Wow!

Hello and welcome to the Abroad Japan Podcast, probably the best way of learning about life in Japan without actually being in Japan.

I'm your host Chris Broder, but join us in aways by England's top Japan enthusiast, Mr Pete Donaldson himself.

Do you know where I am right now?

Oh, I mean according to your background, it just looks like you're in your house with...

Whenever we record from Chris's house via his computer and the microphone and internet system, we always find ourselves in front of a shelving unit with a lot of very expensive camera lenders and drawn equipment and stuff.

So I'll presume you're just there.

I've spent so much money on those fucking camera lenses.

People have to have a hobby. I didn't have a hobby. My was camera lenses. But to the untrained face, it looks like my old studio.

But I'm in fact in a new office studio, in a brand new apartment, in Tokyo, a world's biggest city.

I've done it. I've finally moved here after 11 years of people going, oh you live in Japan, you must be in Tokyo.

Amigo, no, I'm in Sendai and then I'm going, what's Sendai? I don't know what that is. Now I can finally go, yes, Tokyo, Tokyo, that's where I am.

And the conversation can finish and it can be over a lot quicker. But I'm finally in Tokyo. It's done.

Congratulations.

Congratulations. Did anything break, smash, set on fire during the move?

Firstly, if you've ever watched any video about moving house in Japan, the first thing people tell you about is those kind of very hardworking, very careful, very crafty house moves

who wrap all your stuff in really lovely bits of cardboard and move for you effectively. Did you use one of those companies to move?

Yeah, we did. Last time we moved, when the move happened to Sendai, last time I used them and Charlotte, I got a sponsorship from them, right?

And it meant that it was all done for free, which is amazing. And they went the extra mile and made a real special effort.

They like brought in like twice as many people as they normally would. And like, I don't know if the service exists outside of Japan or in the UK, but I don't even know what the name of the company is, but all the boxes of 1, 2, 3 written on them.

So maybe it's something one to say. They come in with a team of people and they take photos of every room. And then you sort of say, I want my bookshelf in my new apartment, I want it in that room, and I want it in this way.

And I want the people like that. And so it's trippy. Like you go from one apartment to the next and you basically just walk into your new apartment and it's all done already to go without you needing to unbox anything.

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