The Monday Read: A traveller in a now foreign land

Everything is expensive and nothing works

I’m in Europe at the moment. We had a week in London, then a week in northern Spain.

My wife and me, and two of our grandkids.

It’s been great.

I don’t usually enjoy visiting the UK, aside from seeing my friends, but this time was different. I think it was because I was travelling with young children.

People were super nice to us. One thing that the UK has over Japan is that people are nicer in public (not more polite, there were loads of thoughtless people too). A huge number of people gave us their seats on public transport, etc.

Travelling with kids is great because not only do you see things through their eyes, but being with them forces you to be a better version of yourself. I am friendlier and more polite with my grandkids, because I am trying to show them a good example of how to behave.

On my own, I am more likely to withdraw into a screen or my headphones, but with the kids I interact with more people.

It was fun. But it was also true that (as someone pointed out before I left) everything was really expensive, and nothing worked.

All too common in London. Repairs/maintenance, but it takes weeks or months to fix things.

YouTube

Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. Go and watch some old videos to tide you over until our next new one (probably by the end of the month).

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (36,919 posts so far). The forum rules are here. In essense, they are:

  1. Be nice
  2. Ask any question you like
  3. Only answer questions when you have relevant knowledge or experience

Here are the latest active threads:

This week’s books

Still reading the Foundation series by Asimov. On book 4 now. I’m reading them in order of publication, so the prequels at the end.

Also read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. It was good, and strangely familiar. Made me want to spoil my grandchildren.

I am also re-reading The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks. I’m a huge fan of his science fiction work (written as Iain M. Banks) but this is good too. A haunting picture.

This week’s links

  1. Good reddit post about how the cap on mortgages work (hope we don’t have to worry about this too much anytime soon).
  2. This is so obvious. I absolutely hate ‘Ben, you should meet x who I have CC’d on this email’ messages. How to introduce two people the right way (double opt-in)
  3. How to build sustainable habits: Slow Habits
  4. Quite glad I am in the UK right now: Japan sees hottest July since records began
  5. A lot to think about here: How to Know If You’re Living in a Doom Loop
  6. How to not die with zero (over-85s in Japan have only spent 10% of their retirement savings): ためた老後資産､85歳過ぎても減少1割　長生きで節約志向
  7. A timely warning? The Cost of Apathy
  8. Really enjoyed this short blog post about a internet company founder taking a part-time job at McDonalds. Have thought of doing something similar in Japan.
  9. Sign me up for not famous and rich, please: Fame vs Influence
  10. One reason for the akiya explosion: Impossible inheritance

What do you think? Anything interesting in there?

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6 Responses

  1. Half of that is new.
    The everything is expensive part.

    I’m in Japan since ’91. Came right out of college to work for the Japan Inc. So the culture, language and what not was never concerned about, sometimes quaint, mostly a pain in the butt.
    After a while I moved to a gaishi and did some travel to EU (including UK) and I came up with a game; How many steps from the plane until something is broken. Mostly it was an escalator or walkway at the airport. One time my kid got scalded by a tap in Dublin airport but I gave up the game in Germany of all places when the Jet Bridge failed to connect to the plane and we had to wait to get it fixed.
    When people asked me what I liked about Japan my answer became “everything works!”.
    The only time it doesn’t is when there is planned maintenance (it seemed).
    One little thing to be thankful for as things starting to get expensive here too.

      1. Fish & Chips plus a large Irish Curry x 4 = £48. That’s a take away from a Fish ‘n Chip shop out in the cabbage patch not London.

  2. Loved the Akiya article. Has got me thinking about what I’m going to have to do with my house once me and my wife go and if my daughter will want it. Hopefully the laws change for the better by then but I’m not sure how they’re going to get out of the situation they’re in. As usual with the Japanese government, too late in getting things started..

    1. I’m not really thinking about real estate in Japan as an asset. We’ll have a manshon and a house, but neither of them will be worth very much. Hopefully sellable though, at least for the location.