Ocean Waves, Soy Sauce, and Other Salty Things
Part 1: Dive In
(Written sometime between July 24th-30th in Tokyo)
I’ve been on a six-week high of blissful endless days, new places, and constantly being around people I really like. But all things come to an end, and I’ve finally said my last goodbye for a while.
As I write this, I’m still in Japan. I think it’s a good thing that my return to solo travel happened in Tokyo, because Tokyo is a really easy place to get distracted in. When I’m sad I like to be distracted, just a little bit. Julien Solomita (youtuber and ½ of the Jenna + Julien Podcast) once said, “My serenity is chaos.” Even though I’m not an Aries, I relate to that. I’m comforted by being another face in a large crowd. I’m also not 100% against being just a bit gloomy – like, I don’t completely hate feeling the ache.
HOWEVER
Those first couple days on my own again were tougher than I expected. I knew they would be hard, especially coming off many days of very concentrated with-people-ness. When I walk from A to B, there’s nobody to talk to and, for the first time in a while, my thoughts are loud enough that they are all I can hear, even among the distraction.
As an introverted person, this time alone is actually really needed. But my brain is asking me a lot of accusatory questions, that, when I’m in a better headspace, I have solid answers to. When I’m feeling a bit lost and sad questions like these begin to trip me up:
What’s the purpose of what you’re doing?
What if you went back to Ohio, would it really be that bad?
Is this all really worth it?
Those are some fair questions, really.
But, I mean – I know why I’m here. I don’t want to go back to Ohio. And, yes, it’s definitely all really worth it. But for a second there they almost got me.
What I’ve learned after lots of times feeling strong emotions is that it’s important to sit with the discomfort for a bit; they do better when we let them be what they are. The lifespan of intense emotions is oftentimes relatively short (90 seconds to several minutes). If we don’t assign narratives to them or try to justify or explain them away, they will often just pass through. Maybe we’ll be left with some tears in our eyes or a heart that’s beating a little faster, but if we welcome them in and give them some time, they will also leave.
There’s a quote that I think about all the time. It’s from the movie The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (I love this movie, but that’s for another time). The character Evelyn is speaking about culture shock, but her words can be applied to even more.
“Initially you’re overwhelmed. But gradually you realize it’s like a wave. Resist and you’ll be knocked over. Dive into it and you’ll swim out the other side.”
The whole “wave” metaphor has been used many times in many ways. This is my favorite version of it, though. Whenever I feel like resisting, pulling away, or recoiling from things that I have no control over, I think about this. If I just dive into it, I’ll swim out the other side. The wave’s intention is not to knock me down but to pull me into somewhere new. Breathe and dive. Like those whales.
I reminded myself that I’ve intentionally made all the choices that led me to where I am. Would I really want to be anywhere else?
As I sit on a hostel couch in Japan, drinking some green tea I got from a vending machine and eating matcha-flavored kitkats, I know what my answer is.
Part 2: Big Risk Big Reward
The idea of “big risk big reward” is something that I’ve been playing with for a while now. I can’t remember the first time I said it, but it’s slid into my brain and become something of a motto. It’s a bit like “go big or go home,” but there’s more weight to it.
Humans talk a lot about risks. We love stories where people lay it all on the line: a confession of love, betting on the underdog, doing something dangerous for the opportunity to make something else better. We love that shit.
I think it’s because that, in our everyday lives, we’re not really meant to do a lot of risking. We’re not meant to jump unless we know exactly where we will land.
But what I’ve been noticing over the years (and even more so in the past few months), is that a lot of good can happen when you take a big, juicy risk.
I would dare to say that the things I define as the Best Things That Have Ever Happened to Me were the result of me taking a step and not knowing exactly where I was going. The payoff of some big sacrifices has been amazing, both because of the experience itself and the effect on my own self-understanding and growth. Yes, it can be scary and sometimes the outcome isn’t great, but I would always say that the potential for something incredible is worth a couple of misses.
I also think that the Universe likes a savvy and calculated risk-taker. It’ll do you right if your intentions are authentic.
Just a thought.
Part 3: Two Weeks in Tokyo
My friend Tom calls Japan a “treat” and I think that sums it up for me. Japan is a place that makes you sink down into it and enjoy the nuances. There are certain things there that you can’t get or do anywhere else.
Let me walk you through the start of my trip. I got to Narita airport at 8:30 PM after 36 hours of travel and about 4 hours of sleep during those 36 hours. The only way I made it into the city was thanks to this glorious thing called a Second Wind and a fierce adrenaline rush from being back in a place I’d wanted to return to for so long.
