From an early I
have always seemed attracted to the uniqueness of Japanese culture. In all honestly, if you asked me prior to
living in China which Asian culture I was most interested in I would have definitely
said Japanese. My fascination with
Japanese culture led me to make the next most logical decision: travel to
Japan. Due to my cultural interest in
Japan, I would have been hard pressed to have lived in Asia as long as I have
and not made the trip over to the country of the "Rising Sun".
Since I am
actually not as prophetic as I had once imagined myself to be, I booked my
flights, hostels, and JR Rail Pass in January of 2013 without the slightest sense
that any unexpected life-altering event would cause me to strongly reconsider
my planned voyage.
I found out in May that my
father had been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a type of blood marrow cancer,
which put me on full-tilt. Of course, I can write all of the superlatives,
"shocked", "traumatized", "frightened", etcetera
and they would all be absolutely apropos for the course. As I will go into this event further in the
subsequent blogs I see no need to elaborate any further in the present besides
to say that this event almost caused me to alter my trip to Japan for obvious
reasons.
Naturally,
whenever one travels alone there is added pressure put on the individual. In my case, I also had the added stress of
knowing that I was going to have to separate from my girlfriend for the first
time in our short relationship. The fact
that I was already a little nervous about my father's illness only worked to
increase my sense of anxiety leading up to my day of embarkation to Japan.
The beauty of
traveling is that once you start a new adventure all of the prior reservations
you may have had beforehand seem to be replaced with the even greater sense of
excitement that starts to posses you.
This sense of excitement truly comes from being able to embrace the
uncertainty of the situation about to unfold before you in a foreign land. In my mind, it is hard to overstate the
visceral quality this emotion seems to impart on the adventurous soul.
On my flight
from Hong Kong to Tokyo I was surprised to find that there was a group of
American travelers on the plan representing a team from the television show,
"The Amazing Race". The added
celebrity on my flight over to Japan kept me engaged on the way over to Japan
which had the unintended consequence of keeping me from doing much
sleeping... Obviously, this is not the
best way for someone to start off a new adventure on their own!
Before arriving
at Tokyo-Narita Airport I was extremely curious to see how I would respond to
traveling completely alone in Japan. In
my time abroad I have often traveled with others and not taken the initiative
to plan out an entire trip on my own until I did so in Japan. Thus, I was actually quite interested to see
how I would respond to such an original experience for me.
Once our plane
landed, it did not take me long to realize that I was a more experienced traveler
than I had previously thought. I was
able to navigate the currency exchange, light rail, and metro of Tokyo all
without even the smallest of problems.
In reality, the only vexing issue I ran into on that first day was
trying to find my hostel's street address after exciting the metro in Tokyo.
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