When I landed in Tokyo for the first time, something about it felt right.
What surprised me the most about the cost of living in Japan is being able to afford everything on my own.
What's a Japanese 7-Eleven without a giant variety of cup ramen?
That's like 80 cents.
I mean, I'm living alone.
Like, I've never been able to live alone.
That was my dream.
Welcome to my Japanese apartment.
There's a lot of space out here.
I just don't really know what to do with it.
It's too hot to go outside.
I'm Ashley Peters.
I'm 23 years old and I moved to Tokyo, Japan in January 2025.
I'm in Shibuya.
Currently, I live in Kanagawa.
My city is Nakahara.
From Shibuya, it's about a 15 minute train ride.
So it's really close to the center of Tokyo.
I grew up in Irvine, California in Southern California.
Until high school, I never really had interest in travel at all actually.
I thought that I wanted to stay in America my entire life.
Going abroad didn't even occur to me until after I graduated college and I found that I could become an English teacher in Japan.
I saw a TikTok.
I looked up teaching English in Japan, and then I applied to the first one that I saw.
And that same weekend, I interviewed, and then a week after, I got the job.
My mom actually helped me move to Japan.
She said she wants to go home.
We just got here.
I was working as an English teacher from February to August.
I was making 277,000 yen a month.
The hours were a little difficult and then I quit.
Now I'm doing social media content for a language app.
I'm also working as a digital marketing assistant as a freelancer.
So right now we're in Shibuya and we're on top of this building called Miyashita Park.
And my favorite Starbucks is here.
Tada!
For the social media content with the language app, I make $175 a week, so $700 a month.
For the digital marketing assistant, I make $25 an hour.
It ranges from 10 hours to 20 hours a week.
In California.
I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend and I believe our rent was close to 2800 split between the two of us.
But in Japan, I pay ¥74,460 a month.
Welcome to my Japanese apartment.
There's no stove, but that's okay.
I have an electric stove right here.
In Japan, you need to separate your trash.
So I bought this thing from Amazon to separate all of my trash.
Very convenient.
I can only take cardboard boxes out on Saturdays and it's Thursday.
So these boxes will be in my apartment for two more days and I can't do anything about it.
Bathroom area.
Their bathrooms always include a bath, because it is very prominent in Japanese culture to take a hot bath every single night.
Next is my separate toilet from the sink laundry machine right here.
I installed a pole to hang dry since it's really uncommon for Japanese apartments to have dryers.
Next, coming through my sliding doors is the living area.
If you follow me to the balcony.
Something that is different in Japan I'm not used to.
Metal panels for blocking out sunlight since Japanese summers are extremely hot.
And then my favorite part of the apartment.
The reason that I bought it was because of the tatami room.
Usually these rooms are used for tea ceremonies, but I wanted to feel like I was living the Japanese anime life, so I put my bed in here.
Ta-da!
For electricity, it depends on the season.
In the winter, I was paying 1,500 yen, but now it's closer to 5,000 yen.
For gas, I pay 1,200 yen a month.
For Wi-Fi, I pay around 5,910 yen a month.
Sushi roll!
In California, I budget tracked like crazy.
I literally wrote down every single expense.
I would limit how often I eat out.
Sometimes I avoid.
I didn't like.
I'm not gonna say I just like don't eat because I didn't wanna pay.
But here, if I'm hungry, like I just eat.
Salmon, avocado, onion, mayo.
Limited area special, salty pork ribs and tuna.
Another thing that I really like about living in Japan is the convenience store culture.
They have packaged chicken and produce.
Now we're at one of the most popular convenience stores in Japan, which is none other than 7-Eleven.
What's a Japanese 7-Eleven without a giant variety of cup ramen?
Most of these sandwiches range from 250 yen anywhere to 410.
You can really make an entire meal just off of convenience store foods.
Okay, here's everything that we got from 7-Eleven.
So first things first, onigiri, protein shake, chocolate bread. to stay hydrated with electrolytes.
And I got all of this for $5.95.
Pretty good haul if I do say so myself.
I would say it's really safe in Japan.
When I was working late nights, I would go to the gym after I got home from work.
So there's multiple nights that I would get home around 1 a.m.
Especially as a woman, I would never do that back home in California.
But it's a really safe area where I live.
One of the biggest challenges moving here is definitely the language barrier and also adjusting to the difference in bureaucracy.
And because I don't speak Japanese and because they're using really specific Japanese words, it makes it really difficult to communicate situations, especially since I left my job.
There's also procedures for that.
They don't like to leave the mail outside your door if you're not home.
But because i don't speak japanese, it's difficult.
There's a lot of procedures for getting a bank account in japan.
Thankfully my company settled that for me.
But there's been already multiple times where like, i'll type in my pin code wrong two times and then, unless i go to the bank in person and i ask them to fix it, i just can't use my card.
I'm currently in that situation.
I haven't been able to pull out cash for like two months because I just don't want to go to the bank because I'm scared.
Doctors appointments too.
There was a time that I needed to schedule an online phone call with a doctor, but that didn't go well because we couldn't understand each other.
So I just didn't get the medicine.
Just a lot of, there's actually a lot.
Maybe some differences between here and the United States.
Bullet points.
I rely on AI a lot actually to help me navigate through the language barrier in situations like this and making friends and asking them for help.
So there has been times where I've had my Japanese friends like call my phone carrier or call my bank for me.
I don't know, I think I just like living here enough to deal with it.
Also because it kind of motivates me to learn the language more.
When I was working full time, I never had the time to do that.
And now that I have flexible jobs, I can study the language more.
My social life here is definitely less than when I was in America, just because it is a little harder to make friends.
You have to really go out of your way.
And I'm extroverted, so it's okay, but it gets tiring.
Here because I can afford my rent and I can afford living by myself.
It's a lot easier to pursue things that I'm interested, like studying the language and doing my own content, when I'm not constantly worried about okay, how am I gonna pay rent next month?
Now that I'm here, I'm just trying to appreciate every single day that I'm here, because unless you're a permanent resident, you kind of have to keep renewing your visa.
And I think in the long term, I don't want to keep dealing with those bureaucratic processes, especially since I mentioned that it's really difficult to do if you don't speak the language.
That's why I just want to enjoy every single day while I'm here.
