We had spent our first week in Tokyo in a hotel, which gave us just enough time to feel like we were getting our bearings.
We were not getting our bearings.
Moving day came. Time to find the apartment the company had arranged for us. Three Filipinos, luggage in hand, standing outside a station in autumn Tokyo, squinting at a screenshot on a phone with no signal.
This was the plan.
We'd saved the address on Google Maps before leaving the hotel, back when we still had Wi-Fi. We knew which station to get off at. We had a pin on a map. A whole week in Japan under our belts. We figured that was enough to walk the rest of the way.
It was not enough.
The Problem with 3-Chome
Here's something that isn't obvious until you're standing in the middle of it: Japanese addresses don't work like addresses back home. Streets often have no names. Instead, the system uses districts and block numbers, and almost every neighborhood in Tokyo has a "3-chome."
We were looking for 3-chome. We kept finding 3-chome. Just never the right one.
The three of us didn't say much. Nobody wanted to be the first to admit that we were genuinely lost, so we kept walking with a kind of quiet confidence that none of us actually felt. The autumn sun was still warm. We had luggage. Every block looked like the last one: low buildings, narrow streets, signs in kanji we couldn't read, and somewhere in all of it, an apartment that was technically our home.
We wandered long enough that "figuring it out" started to feel less like a matter of time and more like a real problem.
The Missionary
I'm not sure who spotted who first. But at some point a woman approached us. A foreigner, not Japanese. She introduced herself as a missionary based in the area. With her was a Japanese woman who spoke English.
I don't know if they could see the stress we were trying not to show, or if three people with luggage staring at a phone outside a residential neighborhood was simply an obvious signal. Either way, they stopped. They asked if we needed help.
We showed them the screenshot.
They didn't point us in a direction and wish us luck. They walked with us. Through the blocks, past the signs, to the building. They stayed until we had confirmed we were at the right place.
Then they said goodbye and left.
First Look at Home
The three of us stood in front of the apartment building for a moment after they were gone.
I remember feeling the relief first. The specific kind that comes after you've been holding tension without naming it. And then almost immediately after that, something lighter. Curiosity. A kind of quiet excitement to finally go inside and see what our new home looked like.
We'd made it. First night in our own place.
What I Still Think About
Three years later, I know this city well. I know the train lines, the ward boundaries, how to read a block address without pulling out my phone. 3-chome no longer confuses me.
But I think about those two women sometimes. They had no reason to stop. We were strangers in a city of millions. And yet they walked us all the way there, not because they had to, but because someone needed help and they were the ones who noticed.
That was my first real experience of Tokyo. Not the skyline or the food or the trains. Just two people deciding to be kind to three strangers who were lost.
It set a tone I didn't expect.
If You're Moving to Japan: Do These First
We learned a few of these the hard way. You don't have to.
Get an eSIM before you land. The moment you're off the plane, you'll want internet. For maps, for translation, for figuring out which train to take. Don't wait until you find a store. Services like Airalo let you buy a Japan eSIM in advance and activate it the moment you arrive. It costs a few dollars for a week of data. It would have saved us an afternoon of wandering.
Get a Pasmo or Suica IC card at the airport. These rechargeable cards work on every train, subway, and bus line in Tokyo. They also work at convenience stores and vending machines. Get one at the airport arrival floor before you go anywhere. Tap in, tap out. You'll use it every single day.
Download your maps offline before leaving Wi-Fi. Google Maps lets you download areas for offline use. Do this while you still have a connection, at the hotel, at the airport, wherever. An offline map with your destination pinned is far more useful than a screenshot, because you can see where you are as you move.
Learn the address system before you need it. Japanese addresses go from large to small: prefecture, city, ward, neighborhood, chome, block, building number. When you're given an address, look up the chome on a map and save it while you have Wi-Fi. The block numbers are painted on small blue signs on utility poles at intersections. Once you know to look for them, navigation gets much easier.
If you're moving to Japan soon and have questions about the first days, the practical stuff and the less practical stuff, feel free to reach out. I've been through the disoriented part. Happy to help someone else skip some of it.