Early Impressions of Japan

Since I am an extension student, I have already been in Japan for a full semester before taking this course. However, during winter break I did travel to Seoul, South Korea for 9 days, and upon returning to Japan I soon after went to Tokyo for about 4 days. There were many sharp contrasts between the 2 capitals of these neighboring countries, so I would like to spend this post talking about my early impressions I experienced after returning from Seoul to Japan and going to Tokyo.

One of my first impressions I had upon returning to Japan from Korea was that the cost of living here is extremely high. One could easily assume that the cost of living in Seoul and Tokyo would be relatively comparable considering that they are the capitals of two of the most economically developed nations in Asia, but I found this not to be true. As soon as I arrived back in Japan and escpecially after going to Tokyo I found everything to be so extremely expensive! Seoul seemed so cheap in many ways after going to Tokyo and contrasting the cost of living between the two places.

This contrast immediately manifested itself to me in Tokyo in a variety of ways: admission fees, transportation costs, food costs, accomodation costs, and commodity costs. Case in point: in Seoul, you can take the subway pretty much anywhere within the city for about $1 give or take. After going to Tokyo and looking at the subway map at Shinjuku which shows all the different prices I was flabbergasted and even slightly pissed off that riding the subways in Tokyo cost anywhere from around $2 to $14 (the average being about 5 times what it was in Seoul). This situation extended beyond mere transportation fees to all the various cost of living prices as listed above.

To put it simply, my early impressions of Japan after returning here from Korea was that it is an extremely expensive country. Everywhere I turned - whether simply comparing the prices of meals on menus outside of restaurants or the prices of subway tickets in train stations in Seoul and Tokyo - made this pop out at me constantly. I guess it makes sense considering it is often said that Japan is one of the most expensive places to live in the world.














My capsule style bunkbed room at Ace Inn Guesthouse in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Was around $45/night and extremely small. (image borrowed from http://ace-inn.jp/rooms/index.html)
















My single room at Kim's Guesthosue in Mapo-gu, Seoul - an area of Seoul that could be compared to Shinjuku in terms of its convienent location, however the price was literally half of my capsule "room" in Shinjuku, despite the fact that it was a real room and maybe 6 times the size!















Fish and chips dinner at a bar in Roppongi, Tokyo. Was around $10 (of course excluding the cost of the beer I'm holding).















Fish and chips at a bar in Haebangchong, Seoul, an area that could be compared to the Roppongi district of Tokyo in the sense that there is a large presence of foreigners and establishments aimed at foriegn clientele. However, the price was about half of my fish and chips dinner in Roppongi, and the serving size was about a third larger!




Article about cost of living in Japan for an expat:
http://www.expatforum.com/articles/cost-of-living/cost-of-living-in-japan.html

Worldwide Cost of Living survey 2008 by city - Tokyo is in 2nd place, and Seoul in 5th
http://www.mercer.com/costoflivingpr