Don’t give me that look.

It’s not like I thought it would be easy, I just thought because I’d mentally prepared myself for all the major tasks that I would also emotionally be in a good place during the whole process.

I was wrong, and you’ll probably be wrong too if you think that about moving countries!

(I mean, kudos to you if you can keep calm and stress-free while packing up and moving to another country after living in the same one all your life, but I’m going to guess that won’t be the case.)

I don’t mean to deter anyone from making this decision, but I do think it’s important to be aware of just how much extra mental and emotional exhaustion you will experience compared to what you might expect, and build in some extra time and/or comforts to help get you through it.

Things I did that really helped:

[ I left a reasonably well-paid job and don’t have family / pet expenses so a good number of these things relate to that fact. If you can’t afford to do them, then don’t, and don’t think you have to, but if you can do some variation (maybe only a few days instead of a week, or any kind of extra savings, etc) I really recommend it. ]

• stopped working 1 week+ before departure
  • This seems obvious, but in case you thought you could jump right from work to the airplane, lemme sit you back down and tell you one week is the absolute minimum I would recommend.
• arrived in the new country 1 week+ before first day of work
  • Again, this seems obvious, but especially when you are changing to a new timezone (+14 hours for me at the time) giving yourself that extra buffer to sync up with your new home is really helpful.
  • Well, that and giving yourself time to run around buying all the things you need that don’t exist in your new place (and there will always be something!)
• saved up a lot of money in advance
  • You CAN move countries without a buffer of a good chunk of savings, but I don’t recommend it. Money stress on top of moving stress is a recipe for a mental breakdown.
• stayed the first night in a hotel
  • Not only was I not able to check into my share house on day 1 because my flight arrival time was after their cutoff, but I’m also not sure I would have wanted to.
  • The last thing you want to worry about after 12+ hours on a plane is whether you have sheets, or towels, or a pillow. Just let someone else take care of that and get some sleep.
• sent my luggage ahead
  • This is really common in Japan because taking bulky luggage on the trains is … difficult at best. Total cost for my three pieces of luggage was maybe $40USD? Absolutely worth it.
• took a taxi (with my luggage) from the hotel to my share house
  • Again, bringing luggage on the train just isn’t worth it. This taxi ride was more expensive than using the luggage sending service again, but I had the added benefit of keeping everything with me and not needing to wait for them to deliver it the next day.

Things that were harder than I expected:

• making everything fit in my luggage
  • Ultimately, I did fail in this endeavor and still have a good number of boxes in the hands of my very understanding family who will ship them to me at a later date.
  • 2 large suitcases just don’t hold that much stuff, in the end!
• going through and making decisions about 9000 small items
  • Although I spent the better part of a year going through my clothes, I failed to realize that my accessory & miscellaneous item collection was so large because it fit into a much smaller space.
  • The mental/emotional exhaustion from going through so many individual items and trying to decide what to keep and what to throw away had me in tears by the end.
• getting everything I needed once I arrived (a.k.a. walking is actually a lot of work if you aren’t used to it)
  • I knew I was not, like, in shape, but I didn’t think I was so much of a total slug when it came to just walking around. Every day I went out for hours to get basic items and I would come back obliterated.
  • I do miss the convenience of a car, but in the end I’m hoping this will improve my overall health so I’m just pushing through it.
• finding the motivation to document literally anything I did
  • I really did plan to like… take pictures! and video! and talk about what I was experiencing while I was experiencing it but honestly it took everything I had just to do everything I needed to do, much less analyze it from an outsider’s view to share with friends and family.
  • You’ll notice this post is happening a whole month+ after moving. Between walking and interacting with approximately 100+ more people than I’m used to, each day would end with me wanting to just crawl into bed and watch ASMR videos until I fell asleep. I might be in a better place now. Maybe.

Would I change anything I did, if I had to do it over?

Probably would actually try to pack everything earlier and just live on 2 outfits for a while or something.

But other than that, I actually feel like I did a pretty good job! No disasters, and no serious complaints.

That doesn’t mean I want to attempt moving overseas again any time soon (or ever) and while I do encourage people who are interested in living overseas to definitely do it, I don’t wish that chaos on anyone who isn’t fully invested in the result.