the architect’s journal

I’ve given an arm and a leg to be here and I can’t stop thinking about going back to New York again. It’s just this repetitive thinking that I keep chewing on.

Even after deciding that I wanted to do work in Japan, some kind of public space design or urban revitalization, my whole move to Japan has been so traumatizing that I can’t seem to move forward.

Ayae gave me some N5 books to study, which are incredibly easy Japanese I’ve studied in 2nd grade but I still have not touched them. 

This whole new life is just so different. And it’s two years in and I’m still thinking about pulling the plug and heading home. Back to my rat’s nest of New York.

I can picture my life back in New York again. Probably working for another company. I could do the whole Thanksgiving turkey again, Christmas, maybe Upstate New York with Fall leaves- it could be so nice. 

And yet- I’m here. 



I must say, the summer is incredibly tough here. Whatever sense of happiness you had before just gets knocked down. And It’s going to happen every year that I live here. In a world that is only getting hotter..



A fever dream- I spent a lot of time in Noborito. I’m thinking about moving there, to be in an area that I want to do work. I want to do a skate plaza. With public space for interdisciplinary use where people can gather. It’s about creating a community space for myself, and others of course. But mostly...what I think I need.

To live where you work is the best way to do it. But Noborito is also kind of a sad and melancholic place along the Tama River. It reminds me of an indie film. Lonely Tokyo along the river. With yakitori and asahi beers on a concrete seawall.



What is is to leave your life behind and still regret it two years later is just a crushing feeling. What it is to start again in a new country...Japan has been there for me since I was a baby. It always offers me beauty, good food, and pure thoughts.

But I must say, it is incredibly difficult. The quiet kind of trauma. Just like nobody will ever know. I am not sure why so many people want to immigrate here. Because it is not easy. At times I feel like I’ve sacrificed my life to be in Japan. My old life.

I guess if I am going to be here for a very long time, don’t I have a right to be afraid? I am allowed to cling onto the last bits of my old memories of life. 

[pt III. ->]