You know that feeling? When you want to clean out a closet, pull everything out, and then completely overwhelmed by the incredible mess you want to stuff everything back in? That’s what my life feels like right now. Everything is upside down. And everything is intertwined, like a big jumble of plugs, printer cables and mini-USB, somewhere in an Ikea box.
A week and a half ago I flew to the Netherlands, and although the state of the world suddenly made it an eighteen-hour trip with a stopover in Korea (the poetry does not escape me), it actually went quite well. Of course I suffered from reverse culture shock, which already started on the plane, when even the KLM stewardesses were chatting in the galley with their face masks on their chins. But thanks to my business upgrade I was able to sleep six hours from Korea to Amsterdam, so I didn’t suffer much from jet lag. Going to bed ultra-early was my thing anyway.
Proof
So I’m here mainly to launch the German translation of my book, and that’s going anything but smoothly. For example, I haven’t been able to order a proof copy for a week and a half. Amazon itself doesn’t know why, and keeps asking me “just a few more days of patience” while they figure it out. Now I’ve already decided to skip the Amazon proof, a gamble I’m willing to take, because I’ve already gone through this process with the English translation. And I had already printed out the entire interior in Japan, in the convenience store (so convenient!), so most of the double-hooks and commas are already out.
But when I got the def version last week, and I wanted to put it live, there came the following Amazon hurdle: “We see that this book is a translation, can you please prove that you do have the rights?” Oddly enough, they never asked that for the English one, but anyway. “Within five days please turn it in, otherwise we’ll cancel the whole thing!” And so now I’m waiting for Blossom Books to prepare a paper in which they declare that I do indeed have the right to publish the translation of my own book.
If this then that
Meanwhile, my Japanese company number also arrived. I decided to move forward, and open a Japanese company account with Wise right away… But of course they still needed a scan of my paper company registration certificate. My intermediary is working on it, will probably take a few days again. As soon as I have the Japanese business account, I can cancel the Dutch one, deregister from the Chamber of Commerce, etcetera, etcetera. I have a whole list in my phone of steps that depend on other steps. If this is taken care of, then that.
Furthermore, I found out in the Netherlands that my Japanese phone subscription does not support roaming, which means that I cannot be reached at all on my Japanese number. Pretty shitty, of course, so I’ll have to change that when I get back.
And then, of course, there are things like my company website – I’ve already registered toepsmedia dot jp, but it now redirects to the dot nl. Someday that will have to improve. My email addresses are a mess, as are my accounts with things like Amazon, Spotify and Apple. One thing I have been able to cancel: when ASN announced the availability of Apple Pay this week, my old ING account could go out the door.
Desk flip deluxe
I don’t like this. I konmari’d my life a few years ago, and that made everything wonderfully organised and workable. But right now I have a hundred imaginary stacks on the floor, five hundred tangled cables, and I can’t get on because I’m looking for that one key.
“Just keep swimming!”, says Dory. I know. Slowly is also fine, although in this chaos I find it almost impossible to concentrate on developer work. I’m already on edge from everything that doesn’t work and doesn’t cooperate, and I can’t handle an uncooperative website. Before you know it, my laptop will fly out the window – and then you have that problem on top of it.
Oh well. I just hope this whole thing will be over in a while. Emigrating is not something you do every week, so eh. One day it will calm down. And then I’ll probably start a new book or something. Crazy that I am.
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From the bat cave
It has been over a month since I wrote anything here. My head is full, and even when I talk to my friends it gets in the way. Then I want to tell them everything, immediately, and then the conversation turns into one big monologue about bank accounts, tatami mats and bats, and that’s not very nice of course. Or well. Not very reciprocal. That’s why this is a good old blog; one-way traffic, information dump style. Maybe you have already seen bits and pieces on Instagram (really, that medium still keeps me somewhat sane), but here it is, neatly and with context: Toeps in Japan, the recap.
Blossoming
In my previous blog I promised to tell you more about the trip, but I’ve been here for about three weeks, so the trip can be summarized as: I got on the plane in Korea, got off two hours later in Japan,went through all the procedures at Narita and was allowed to take the train home. There I had to quarantine for another three days, after which I was allowed to leave early after a local PCR test.
Korea for the gram
I owe you an update. “How is Korea?” you keep asking me. I couldn’t answer it because that wouldn’t be fair. Korea cannot do well, and that is not because of Korea, but only because it is not Japan.
Koreantine
It was the day before Riemer and I went to Disneyland that I decided to try Korea. I had been waiting for Japan for over a year, and it didn’t look like anything was going to change in the near future. And camping in Riemer’s living room, or in hotels in Utrecht even longer didn’t seem like a good idea. So it had to be Korea.
Signs and lines
“Oh yes, and I need you to do one more thing…” Mikako, my bank account, visa and tax contact, walked me through the to-do’s for renewing my visa. “You have to take pictures of your office. From the entrance to the elevator, the front door, and then of course inside. It is important that there is a nameplate on your door. It’s even more important that it not only says Toeps Media, but also 株式会社.”
Background processes
Hello, greetings from the saddest spot in the local Starbucks. In the back of the store, with no windows, in a corner. A one person table against the wall. I’m sitting here with my laptop because I wanted a change of scenery. A moment of no distraction from all the stuff around me, so I can write this blog in peace. At least, as long as the battery of this laptop lasts.
Japanese joke
Hooray, my visa has been extended! I heard a few days before Riemer came (and we were going to travel around southern Japan), so I rushed to the immigration office, and an hour later I had an extra year of Japan in the pocket. And, also not unimportant: finally a somewhat normal visa, because with such a six-month thingy, most companies can do exactly nothing. Time to switch to a real phone provider.
The apartment next door
Those who have read my new book know that, when I had just arrived in Japan and was still sleeping in my office, I wanted to rent the apartment right next door. It seemed so wonderful: a three-second commute, a shared internet connection, vacuum cleaner and pantry, and (after dismantling a partition) a very long balcony, so that I could even go “round the back” from home to office and vice versa. But alas, I just missed it, settling instead for an apartment on the other side of the building, and five floors up.