Things we miss about the UK

July marks our 18th month of living in Japan and the past six months in particular have flown by. As each week passes, we are reassured that taking the plunge to come and live in Japan for a while was absolutely the right thing to do but of course, as they say, “there is no place like home”. So, in no particular order, here is a list of things we miss about the UK:

1. Squash (the drink)
Squash is not easily available in Japan and we used to drink gallons each day in London so bizarrely it was the first thing we actively missed when we moved here. You can get some very expensive cordials etc from the international supermarkets but we haven’t indulged.

2. Cheap train travel
Everyone in the UK complains about how expensive trains are back home, but you have no idea how good we have it in the UK. Yes, the tickets can be mega expensive but you can very easily get cheap tickets by booking in advance, travelling off peak, or if you qualify for one of many different railcards. None of these options exist in Japan. Intercity travel (by bullet train) is ridiculously expensive and there is no way of getting cheap tickets as there is just one flat fare at all times. For example, a return ticket from Tokyo to Kyoto is always around £200 or to Hiroshima is around £280.

But I should point out that although the intercity trains are painfully expensive, you can get a refund and exchange your tickets at any point before you travel, the trains always run on time, you usually get a seat as most seats have to be reserved. 

However, if you’re thinking of visiting as a tourist, you can get various travel passes which make rail travel around the country a lot more affordable. 

3. Being able to understand everything that is being said and written around us
No biggie.

4. Speed limits that make sense
The driving speed limits in Japan seem to be from the days of samurais travelling on horseback and are on the low side. The speed limit for a motorway can be 50mph for long stretches and other big roads out of the city are often 30-40mph. After our first few roadtrips we realised that most Japanese drivers ignore the speed limit and so we tend to just go with the flow of the traffic now.

5. BBC iPlayer
Long live the beeb. 

6. Daylight saving time
We miss the long summer evenings! Here, during the summer it is light from about 4:30am but gets dark around 7pm so you cannot take advantage of the summer warmth (and humidity) in the same way.

7. Fully understanding, and participating in, the social and political context
We were both pretty engaged and interested in current affairs in the UK but I think there is so much we miss or do not grasp about the social and political life in Japan. Yes, we can follow the English language media but there is a limit to how much we can fully understand and appreciate what is happening around us. To be honest, because we can feel detached from where we are living, reading news stories about Japan feels no different to reading news stories about the rest of the world. 

8. Not sticking out like a sore thumb
Unfortunately, unless you look like you are ethnically Japanese you have zero chance of blending in here. As an ethnic minority in the UK, I was very fortunate living in Birmingham and London because I completely felt part of society as there was no set image of how a British person looks. But in Japan, we are constantly aware of being seen as “not Japanese” and we are far more conscious of our behaviour and feeling like we have to be ambassadors.   

Of course, because not all of the UK is like Birmingham or London when it comes to the extent of multiculturalism, there were some parts of the UK in which I would actively notice or be reminded that I was in fact a minority but our move to Japan is Wil’s first experience of being a minority.

9. Watching sports

This weekend more than most days, we are acutely missing being able to easily watch and follow sports with the Wimbledon final, Cricket World Cup Final and the Formula One at Silverstone all taking place.

We do not have a TV in Japan and sports licensing is very rigid making it difficult to watch sports legally online! Formula 1 would be part of our lives for about half the year in the UK, and although we did find a way to watch it online here, it isn’t as enjoyable without English commentary. When it comes to Wimbledon, we actively have to check the scores for the previous day’s matches. Whereas in the UK, Wimbledon would just become part of everyday life and you would actively have to avoid it! It was easier to follow the FIFA World Cup last year as Japan were playing but unless we want to go and sit in British pub until the early hours of the morning we have little chance of watching England in the Cricket World Cup final tonight. 

10. Nearby and cheap international travel destinations
Living in the UK, particularly London with a few airports at our disposal, we took it for granted just how many international destinations were on our doorstep and did not realise how fortunate we were that budget air travel is so prevalent. For starters, Japan is pretty far away from the rest of Asia and the only close options are South Korea and Taiwan - it takes 2 hours from Tokyo to Seoul and 4 hours from Tokyo to Taipei. By comparison, that would be considered a pretty long flight by European standards and we’d be in Turkey or beyond!

11. A lot of food
At one point it looked like the majority of this list was going to be food items so instead I will summarise some of the things we miss the most here: easily available halal meat, Quorn and abundance of meat substitute products, proper cheese, hummus, dips and little pots of deli-esque items, good, reasonably priced chocolate (thankfully our family and friends send us regular parcels with chocolate), microwave meals and desserts (and having a microwave), a wide range of tinned soup (I have dabbled in soup making), and being able to buy baked beans (or spaghetti hoops in Wil’s case), waffles and fish fingers even if I don’t really want them but knowing I could get them. Being able to go to an M&S Food Hall. Oh, we also miss SUSHI - surprising and unexpected I know, but what I mean is the corrupted Western version of sushi that we got used to eating rather than the authentic sushi that is available here (we’ve tried to expand our palate and eat more exotic looking seafood here but there is still a fair bit I can’t bring myself to have). Custard. 

Setting the scene for as I wrote this blog:

• Location:  From our sofa at home.

• Weather: Grey and drizzly - it has been unseasonably cool recently (still about 25°C) and the rainy season is continuing for longer than usual in Tokyo but I far prefer this to the horrendous heat and humidity we endured last July. 

• Soundtrack: Wil playing video games.

• Bonus fact: Japan is not a nation that comes to mind when you think of cricket, but Japan has qualified for the Under 19 Cricket World Cup (Japan’s first time qualifying for any ICC tournament).  But it was under unusual circumstances: Papua New Guinea ended up forfeiting their game against Japan as they were unable to field a team because they suspended 10 of their squad for a shoplifting crime spree! So Japan ended up qualifying!