After surfacing from the underground train station and following the map a couple blocks to my hotel, I felt a little insane (in a good way). I had no real concept of where I was. Rain was falling and making it hard for me to see out of my glasses, the streets were still swarming with people even at 11 PM and every brightly lit sign was in a language I couldn’t read. Not a lot beats that delicious feeling of overwhelm.
Even though I was so tired that first night, I stayed up even later just to enjoy my cozy capsule hotel bed.
I decided to take two weeks away from New Zealand to visit Tokyo for a couple of reasons. As I mentioned in my last post, it was to meet up again with a new friend and to begin the next part of my life in a place that was special to me.
Ever since that 2015 trip, I can’t really describe the feeling that would fill me whenever I thought of Japan. It’s sort of like the way you fondly remember a past relationship that was good, even though it’s over. I think that’s because of who I was when I was there last, four years ago.
I can sum up Four-Years-Ago-Me by saying that she was really, really trying. Everything about me was so nervous and uncertain and earnest. I wanted to be my best, but my fear got in the way a lot of the time. I used to be really frustrated with myself back then. Now, I look back and sigh, wishing I could say to just hold on a little bit longer and things would make more sense. I’ve always been the type of person who wishes I could know everything right away and just “get it over with,” but the only way I learn and grow is by Doing, one step at a time.
Being 20 was hard for me. I’d always felt really far behind everyone else and like I just couldn’t keep up no matter how hard I tried. I was really rigid, I couldn’t let anyone in. I acted open and friendly but I was rarely fully authentic in my interactions because I had these walls of insecurity up all the time. When I came to Japan four years ago, that was the start of those walls slowly coming down.
It took some more years after that for them to fully come down. I still owe a few people apologies and thank-yous for the way I showed up in our friendships and relationships back then. When I think of how that uncertain and confused and shy Story began to finally shift into someone stronger, I think of that trip to Japan that I said yes to on a complete whim.
I guess that’s why the place seemed to draw me back to it at this new and growth-filled part of my life as well.
So, flash forward to now. I’m back in that special place once again.
Let’s start with the first five days.
I spent the first five days in Tokyo with my Australian friend Tom. Tom and I met in Rotorua the day before he left New Zealand. We decided later that it could be fun to meet up again in Japan, so we did.
We had a great time. I love traveling because of the opportunity to meet fascinating people – sometimes you even get lucky and get along with someone enough that you make an effort to see them again. We’re both on our own travel journeys, doing similar things but in completely different ways. Comparing notes on how our separate life choices and travels have begun to change us, our lives and the way we see the world was a refreshing state to live in for five days. We also laughed a lot.
It was fun to be in Tokyo with Tom. He’s a good navigator and knows some cool spots, and he’s incredible company. He lost his glasses once, but don’t worry, we found them.
After I was on my own again, I felt a bit like I had surfaced after being underwater or woke up from a nap that was too long and too late in the afternoon. I felt like I was blinking, looking around and not exactly knowing what was going on, because I had purposely avoided looking at my phone for the first few days. I’ve been trying to be more present when I’m with people, since I found that time seems to slip away faster when I’m posting shit on my Instagram all the time. Because of my intentional break, the first days in Japan felt long and full in the best way possible. For the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn’t worrying about the past or the future or what other people were thinking. I was just living my life – appreciating it and savoring everything.
But coming out of that full, 100%-invested-ness is a bit jarring. It’s hard to not look at your phone when you’re alone, so I started doing it again. It was frustrating.
And that’s where part one of this post came into everything; I’d had the high and now it was time for the low. I know from experience those lows don’t last too long, though. So, I just sat with how I was feeling and slowly but surely each day got better. I’m still working on the “present in the moment” thing, but I’m improving.
Tokyo is amazing when you’re with someone, but it can also be super enjoyable on your own. I had lazy mornings appreciating my clean, private and cozy hostel bed, I wrote a lot and I ventured into town to see some sights that I hadn’t seen yet before returning and having comfortable evenings in solitude.
Once, when I was in Findlay and biking home from work, it started to rain. At first, I was so upset – I didn’t have a jacket so I was going to get soaked. But a split-second later I realized that since I couldn’t change the situation I might as well enjoy it, because the alternative was being miserable. I laughed about it and tried to really feel the warm rain on my skin and let go of how stupid I must look with my hair all plastered down to my forehead and my glasses covered with raindrops. I finished my ride home absolutely soaked but in a better mood.
That’s the energy I realized that I needed to channel for the remaining eight days of my trip. If I was going to be on my own in quiet hostels in a huge city where nobody knew me, I was going to soak up every drop of what that meant.
I had five months of catching up to do with Story and I think the universe placed me in this intense and sudden solitude to force me to face myself again.
