The First Time in Japan

Postcards from Asia, Part 8

Dear friends,

Being in Japan for the first time feels like being a teenager again; you get this jolt of adrenaline, enthusiasm, and confusion from being alive.

Everywhere you look are familiar characters: Pokémon, Studio Ghibli, Super Mario Bros; childhood friends brought to life in many of the locations that inspired their worlds.

Arriving in Osaka, Japan, the energy was electric and contagious, under the neon signs, flowing with a mass of people to parts unknown.

I felt I was someone like Anthony Bourdain, cool and ready for adventure, even though I was in the most touristic neighborhood of an extremely popular city, and I was most certainly not cool, but that feeling of being wide-eyed and alive was there anyway.

Then, I tasted Japanese street food for the first time: the “style-it-your-way” okonomiyaki, and that solidified it. All the stories were true, Japan was magic.

Japan has a lot going for it: ancient forests, exceptional toilets, don’t get me started on the public transportation. The fact I can hop on a bullet train and be across the country in three hours or less is wild and wonderful.

Or, how Japan seems pretty much set up for solo travelers who dine alone. One of life’s pleasures is sitting in a country where no one knows your name with a cup of hot, strong coffee. In Japan, they’ll even serve it with cute china.

And then, there’s the lack of scamming. In Japan and South Korea, not only have people not tried to scam me, they’ve actively made my life easier. I’ve never traveled anywhere where people were so honest, without obvious ulterior motives. I’m seeing the world through rose-colored glasses, and I’m sure there are scams here, too. But after almost two months in South Korea and Japan, I’ve yet to experience one.

As far as what I did in Osaka, mostly I ate good street food and checked out the beautiful, historic castle that played a key role in unifying Japan. I walked around, people-watched in cafes, and went to a tiny museum for woodblock printing and painting.

I took a day trip to the ancient capital of Nara, where the deer bow to you if you give them special crackers, and went on a hike to a mountain with 360 views of the changing forest leaves.

I stayed the night in Himeji where I tried almond toast at the cafe where it originated, and then visited the largest, most popular castle in Japan.

It was nice wandering around, and even though parts of Osaka and Nara were packed with tourists and school children, I found pockets of solitude in the forest around the city or on quiet streets with tiny shops that only accept cash.

Japan is different from South Korea. There’s a distinct feeling in the air. People have asked which I like better, but that’s impossible to decide after a couple months. Every region is particular, and I’ve only visited a few.

I will say, they both feel incredibly safe compared to other places I’ve been. Public cleanliness is top notch. Transportation is next-level and makes me dream about what cities in my country could have been if they hadn’t been built around cars. I’m walking an average of 17,000 steps a day.

There’s a convenience store on every corner, and they actually sell decent food and some of the wildest concoctions you can dream up.

Despite me being foreign, people are considerate and ready to help. Although more reserved than other places, I appreciate the overall thoughtfulness and attention-to-detail I’ve noticed in Japan.

As always, these are first impressions after less than a month of travel and should be taken with a grain of salt. But, Japan seems to be a place where you can live for decades and still never quite figure it out, but you want to try anyway.

Until next week,

Ash