Japan Trip Part One

A very good friend of mine has recently begun posting his trip overseas. I made my first overseas trip last summer and it was one of the most interesting and lovely and humbling and introspective (the list goes on) journeys of my life. I love travelling. I'm 'a plane on the sunset with nowhere to land'. I wish I was one of those cool, lone wolf-types who have the resources and carelessness to travel constantly, unmoored to anything, on burning trails on tarmac or in the sky.

But I'm not that cool. My trip was cool, though it could've been cooler. I told my friend my trip was a trial run. So, without further ado:
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To what can we owe a child’s fascination with something? We can say that the events that sparked these longings, these affections, were traumatic, majestic, or divine, but this is not always the case. A child can take a passing glance at something, feel it in his or her hands for the first time, or acquaint the tongue to a savory delight for only one moment. It is often these modest happenings that make children fall in love with something. For me, it was watching anime (Japanese for ‘animation’, ‘cartoons’) that would lead to my eventual captivation of Japan, its culture, and its language. Karate, dojos, and samurai filled my head in elementary school, and the interest in this country would grow with my age and stature. Initially, there was only a dull and unrealized fantasy existing only in the hypothetical: ‘What if I went to Japan?’ Years passed, and finally, in high school, the dull fantasy had become a burning longing, a concrete statement of ‘I want and will see Japan one day.’ This is the telling of a dream come true.

I had long desired to study abroad to Japan, but circumstance and money made it difficult. I grew impatient. During last semester, I firmly resolved to travel there, using surplus funds to pay for the plane ticket and any other living expenses. Initially, the idea of ‘backpacking’ – low cost, independent, international travelling – tugged at my adventurous side, and the possibility of danger, being lost in translation, and just plain lost only made it more exciting. I consulted several websites for anything in the way of homestays and gaijin houses (low cost housing in Japan specifically for gaijin or ‘foreigners). After much searching, I found an advertisement from a woman who was offering lodging at her house. The sensible man has to pause and reflect on such a thought: ‘Hm. I’m going to eat, sleep, shower, and live in the house of a woman I’ve never met before in my entire life, which means I will have to trust a total stranger, with whom I probably cannot fully communicate with.’

…I was all for it.

But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous.

I calculated my travel expenses – plane ticket, lodging price, commuting costs, etc – and came up with a rather daunting number. Things were looking soggy and dark.
But a new sunrise was coming, and it came in the form of a friend.