My Japan: A Window into Ordinary Lives

Welcome to the first installment of Voyapon’s new series, My Japan, where Voyapon contributors from all over the country write about a normal week in their lives. Paul McInnes, Voyapon’s editor in chief and resident Scotsman, opens the series below with a week in his life in Tokyo.

Monday

I usually work from home on Mondays. My company is very open about remote working and many of the Iglooo team (parent company of Voyapon) work from all over Japan as we have satellite offices in several prefectures. My Monday begins at 7am when I wake up and have breakfast which usually consists of toast, yogurt and a cup of green tea or coffee. My daughter is 15 and leaves for high school about 7:30am so we have a few minutes to eat and chat before she bolts out the door to catch her train. Her high school is only about 10 minutes from our local station.

After breakfast I always check the news on my pc and catch up on any developments from around the world. I check The Guardian, The New York Times and The Japan Times in addition to looking at some Tokyo-based magazines including Tokyo Weekender and Time Out Tokyo. I always think that reading makes you a better writer and being informed about what’s going on in the world and in your country is intrinsically valuable. I think many of my daughter’s generation often read news on social media apps like LINE. The world is moving quickly it seems. 

I start work at 9:30am when I check emails, proofread and edit articles and communicate with many of my colleagues on Slack or in the office.  

I usually take my lunch break at about 1pm. Today, I had salmon onigiri and some leftover niku jaga (Japanese meat and potato stew) from last night’s dinner. Onigiri are rice balls which are often stuffed with ingredients like fish, umeboshi (pickled plum), and roe and wrapped in strips of nori (dried seaweed). 

Back to work for a few hours until about 6pm when I clock off. Dinner tonight was a small plate of salad and Japanese favorite hayashi rice which is a tomato-based Japanese stew. It looks a bit like curry but it’s quite sweet and is usually served on a bed of rice. 

My daughter goes to juku (cram school) most nights and doesn’t return home until after 10pm which is the life for most students in Japan. I worry about her constantly but she’s smart and can look after herself. It must be her Glaswegian roots! 

Tonight, I met my friends Richard and Kathleen for a few drinks at my local coffee shop, Mia Mia, which, at night, doubles as a bar. Richard and Kathleen are artists (Richard is an illustrator and writer and Kathleen often works with metal) and we talk the night away. Japan has been slow to take up cashless options but the coffee shop we went to tonight is totally cashless. Most customers pay by PayPay (one of Japan’s major e-payment apps) and popular travel cards Suica and Pasmo. 

At 11:30pm, after chatting and saying goodnight to my wee daughter, I head to bed.

Tuesday

I took the metro to work today at about 8:45am. It’s insanely busy and there are often guards wearing white gloves who help cram commuters onto the train. My office is currently based in Kudanshita which is known for being an office town and also the home to the famed Nippon Budokan concert arena. I arrive about 9:15am and head to the nearest convenience store or konbini as they are known to buy coffee and water before arriving at my office. 

Lunch today was from the konbini where I bought some curry pan and some karaage kun. Not the healthiest lunch, to be honest, but it does the job. Karaage kun are cute chicken nuggets which come in a variety of flavors from regular and lemon to spicy and cheese. Curry pan is basically curry-stuffed bread. 

After work I go over to my friend Stephen’s house (he lives nearby) and we sit on his rooftop and set the world to rights while having a few cans of chu-hi which is essentially a shochu highball. Happy days! 

Wednesday

I head into the office today as I have meetings to attend. Japanese summer is particularly brutal and most people wear light and loose clothing which is often referred to as Cool Biz here. I often pray that the air conditioning is on full blast but generally Japanese offices are quite warm and balmy, at least to a Scotsman! 

Lunch is a homemade bento box which my daughter and I take to school and work respectively. After work, I take the train home and we eat some sweet and sour chicken for dinner. My daughter put me onto パパラピーズ  (Paparapys) who are a funny Japanese YouTube duo who eat lots of food and do stupid things — so I watch them for a while before bed. 

Thursday

I go into the office today and endure the crushing crowds of the Tokyo Metro. It’s not fun at all but it doesn’t bother me too much anymore. I guess you become used to it after a while. 

Work is busy, of course, and I meet my colleague Yvonne. She works as the German-language editor of Voyapon. An indispensable figure at Voyapon, Yvonne very kindly showed me the ropes when I joined the company in April this year. It’s important to have a colleague you like and trust. It makes working so much easier and more comfortable. Today, for lunch, I had a homemade bento box. Lucky me!

Friday

Oh, hello Friday! How I’ve missed you! I often work from home on Fridays and today is no different. It’s the end of the working week, however, and this makes everything feel ok — somehow brighter and better. Even my daughter looks relieved and tells me she’s looking forward to going out with her pals at the weekend. 

My daughter stayed at her friend’s house tonight which meant I could go out on the town! My Friday nights are sometimes spent with some fellow journalists — former and current colleagues and contemporaries, many of whom I’ve known for years. Writers tend to congregate in the same places in Tokyo and tonight we head into Yoyogi to Irish bar An Sólás where we drink the night away and meet old acquaintances and make some new friends. Tokyo can be an exhilarating city on the best of days but on a Friday night during the summer, it transforms into a carnival, a bacchanal of sorts, an abandonment, a frenzied mental and physical jaunt.

Weekend

To be honest, my weekends usually involve shopping, reading, going to art galleries, meeting friends, and relaxing. This particular weekend we took a walk to a charming area of Tokyo called Oyama in Itabashi-ku. It has a famous shotengai (traditional shopping street) with a wonderful name — Happy Road! And it does indeed make me very happy. It’s comprised of a huge and very long covered street full of local shops and a few chains. Happy Road began after the war and is home to generations of families who live and work here. Specialty tea stores, yakitori vendors, tiny restaurants and bars, my favorite K’s Kitchen sandwich shop and other wee shops which have been plying their trade on this street for decades. It’s a lovely way to spend a day in the capital and feels like a world way from the chaos and manic energy of Shibuya and Shinjuku.

Feature Image: Denys Nevozhai