People and Food in Tokyo (by Vitaly)
Hi, I’m Vitaly Pavlenko, I’m a software engineer from Moscow and this year I decided to do an internship at HENNGE (previously HDE) to explore work and life in Tokyo. Throughout the internship, I sharpened my skills in full-stack and DevOps. Workplace atmosphere at HDE is super awesome.
I love large cities and especially I love people and food there. As I’ve spent two months in Tokyo, I’m gonna share some tips on how to get the most of both while you’re staying around.
Start with Couchsurfing
For three nights before the internship, I’ve found two Couchsurfing hosts to stay with. Couchsurfing is a nice way to find people in a new city — you can stay at someone’s house for a couple of days for free. Well, just as the community lunch at HDE, “it’s not free” — you’re expected to have a cultural exchange with your host.
Which works both ways: you may bring some sweets from your country and share some stories, and your host can take you to a local place. My first host offered an airbed in his tiny startup office in Shibuya, and my second host took me to sento with his colleagues. Sugoi ne!
After my last trips to Europe, I had a Couchsurfing profile with about 10 references, so it wasn’t hard to find hosts. If you don’t have references yet, you can still message people to hang out with them without staying overnight — this is less scary for them, so they may easily respond. I met a couple of guys for dinner — I was browsing people around who recently logged into Couchsurfing and have something in common with me. Besides that, Couchsurfing has an Events section, and there’s always some bar meetup tonight.
Aside from Couchsurfing, there’s a regular event called PechaKucha which I also highly recommend. It’s a mix of 10 small lectures with 20 photos each and visitors who you can hang out with.
Find a social housing
Renting a room in a share house is a great way to make new friends. You’ll likely need to stay at one of them anyways given that Airbnb was recently legalized (=broken) in Japan, and there are almost no listings anymore.
The minimum reasonable term of stay at a share house is one month. As I got two months in Tokyo, I decided to try two different share houses. And there was a huge difference between them two.
My first share house was a GG Apartment House in a calm residential area close to Futako-Shinchi station. 40 min commute to the office, crowded trains, almost no restaurants around. Tiny 8 m² room, no living room, some Asian roommates don’t speak English. Totally not social — for the entire month I’ve spoken only a couple of times to one British guy. But it was cheap — ¥62,000 per month.
In contrast, my second share house was a crowded Sakura house in Sendagaya 4-chome. There’s a lot of people cooking dinners in living rooms, there are always social smokers near the front door and the house has a Facebook chat for planning parties. And it’s a centric location — four train stations around, 25 min commute to the office, Yoyogi park, Harajuku second hands and Shinjuku clubs and saunas within a walking distance. You don’t need to care about the last train anymore when partying late.
My second room was also more spacious, which all sums up to more expensive ¥92,000 per month. And that’s not the limit — I know a guy who pays more to stay at a Social Apartment where the people are a bit more mature in their career paths, comparing to some “I recently came here for Japanese classes, working part-time in konbini (Japanese term for convenience store)” share house inhabitants. Gonna check out next time.
Gotta catch ’em all food types
Japanese food isn’t only sushi and ramen — it has way more to offer. Be curious and explore new venues all the time.
Types of Japanese food
Seriously, google some article on 30 types of Japanese restaurants or 105 kinds of Japanese food and just follow them. Some of it is pretty pointless, like whale meat, but most of it is great. Your seed checklist:
- Monja — a dish that only looks edible before it’s cooked
- Shabu-shabu
- Seafood donburi
- Ramen with umeboshi
- Cod milt
Vending machines
Vending machines usually have tea, coffee, and some soda. However, some of them have rare items as well. I have a checklist for you, try to find and taste all of them:
- Cheese and corn hot soup
- Oshiruko — hot sweet porridge made of beans
- Clam flavoured miso soup
- Amazake — hot sweet low-alcohol drink made from fermented rice. Hint: I found many cans of them in Nakano
- Cold barley tea
Snacks at grocery stores
Again, some list of things you may want to hunt for:
- Crispy dried shrimps and small crabs. Hint: this is Donki stuff
- Mochi ice-cream
- Rice roll with natto beans and crispy seaweed
- “7-eleven okonomiyaki” — a crêpe with noodles and bonito flakes
- Apple juice with black vinegar. Hint: learn katakana and look for ダイエット (“daietto” — this is a diet stuff)
Don’ts for food in Tokyo
It’s hard to find bad food in Tokyo. There are, however, proven paths for that. I’ve found here the worst kebab and the worst burrito in my life. So better stay away from non-Asian food — there’s no evolutionary reason for it to meet your expectations.
Also, a bento around the corner was pretty a mediocre pile of carbs in stale oil. So pay attention when you choose one. Or just buy food at konbini — I never had a bad experience with it, and they always warm it up for you.
Never eat lunch alone
You’ll have some free lunches with colleagues, but that doesn’t mean you should eat alone on other days. Joining colleagues is a great way to discover cool restaurants around and share life experience. Make it a challenge of never eating any lunch alone. At least during the internship, but better during your entire life. All cool things in your life happen because of people you got to know, so meet new people and deepen your connections with them.
Subscribe to my food blog and see you in Tokyo next time (-‿◦)
Vitaly Pavlenko was born & raised in Moscow. He studied Computer Science at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Vitaly was one of the HENNGE Global Interns for Oct 29 — Dec 14, 2018. Apply now by cracking the IT challenge here.
