23 Years Ago

17 Oct

Today is 2013 October 17th.

I came to Japan on 1990 October 17th.
Exactly twenty-three years ago!

I’ve lived most of my life in Japan.
The first 20 years in America… but the past 23 years here in Tokyo.

Tokyo has changed lot since I first came here.

Here’s a picture of Tokyo in 1990:

image

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14 Responses to “23 Years Ago”

  1. ddupre315 October 17, 2013 at 6:53 am #

    What brought you to Japan? When you moved did you think it would be to stay?

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    • tokyo5 October 17, 2013 at 8:38 am #

      The company that I worked for at the time asked me if I’d like to work in Japan for two years.
      I didn’t know anything about Japan. Couldn’t speak the language, had never tried any of the food, know almost nothing about the culture at the time…but was excited about the chance to see such a country and culture so different from what I was raised in.

      When I came here, there was even less English signs, etc than there are now. And there was no internet or cell-phones.

      No, I had no intention of staying longer than the initial two years when I first came.

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      • ddupre315 October 17, 2013 at 9:04 am #

        Interesting and how awesome that you were so open to such an adventure!

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      • tokyo5 October 17, 2013 at 11:24 am #

        I suppose that most people would take advantage of such an opportunity.
        You did too.

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  2. astronerdboy October 17, 2013 at 2:23 am #

    Nostalgia. ^_^ I think it was earlier this year, I shared an image from Fussa in 1989. A Japanese friend who still lives in the area took a shot of the place today. Amazing how some things changed and some didn’t.

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    • tokyo5 October 17, 2013 at 6:45 am #

      Really? Can I see the two photos? What’s the URL?

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      • astronerdboy October 22, 2013 at 6:06 am #

        Let me see if I can get them both to a public spot. ^_^

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      • tokyo5 October 22, 2013 at 7:08 am #

        Thanks

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      • astronerdboy October 22, 2013 at 6:47 am #

        I decided to make a blog post on my personal blog with the images in question.

        http://blog.astronerdboy.com/2013/10/fussa-japan-1989-2013.html

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      • tokyo5 October 22, 2013 at 7:11 am #

        I looked at your post.
        Great!

        I tried to leave a comment but kept getting an error message.

        The comment I wanted to leave was:

        Thanks for the link. And thanks for showing the photos!
        Seiyu Dept Stores are different on the inside now … they look like a cross between a Japanese and an American store because they’ve partnered with America’s WalMart!

        And Dunkin Donuts left the Japanese market years ago.

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      • astronerdboy October 22, 2013 at 7:32 am #

        Weird. Not sure why the error unless it is the captcha stuff (sometimes, folks forget to put in the numbers).

        I had heard that Seiyu and Walmart had partnered up. I remember it being a big deal because Walmart removed a lot of the middle management (or that was my understanding).

        As for Dunkin Donuts, now that you mentioned it, I guess I do recall being told that they were no longer in country.

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    • tokyo5 October 22, 2013 at 10:01 am #

      >sometimes, folks forget to put in the numbers

      No. I entered the verification number. But got an error message every time.

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      • astronerdboy October 23, 2013 at 5:21 am #

        Out of curiosity, what was the error message? I’d just like to do some research into it.

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      • tokyo5 October 23, 2013 at 8:03 am #

        I couldn’t remember what the error message said exactly so I just retried to leave a comment on your blog…and was successful this time.

        The only thing that I did differently was I used my PC this time…but earlier I tried to leave a comment using my smartphone (and got the error messages).

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