This article was translated from Japanese by Claude Code.
Hello 🍂
It’s been a while since my last blog post in summer, so here’s another life update. This one is pretty relaxed.
About Three Months#
I came to the Netherlands in July, but since I started living in our current home and began working in early August, it’s been about 3 months. Right after joining, I went through onboarding, and there was the typical issue of receiving a Mac with different specs than expected, so things were hectic.
From there, I gradually got used to things, worked on several feature developments, and started seeing areas for improvement.
Within the Android team, since there had been few members, they hadn’t done regular meetings before, but with a suggestion from another member, we decided to “give it a try!”
Also, I have weekly 1:1s with my manager. We discuss challenges and align on expectations.
Thanks to my experience at my previous job, I’m able to do what I’m doing now (it’s all I have). I’m grateful once again.
There are things I find impressive and things that seem like challenges, scattered throughout. Anyway, I’ll carefully tackle each thing in front of me one by one.
My vocabulary is… lacking.
Since I don’t have much to write about work, instead I’ll list things I surprisingly found “Great! (positive)” and things I subjectively felt were “Not so great, yeah that figures (negative)” since coming to the Netherlands.
Surprisingly “Good Things”#
- No traffic lights at crosswalks (less “waiting”)
- Mobile phone data and call plans are cheap (even with the weak yen, about €10/month for 15GB/4 hours of calls - even cheaper during promotions)
- Lots of nature (like forests)
- Multinational (in both personal life and work, I talk more with people from other countries than Dutch people)
- Haven’t experienced discrimination so far
- Fewer strange people
- Quiet on trains
- Libraries are like cafés - comfortable and you can work there
- There’s a movie subscription service (called Pathé) (€42/month for two people for unlimited movie theater viewing) (worth it if you go once a week)
- Movies have intermissions (you can go to the bathroom, confirm the content, or chat)
- Movies have reclining chairs and couple seats (at Pathé theaters) (though it varies by location)
- Lots of sunny days (scary what’s coming though)
- Most restaurants give you free tap water if you ask
- Efteling amusement park is fun
- Awakened to home cooking (because eating out is expensive)
- Cheap vegetables and groceries at supermarkets (1kg potatoes €1, 500-600g pasta €1, Franziskaner 500ml under €2, etc.) (depends on the item of course)
- Supermarket vegetables and groceries are delicious (Fukuoka and Tokyo were good too, but this holds up. For vegetables, they feel really fresh)
- Lots of cats
- Mail actually arrives (and quickly too)
- High savings interest rates (paid service as mentioned below, but still surprisingly good)
Surprisingly “Not-So-Great Things”#
- Train and public transportation is expensive (residents can sign up for cheaper plans but it’s still quite expensive)
- Some people have strange coughs here and there (bad-sounding coughs) (of course almost no one wears masks)
- Lots of pigeons
- Rental bikes through the railway company don’t have brakes
- Lots of pickpockets (especially in Amsterdam) (maybe not surprising, but more than I imagined) (haven’t actually had anything stolen)
- Escalators often stop working
- Credit cards aren’t accepted (many places only accept debit cards)
- Many banks require paid subscriptions
There are of course non-surprising not-so-great things and good things too, but so far the surprisingly “good things” outnumber the rest. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when these are no longer surprising and I’ve gotten used to them.
Summary#
There’s not really much to summarize, but I’ll continue doing life update blogs at about this frequency.
That’s all.