The One Year Experiment

Omg I actually did what i hoped to achieve (sort of) near the end of the Small Eastern Experiment.

Somewhat longer first post. But the next ones will most likely be shorter as I want to try and at least post something every other week.

For context, after the short 3 months studying abroad in Kanazawa, Japan, made me realize that I wished to try to live and work in Japan. So during my last semester at the University of Leiden until late September, I was busy applying everywhere wherever possible. But sadly to no avail. I was aware of another option to get in Japan and gain new friends, connections and professional experience, being the Work-Holiday Visa. In my mind this was a "last resort" that I would try if I still hadn't found something by January 2026. However, after talking to some people (some who currently is on Working-Holiday visa, as well as some people with experience doing internships in Japan) I decided to start this process early, so I can hopefully start building new connections quicker. And just like that the visa application was accepted and the flight tickets were bought... And now I'm here for 1 year with the opportunity to make my dream come true.

November 3rd 2025

Onion Rings... Do you pick up the phone? But instead it was my alarm at 5 am. Quick shower and then for the time being the last breakfast together with my family. Dropped of at the airport, I check in my suitcases and get through security fairly quickly. Time to board the plane.

November 4th 2025

What was supposed to be a chill layover in Chinese Taipei, turned out to be one of the most stressful moments in my short life. Boarding time for my flight to Osaka started at 7:05am and we landed at 6:55am. So I might have set a world record standing up and getting my luggage after we got clearance to do that. like this....

Running to the monorail at TPE, going through international transfer carry-on baggage check and getting to the gate pretty much as soon as economy starts boarding. Would not recommend this.

But it's ok! I've finally landed in Osaka!


Immigrations went pretty quick, even though I got send in the wrong line. Managed to get my residence card fairly quickly. And after the happening at TPE I was Very happy to see my luggage made it too.

After arriving at my sharehouse, I managed to quickly vibe well with the house manager, because he used to wrestle in high-school and thus had a common love for grappling. After that I went and had lunch at Kurasushi with an old classmate and caught up with her. Having enjoyed some weird sushis (fried cheddar, hamburger, tuna avocado feta?????) I went on to somewhat organise my room. While even smaller than I anticipated based on the information I got, it's a nice space and I'm liking it a lot for now. Compared to my dorm in Kanazawa I'm even supplied with pretty much any cooking supply I can wish for?!?!?!




I got a rice cooker, pans and kitchen utensils, kettle, toaster, microwave.

And of course I brought my finest piece of clothing I own.


Not having slept for 35-40ish hours, I managed to stay awake until 9pm after which I slept fine.

November 5th 2025

Today was a pretty relaxed day. I started by walking around through the Nanba and Nipponbashi neighbourhoods.

Walked past a funny big shrine very close to my place.
The Nanba Yasaka Jinja.



Lunch at my favourite chain restaurant that is mostly visited salarymen, Matsuya!


Walking through the otaku nerd stores I was reminded of Nook (eBay).

I hoped to quickly visit the Naniwa Ward Office to register and handle everything, but Nope it was so busy, I was there for 2.5 hours. Had the nicest workers, Japan ever help me and got genuine compliments on my Japanese (not the usual nihongo jouzu). Finally leaving, it started to rain very heavily. Instead of my plan to keep on exploring, I decided to head to the supermarkt and home after that.




Quick, sacrilegious, but tasty good boy dinner.

This concludes my first post (of hopefully many) to The Slightly Bigger Eastern Experiment. Thank you for reading.

lmao of course you brought the basic fit towel with you

but yeah, it's nice that you have dreams and objetives in life and are going for them. otherwise you'll feel like you don't really know what you should be doing most of the time and start blindly accepting other people's/society's goals as your own (or you'll just keep trying random things and see if something sticks, which is fine). there's nothing wrong with having the standard family man/stable career/nice house and car dream, but that is something that should come within you.

anyways please keep posting because even though i stalk some of your bluesky accounts every now and then (i don't have to make an account to do so!) i prefer flashii more since i can just not log in for weeks and be able to catch up easily, and also because the posts over here are more interesting ^^

The basic fit towel is on god a nice size not too big not too small perfect hand towel

this is so awesome man, i'm excited to hear more as things develop. is the apartment reasonably priced?

iirc its about 500 euros or so, bills included, ary talked about it in chat a few days ago

its like 380 to 400 euros a month including utilities.

お待たせしました。
My excuses, from now on the posts will not be as detailed with all dates anymore. Just for The big days.

The past few weeks have been mostly spent exploring my neighbourhood and a few outings towards other parts, such as a walk to scenery spot or a small hike up Mount Futatabi.

Sorry in advance for random fingers appearing in some pictures.

To start out with a cute story.
I was walking around in just a t-shirt when an older lady came up to ask me if I wasn't cold. After which I talked a bit with her, even throwing in a pun which made her laugh, while waiting at the traffic light. When we approached the Pachinko parlor, she gave me a clementine from Wakayama prefecture, which she claimed to be the best clementines in the world. After this she ran inside the pachinko parlor to gamble away all her money.
The red building is the pachinko place in question.



Funny gorilla yakiniku place in my area



Some pictures of Dotonbori by day





The famous Glico sign. To this day I still have no clue what it really advertises, but everyone takes pictures here imitating the sign.

A parody advertisement on the glico.



There are still many remnants of the Osaka World Expo 2025. It seems it was really well received, as there are a lot of thank you messages and signs about it as well.




Even though it's November, the weather is still very nice. Clear skies, little to no wind and comfortable, slightly chilly, temperatures of 15-20C (58-68F).

November 11th 2025

I decided to go to a sightseeing spot to the east of Osaka, up the small mountain Ikoma (〜600meter (656yd)) to what is called ぼくらの広場 (Bokura no Hiroba). It had a very nice sight over Osaka at the top as well as cute nice smaller things to see along the way.





Got a small sneak peak of the autumn colours already.




The view from the top. Chilled her for a bit and talked for a bit with a very nice older lady. Mostly about where I am from and why I came to Japan.



And down we went again.

Sploon

Obligatory squib posting

November 16th 2025

House boss organised a hike up mount Futatabi (~470m 513yd), in the end only 4 other people from both the sharehouses he manages ended up coming. But it was still nice and fun and I got to know new people. We left early in the morning by train to Kobe. Got blessed with a lot of autumn colours this day.









Cool spider for bug thread playpen











We made and ate Hot Dogs








This is the Nunobiki dam, which holds the waterbody from which the Kobe tap water gets made.






The Nunobiki waterfall


Another view of Kobe. Would have loved to explore more of Kobe, but I made promises to eat somewhere later in the evening back in Osaka. So Further Kobe exploration will happen sometime later.

Other things

Square water melon


Tourist trap area Tsutenkaku and Tsutenkaku tower. Pretty much all of Tsutenkaku is just stalls where you can shoot cork guns to "win" prices. Or endless 串かつ kushikatsu places.



Small Kobe Bryant tribute.


Good looking sunset.




That was the post for this time.
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