Getting Settled in Setagaya

It’s been a busy Spring here in Tokyo, with adventures, life-changing moments, and lots of paperwork and preparation as I’ve resettled in Tokyo since moving here in March. It’s full steam ahead on a life in Japan; all my physical ties to the USA jettisoned. The biggest thing that happened recently is my wedding to Claire a month ago. Hurrah! Next up, another big adventure we’re planning, but before then, I’ll catch readers up to speed on what I’ve been up to.

Back in March, I arrived here with just my bicycle and two other checked bags featuring my life’s possessions. The day after arriving, they were scattered across every inch of the apartment as I tried to figure out how to sort them into Claire’s home. We had less than a week until her spring holidays, and of course, what better way to kick off our lives together than a bike adventure? So we immediately bagged up our bikes, and loaded them up on a bullet train for a ride around the Seto Inland Sea near Hyōgo prefecture.

A mishap with a flight booking changed the intent of this ride. Instead of continuing from Iwakuni, where we left off in autumn, we took a bullet train to Kobe, with seeing the alluring Awaji Island in the Seto Sea as our foremost goal. With the only bicycle-friendly access point being a small passenger ferry from Akashi to the island’s north, it is a difficult spot to stop in on a tour unless you bag up for a bus over (no thanks). Over two days, we did a lap of the island, which is known for its onions, puppetry and even as a part of Japan’s creation myth. The highlight was taking a cruise to see the Naruto whirlpools in the strait between Awaji and Shikoku; these can reach huge spans if the season and tides are just right. Whenever I get around to bicycling more of Shikoku, I’ll hope to come back and catch a really big one.

After departing Awaji, we rode back along to the port of Himeji, where we hopped another boat the next day into the Seto Sea and picked up the art islands of Naoshima and Teshima, which are famed for their galleries, and their larger sibling island, Shōdoshima, which is well known for its olive groves and soy sauce.

Overall, it was a pleasant week of dodging rain and hopping ferries to and fro to hit a few spots off the usual tourist path. We’d wrap it all up with a mad dash to Okayama and a late train home for a morning picnic amidst the cherry blossoms.

Back in Tokyo, the next thing to plan for was our wedding! With a lot of spreadsheet wizardry from Claire, we got through a list of tasks and purchases to get it in order in a month. Postcard designs and invites, catering, drinks, leveraging a public park for the ceremony, and reserving our favorite bar for the night. What a blur of a day, with her best friend James officiating, we were wed at Komaba Park on May 9th with many of our friends as witnesses. What I’ll remember most is the adrenaline rush of doing a walk in our wedding garb home through the busy streets of Shimokitazawa with our gung-ho photographer, Brian, encouraging us and making a giant spectacle, with me in my pink suit and Claire’s epic, flowing green dress.

From there, it’s been fairly leisurely. I’ve been doing some hikes, bulking up my fitness in running and climbing, and studying the language, with a big focus on kanji literacy. I have reignited my love letter with Magic: the Gathering again too and even found some cool places and groups to play with cards in Japanese, which so far has culminated in contending at a competitive event in a shop in Akihabara. I’m hopeful that helps jolt my language learning further!

The job search is still on hold as I arrange a visa here and keep cooking up adventures, but I’ve made some networking connections and even managed to tune up the website with a new and faster backend. When I’m back from this upcoming trip, gaining employment and ending this long sabbatical is going to be my paramount focus.

I’ve gotten my first tastes of Japanese bureaucracy, registering our marriage together, and later figuring out immigration. Both were somewhat daunting processes with lots of paperwork, but we’ve prevailed and I have a good application submitted. We got that done a few weeks ago as our last big ticket item together, but one last twist is that I’ll need to be out of the country to properly register myself under Claire’s visa and become a resident of Japan. Not too hard a task for one such as I, but wherever should I head to?

The answer is a summer bikepacking journey across Mongolia! We’ve retooled our bike kits for gravel and single track and are expecting some rugged conditions in some very wide spaces. We’ll be looking to spend 6 weeks or so cruising across the steppe, with a fresh new visa awaiting me at journey’s end, hopefully. Mongolia promises to be a very wild and unfamiliar destination, though perhaps my Sonoran spirit will lend itself to the whims of the Gobi. We’re hopeful our adventurous spirits mesh well with that storied land and are stoked for the opportunity to get exploring on two wheels again so soon.