My favorite time in Tokyo alone was the night that I walked on the Rainbow Bridge from Tokyo to Odaiba. The bridge isn’t really advertised as a tourist activity, and as a result there aren’t many people who use the walking path except for runners. I walked on the south side of the bridge as the sun was going down. It has nice views of the harbor from really high up, and you can see over the bay all the way across to Odaiba, the “entertainment island” of Tokyo, where there are museums, aqua parks and really big malls and things like that.
As I started walking, the sky faded from blue to pink and purple, painting everything in pastels. I kept stopping to look out over the water. As it got darker, all the windows in the buildings on the shore lit up and the boats in the water below me began to glow.
The bridge is not peaceful. t’s huge, it’s loud; there’s a continuous stream of cars and motorcycles speeding by in four lanes stretched across, only separated from the walking path by a little fence. If I was talking to someone I’d have to speak loud for them to hear me over the roar. That’s kind of why I liked it; I just let the noise take over everything else.
During the first part of the walk, I didn’t listen to anything; no podcasts and no music. I just let myself think freely about everything that was going on in my brain, no distractions.
This was part of something I’ve been trying to get back to; the ability to sit in silence with only my thoughts. As a kid, I used to be really good at it. I always said that I was never bored because my imagination was so vivid that I could just disappear into my thoughts the same way you disappear into another world when you watch a movie. I think I lost that ability when smartphones became a thing.
I walked, and with every step with just my own brain for company, one on one, I felt like I was coming farther out of the fear and worry and sadness parts of the emotions that I was in at that point. First, I thought about all of the people that I missed and all of the things that I was wishing for that I couldn’t have. I let myself be really sad or angry or whatever at the fact that these things or people or places were out of my reach.
After that, I began to list all that I felt really lucky about, all the good opportunities and fun things that have been in my life lately. I realized that without some of the missing, I wouldn’t be in the happy and grateful place that I ultimately am. It’s a recurring theme, that weird missing/fulfilled illogicality that just seems to penetrate everything in my life at the moment. I’m a sucker for that, though. I love the pain/joy contradiction.
I felt like I’d gone through a weird sort of transformation once I reached the point on the bridge where you can cross under and then walk back on the other side. I ran down the steps, excitement building because I knew that the view going back was going to be even better; I’d saved the best for last.
The view from the north side is the Tokyo skyline view. The Tokyo skyline at night is a fucking dream. I felt really overcome when I climbed up the stairs and saw the whole thing. Overcome because I love a good skyline, and also because I was reminded again in a very real way exactly why I do what I do. Why I’m Story and why I moved to New Zealand and why I was in Tokyo at that particular time and under those particular circumstances. A lot of times this journey is me reminding myself why I’m doing it. Sometimes, though, I get a big neon sign from the universe.
That was one of those moments.
I had a really nice time in Japan. Apart from being in Tokyo, I spent a couple days near Mt. Fuji, where I biked around Lake Kawaguchi and relaxed from the hustle and bustle of the big city. I ate a lot of sushi, takoyaki and Japanese candy and drank ton of milk tea. I practiced appreciating the moment in everything I was doing.
I met up with my friend Bernie, too, who had been on the 2015 trip to Japan and now lives there. It’s so nice to see old friends. We both reflected on the fact that neither of us live in Ohio anymore and how neat it is that we’re doing what we really want to do.
I can say that, after returning to New Zealand, I feel really good about my trip. I also felt “Oh, I’m home now,” when I landed on the South Island. I can’t always tell you in clear, logical terms why I do things; I just feel them a lot of the time and make my decisions that way. This “trusting my gut” has always led me in the right direction, though.
Things I love about Tokyo (and Japan in general):
Vending machines every fifty feet
The drinks inside the vending machines, from all different kinds of teas to coffees to juices
Matcha-flavored things
Takoyaki takeaway counters
Genki Sushi
The Shibuya Scramble Crossing
The fashion
Sitting on the train and having the seats on either side of me empty (a rare occasion)
Sitting on the train next to someone that I like
Standing in a packed train car and trying not to fall when it starts moving
Not knowing what something is until you bite into it (and sometimes eating the whole thing and still not really knowing what it was)
Skyscrapers
The mad rush of people who all seem to know exactly where they’re going
Arcades
Capsule hotels
How finding a peaceful neighborhood or area of town feels like you’ve entered a hushed new world
Onsens and public baths
Taking off shoes when entering hotels, hostels and some restaurants
How every type of accommodation (even budget accommodation) provides hairdryers, shampoo, conditioner and body soap
The simplicity in the chaos
Veg Kitchen
13-square-meter apartments
Loft beds in said apartments
The view from 54 floors up
Milk tea
7Eleven
Family Mart
Takeaway food in convenience stores
How everyone is so nice to me even though I can’t speak their language
Bubble tea
And a lot more. But we can’t be here all day.