Starting out…
So I finally found a blogging site that is most suitable for the modern era. Here comes my Note debut.
If you follow me on my other social media platforms, what I hope to achieve here is to mainly have a straight forward conversation about the day-to-day encounters and things I do in Japan (essentially car life here and the things that follow). I always felt uncomfortable doing that on mainstream social media platforms, such as Instagram or X. Something just feels so weird about letting out so much information through a single photo post and making people try to interpret what you mean. By using an obscure Japanese blogging platform, I hope to articulate my ideas and convey the niche aspects of life in Japan (bear with me, I swear this will stick). If people will come and read what my life in Japan is about, that will be a great bonus... But nevertheless, we have to get started.
Anyways, self introduction to those that have made it this far:
・My name is げーぶ (Gabe), coined the hiragana name since 2010 in high school Japanese class.
・I live in Saitama, Japan and work as a Factory Automation engineer (corporate production line stuff).
・I have been living in Japan for now 4 years after graduating college; currently on my fifth year (2025).
・I am originally from Seattle, Washington USA.
・I currently drive two Toyota MR-S (特徴：black 2ZZ, white widebody) and a Honda Life.
As to why I moved to Japan, it can be broken down to a few simple reasons.
・Enjoy car life. Driving, customizing, events, meeting people, etc.
・See Japanese musicians/live shows/concerts in-person, frequently.
・Have the Japanese second-hand/used goods market at my fingertips.
・Eat delicious food without having to pay the markup for foreign/specialized foods and/or gratuity charges.
I think of Japan as a cultural rabbit hole/iceberg, in which you can only keep going down further with almost no end. Simply put, there always seems to be more things keeping me here the longer I live here. I hope to introduce some of the things that I find fascinating here in Japan. There’s a huge list of things that are waiting to be compiled and photos that need to be archived...
I’m not quite sure if my perspective on things are that different from others living in Japan. But as someone who has been learning Japanese as a second language for well over 10 years now, I’d like to believe some of the experiences I’ve had to be somewhat unique and interesting.
To many, living in Japan seems like unobtainable lifestyle. As it may seem that way, living in Japan was no longer a dream once I put the puzzle pieces together during my university years. Years down the line at where I am now, I still think it was relatively easy.
Learn the language well enough to naturalize into Japanese society. The nuances and indirect communication comes along with it.
Stay heavily interested in various sub-cultures of Japanese culture. You will only ever scratch the surface at face-value, but investing yourself deeper becomes rewarding.
What motivated me to make the move was really the feeling of missing out on cultural events within the spaces my interest took place.
Examples of such events: Races/track day events in which very pivotal cars/drivers are present (Attack Tsukuba, Idlers Games), concerts of bands/producers that are at their prime (tofubeats, kinoko teikoku, etc.), large annual/bi-annual expo/conventions that focus solely on a specific thing (Comiket, Wonder Festival, Tokyo Auto Salon, etc.)
To make multiple trips a year to attend seemed too much of a hassle, not to mention you’d have to put a budget aside for such things. Finding a job, working and living here was the one-way ticket to get to do everything in one move.
Anyways, I could go on a lot more about this. But this is maybe the kind of stuff I will end up elaborating about in future articles. I have way too much to talk about and everything deserves their own specific entry, so all I have to say is that look forward to more of these this year. I’d say I’m way late to this kind of thing, but if you never start something, you’ll never be able to look back on it years down the line.
I’ll probably dig around in my photo archive for some key moments to talk about in my years living in Japan for the next article. However, January/February in Japan tend to be quite busy with a plethora of events to attend, so I’ll have to either cover some of that or go back and bring some old stuff up. It’s also likely that I may edit video footage of some stuff that I recorded the last couple of years. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a YouTuber yet, but we’ll just have to let that come naturally (inb4 I only upload to vimeo, its still a thing, right? lol).
Until next time...
