Mark Cooke’s G-Mixer

I’m taking a plunge. Probably the biggest risk of my life so far.

I’ve decided that after living in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 22 years that it’s time to try something new. In two weeks I’m moving to Tokyo, Japan to start working at Grasshopper Manufacture. I’m really looking forward to trying something new, life had begun to feel a bit too routine. “Rock fuckin’ GHM” indeed (click previous link!).

Immediate disclaimer: this blog is not going to discuss the internal details of Grasshopper Manufacture or what they are working on unless it is already public knowledge. My plan is to highlight life and work experiences in a more general sense to keep friends, family, and any interested parties privy to what is going on.

I’m in the midst of preparing to leave right now. What that means is spending lots of time listing auctions on eBay, trying (unsuccessfully for the most part) to deal with people on Craig’s List, figuring out which clothes I’m going to take with me and what I’m going to donate, finalizing my work visa, etc. At times it feels like a job in and of itself. I’m getting fairly close to being finished and I’d better be – my flight leaves for Tokyo on October 30th. I’m arriving on Halloween… so that should make it easy to remember at least.

At the end of this preparation process I’m going to own very little. I’ve been a pack rat for a long time so it has been tough to really have to pair down my belongings to what is really necessary. On one side of the coin it feels pretty crazy to be moving to a foreign country with two suitcases of clothes, a laptop, and a camera. At the same time it’s liberating. I won’t have to wade through stacks of junk that I haven’t used in years that was clogging up my home or have to worry about what to do with all of my stuff. I won’t really have stuff. Not having lots of distractions at home is also a great motivating factor for getting out of the house and exploring which is a nice side effect too.

My current plan is to live in a monthly rent apartment when I first get to Tokyo to get the lay of the land (well, I’ve been there a few times already but still) and to look for a longer term apartment. The place I’ve decided on is a furnished apartment in Shinjuku and is quite expensive, especially considering it is a paltry 210 sq. ft. or so! For what it is it does look nice though. That is going to take some getting used to but is apparently completely normal. My favorite part is that many normal apartments are called “mansions” (マンション), this one included. I’ll be living in a 210 sq. ft. mansion like royalty.

I’m definitely excited overall, with a bit of trepidation related to my Japanese language skills. They exist but couldn’t be called anything over beginner. I can certainly get by day to day and ask simple questions – “how much does this cost?”, “where’s the bathroom?”, “how do I eat this?”, and the most important “get me the biggest beer on the menu”. My concern is most certainly at communicating on the job. I have high hopes that my language skills will improve quickly under total language immersion but I want to say thank you to my future coworkers ahead of time for their patience and understanding.

So, in summary:

Excitement level – high
Amount of stuff owned – minimal
Apartment – tiny
Japanese language skills – beginner (better start studying!)

I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 10:23 pm and is filed under japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.