact one of the busiest areas. Despite that, it was remarkably peaceful and quiet. I was blown away by how much of a good sleep I got which helped answer the question of why I can't sleep in Shanghai: the city is too noisy because of all the vehicle, construction, and various other background noise.

We enjoyed some brief sightseeing in the short time available as well I got to know my nieces for the first time. No doubt they had heard of this mysterious uncle who never shows up on trips, but the fact I came meant there had to be some important matters at hand. Those matters will be the subject of the next trip in about 45 days from now.

This is near the financial center where there is plenty of empty space for people to train for marathons on the weekend.

View overlooking the city from the observation deck

The city indeed goes on forever but the park in the middle (where we walked) is a refreshing oasis

I also took advantage of the brief time away from the grind to refine my budgeting skills. These skills had all slipped in the last few months due to the combination of stress and also being coddled with a cashless society in China. Suddenly, now thrust into a cash-based society in Japan, I needed to get familiar with a new currency and handling coins etc.. My budgeting skills started to sharpen up quickly again and this was exactly what I needed.

What I ended up doing on the return to China was taking out cash from the ATM and using that for snacks etc... and not resorting to cashless payment methods as usual. While much more inconvenient, it would be necessary for the upcoming summer trip when cash payments would become the norm again.

Japan is generally very safe and there were no issues with pickpockets etc.. Even better were all the change counting machines at stores so they do all the grunt work for you. You can keep coin clutter down to a minimum continuously the entire trip. It immediately reminded me of that trip last year in Hong Kong where I had to go out of way to hunt down the change counting trucks. In Japan they're sorting coins at every store!

Is it possible that in the future Japan and other countries will go cashless like China? I seriously doubt it. Even in China, people are beginning to wake up to all the problems with cashless payment methods. The most obvious is that the government can track everything you do and where you go. In this sense, paying by cash is the ultimate way to do things under the table, and is a practice that needs to come back.

Tying this all together, my sister was very helpful in suggesting future job options within Tokyo as part of my plan to leave China and relocate. She mentioned there are indeed many rich Chinese who have done the same and left the country. My background would be helpful in applying for such international schools that cater to the Chinese diaspora. Whether it's Tokyo or someone else, I think it's pretty obvious what to do next: find out where the rich Chinese have moved to and set up shop there.

At the airport. This place was pretty amazing. The duty free was absolutely rammed packed. One surprising thing was being able to exchange coins for US dollar bills. I don't think any other airport can match that.

Celebrating a successful trip on the flight back in premium economy.

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