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Bad Romance

This morning, François and I went to the immigration office. After days of preparation, including visits to city hall, a visit to my previous city hall (because I was registered there on January 1st and paid taxes there), hours of form-filling, and even cutting and pasting a document full of romantic photos and our first messages, I thought I had the application ready. Our mission: to change my visa from Business Manager to Spouse of Permanent Resident. More freedom, fewer requirements, and a path to PR for myself in three years. Hey ho, let’s go.

Building Name

Anyone who’s read This autistic girl went to Japan knows that this country can be quite bureaucratic. As a newcomer, you first have to break through the magical triangle of address–phone number–bank account, before you can finally pay with something other than the credit card you were actually supposed to have canceled already, or gift cards from the convenience store. By that time, you’ll probably also discover that you should’ve chosen a different way to write your name, because spaces, special characters, or middle names are guaranteed to cause problems: they don’t fit in the box, or your input won’t make it through verification. And have you learned how to write the number 7 the Japanese way yet? I have—after my direct debit form got returned for being “illegible.” (Tip: no wavy line at the top, and definitely no slash through the middle.)

After all these lessons in 官僚主義, I thought I had it figured out. But when I moved in with François a few months ago, I made a rookie mistake.

Netherlands Speedrun

Two weeks ago, I flew to the Netherlands. I had two speaking events, three shoots, a meeting, and a panel scheduled—and it was a great opportunity to catch up with friends and family.

We got married!

I’m a pretty practical person. Romance isn’t really my thing, and when François asked me a few days ago if I knew when his birthday was, I was off by five days. (He’s the same way—last year, he wasn’t even in the country for my birthday—so luckily, no hard feelings.) I was never really into the idea of marriage. I don’t want kids, I don’t want a big party, and I don’t wear rings. And yet, today, we got married.

Back to the RSS

Why are we all on social media when the best platform for writing is your own? I gave my RSS feed a more prominent place and dusted off my RSS reader.

PR

Last April, François celebrated a milestone: ten years of living in Japan! He’d already studied there before that, but that doesn’t count—at least not according to the immigration office. But now the clock officially hit ten years, meaning he was eligible to apply for PR (permanent residency)!

On Musk’s hand

It was the talk of the day yesterday: A hand gesture by Elon Musk, for some clearly a Hitler salute, for others an innocent hand gesture from an enthusiastic autistic person, and yet another example of Trump Derangement Syndrome – the blind panic some seem to fall into at anything Trump and his people do.

Toeps, cat lady

There are some things that, if you’d told me a few years ago, I never would have believed. Moving to Japan, for example. But even that would’ve seemed less unlikely than this: living with a Frenchman and being responsible for two cats.

Toeps Rewind 2024, part 2

Welcome to part two of my 2024 rewind! It’s recommended to read the first part first, unless you’re some kind of barbarian or something. In this overview, we pick up where we left off, in the Netherlands, in July.

Toeps Rewind 2024, part 1

Welcome to Toeps Rewind, 2024 edition. It’s an annual tradition on this blog—except last year, when I spent most of my time complaining about life in this post. In March, I did write something that resembled a year-in-review, here. But I ended 2023 feeling a bit lost, and I can already tell you, that feeling didn’t entirely disappear in 2024. Anyway, let’s start at the beginning.

Visitors #2: Riemer

In my previous post, I shared how my family came to Japan and how I flew from Osaka to Narita to pick up Riemer — because he was coming too! We had deliberately planned it so Riemer would overlap with my family for a few days, allowing us to go to Disneyland together.

Visitors #1: The fam

But by now, everything seems back to normal. The number of tourists in Tokyo is larger than ever (which is actually pretty advantageous for someone who sells a book about her move to Japan, haha), and so, besides Charlotte, my father, stepmother, brother, sister-in-law, and niece also came to Japan. And Riemer. And Maan again, this time for an Artist-In-Residence.

Bye bye balcony Fuji

When I moved to Japan, I spent the first month and a half living in my office. Now, that sounds worse than it actually was, because my office is simply the tiny apartment I bought back when we were all stuck at home during COVID lockdowns and border closures. To meet the requirements of my business manager visa, I quickly needed to find a separate living space (home offices aren’t allowed), and I found one on the 10th floor of the same building. A bat had to be chased out first, then it needed a couple of weeks of ventilation, but after that, it slowly but surely became my home.

Narita, more than just an airport

When I was still living in Zaandam, I once saw a poster of the famous Inntel Hotel in Zaandam (which looks like a stack of traditional Zaanse houses), with the I amsterdam logo underneath. Look, I get the idea: tourists only know Amsterdam, so let’s just call everything that. The famous Muiderslot castle became Amsterdam Castle Muiderslot, an outlet in Halfweg was branded as Amsterdam The Style Outlets, and of course, our airport is called Amsterdam International Airport Schiphol – even though it’s located in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer.

Toeps, filtered

Something has changed in me since I wrote my books. I think it’s partly because of the books, but also partly because of the shifting online landscape. Either way, I’ve become more cautious. More neutral. Less opinionated. After all, with such a large audience, you naturally want to keep everyone happy. I’ve become a role model for people — and while that sounds incredibly arrogant, I do get emails from people saying just that every week — and I don’t want to disappoint them, upset them, or whatever else. I don’t want people emailing my publisher to complain about my tweets.