My apartment is too expensive. Compared to my colleagues and friends, I am paying roughly ¥20,000 (roughly equivalent to 3 days work at my English teaching job) more a month. It’s a nice enough, pretty typical of most 1K apartments in this city, perhas on the slightly newer side and a few more metres squared of space. But that extra chunk of salary every month is making the difference on breaking even or not.
Why did I choose this place? Because it is very close to the Japanese language school I attended. I wanted to minimize my commute time so I could maximise my study time. It worked. I don’t regret my choice. But now the time has come to consider new options to protect my wallet.
I’m considering finding a spot along the Hankyu-Kyoto train line going towards Osaka. The nearest station to work is along that line so I can easily commute, and it means I can easily visit Osaka when I feel like. Looking at some places on suumo.jp, it looks like similar 1K apartment for at least ¥30,000 less every month, albeit in probably slightly older buildings. But as long as it has the essentials, like air conditioning, I don’t mind.
So what’s stopping me? Fees. Not just the infamous key money, security deposit, key change fee etc., but primarily the ones I would incur upon leaving my current abode. Cleaning, damage repair and more. I have read many stories of how Japanese estate agents harass tenants, not just foreigners but native Japanese too, bullying them into paying extortionate fees to repair “so-called” damage. Being a foreigner myself, I fear I may not be able to defend myself well enough against such an assault.
Perhaps I am simply pussyfooting around. I should steel myself and be more confident.
Tomorrow I have no work in the morning, so I will travel down to the areas I am looking at and take a look around to see if I like the areas. I doubt dislike them, so it will mostly just be an excuse to have a nice stroll around a new area.
After work today, I went to a favoured restaurant of mine: Saizeriya. Basic imitations of Italian cuisine; a rambunctious clientele not averse to loud conversation, it is not exactly fine dining. But goddamn is it cheap. Plus the all-you-can-drink bar, with a coffee machine, earl grey tea and melon soda, for just 200 yen? Yes please.
It’s a nice place for chill meal and some focused study time. I am incredibly lazy. I need social pressure on me to force me to actually work hard. (Or maybe I’m a pick-me foreigner wanting to show the Japanese that I’m a good little immigrant studying Japanese. You decide). So being in a public environment guarantees that I will study instead of lounging around eating chocolate as I do at home.
(He types, as he realises he has not received his daily dose of chocolate, so proceeds to stop typing this journal entry to retrieve said chocolate.)
Where was I? Eating and studying at Saizeriya. You get a table and access to drinks for dirt cheap for as long as you like. I got the drinks bar, some sausages, a small mushroom pizza, and spinach with bacon all for ¥1200. Plus the ¥200 bicycle lockup fee, that’s just under 1 hours work at the English school. Pretty good I’d say.
I’m studying for the JLPT N1 exam now, focusing on just reading comprehension. I have a book on example questions. For each question, I approach it like I do in the exam, reading it as best I can and answering the questions in good time. After checking my answer and crying because I got it wrong I then go back through the text and take note of every word I didn’t know and any interesting sentences. Physical notes in a little notebook. I find actually writing commits it to memory better than digital. I’ll carry that notebook with me and review the vocab whenever I have a spare moment.
The essays in the JLPT N2 and N1 exams and preparation textbooks are genuinely interesting. It’s one reason I encourage you, if you are studying Japanese, to keep going. It only gets more fun and interesting. In the 2026 January JLPT N2 exam, one of the reading comprehension questions featured an essay about the Japanese national rugby team having a more open policy towards members than the football team, and the author reflects on how they wish Japanese society could also be more welcoming to foreign talent.
A very apt essay, considering Takaichi’s government will soon add a JLPT N2 requirement for the engineer, specialist and humanities visa.
Incredible how the senile leaders of Japan consistently regress and harm this country in a desperate to recreate a version of Japan that exists solely in 飲み会 drunken imagination.
That’s all from me tonight. Time for bed. A long day tomorrow, as I go on an adventure and then work until the end of the day.
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