I always get puzzled when I am asked 'which do you like, life in Germany or Japan?'. But, I can easily list differences between them.
On the other hand, there are many things that I previously did not take as advantage of living in Japan. New discoveries!! One of them is that I can access to every kind of research expertise in the country because many, many people live in the small islands (=Japan).
When I was in southern Germany, I felt that I was in the middle of many pretty cities with various research centers and researchers in Switzerland, France, Austria, and of course Germany. But, in fact they were scattered throughout the vast land.
Here in Japan, in the small islands, we have access to all kinds of things, and that is convenient. But, this is the reason why the country tends (or I should say 'we tend'?) to become isolated from the rest of the world. I am seeing all the pros and cons of this tendency.
from Yokohama