Life in Japan
What's it like to live in Japan?
People always want to know how I cope with daily life in a foreign country. Especially one which is so different from my home country of Australia.
I've been in Oita for over 5 years (since just before my son was born), and generally speaking, I have nothing to complain about.
We are lucky to be living in a "provincial" city (Oita city has a population of about half a million people), rather than a major centre like Tokyo or Osaka, which gives us the combination of a quietly paced life with most of Japan's famed conveniences. Ten to twenty minutes drive in any direction (except seaward) can put you put in beautiful rural or mountainous settings. less than a minute from my front door is not one, but two convenience stores and a couple of minutes on the bicycle, or even less in the car takes us to our choice of supermarket/department store.
In comparison with Australia, there's one thing that stands out, population density.
While our home city is not really all that big, and surrounded by largely empty agricultural and wilderness areas, most of the people live within about ten kilometres of the city centre. That means that people live much closer to each other, and services are much easier to access compared to an Australian city, like Perth.
It's not Tokyo. People still need cars to get around (and we have a reputation in Oita for being terrible drivers), there's no subway, and public transport services, generally speaking, are not the best. But unless you choose to live in an out of the way location, you are never more than a short walk from a bar, restaurant (both locally owned or chain/franchise), supermarket, post office, community centre (often incorporating local library), doctor or dentist's clinic, or just about any store or service you are likely to need when going about your daily life. Most Australians are necessarily taking to their cars, to get to these places.
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