Coming full circle

Our last week in Japan mirrored our first two weeks here

Reflecting on capacities gained

Raghav and I stayed at an Airbnb in the neighborhood of Nakano City in Tokyo for our last week. This was a neighborhood that we visited in our first week in Japan. I distinctly remember the feeling of confusion, of not quite knowing what to do or where to go. I was testing out my language skills, reading slowly, discovering the vocabulary used in unavoidable daily interactions. The weather was cold. It was difficult to get a sense of the “feel” of the area and of Tokyo in general. It was overwhelming.

Being in Nakano at the end of our trip, I felt the transformation we had made, and this ran in parallel to the seasonal transformation. It was warm, sunny, and everyone was out. Cherry trees lined the main roads, their flowers were in bloom and petals covered the sidewalks. The deserted park we had visited in our first week was now the place to be, packed with people and their families, picnicking so that you could barely see the ground. It demonstrated how alive Japan becomes during springtime, how much people seem to enjoy it. And then I could speak with more fluency. I was considerably more literate, casually reading a number of kanji. Raghav and I had better understanding of the flow of people, where to go, and what the activities were to do. Things felt nicely casual, not requiring research and discussion.

I really enjoyed being in Nakano again, that feeling of returning to a beginning and also discovering the extent of capacities and knowledge gained. In that same mirroring way, we went out with our friend from college who we had seen in our first week in Japan. We also saw my mother’s family again, bookending our two months with time spent with them.

So much sakura!

Spending time with family

The highlight of our trip was no doubt spending time with my mother’s sister and her family. They organized another dinner for us, this time more casual at an izakaya. They are kind, generous, and easy people to be around. They are very much unbothered to work around the limitations of Raghav and my Japanese language, which is something that I observed to cause anxiety for other Japanese people. They liked to make jokes. They also liked to drink beer and were pleased that Raghav and I also enjoyed 生ビール or draft beer. It was the week of my birthday and my aunt got a strawberry shortcake to celebrate. I was moved by the gesture. I’m going to miss them, and actually I miss them already.

Strawberry shortcake is my favorite cake. It is a Japanese classic.

The following day my cousin Ryu and his girlfriend spent the afternoon through into the night with us. We met up in Shibuya. We visited the temple of Meiji jingu and got goshuin. We visited the neighboring Yoyogi Park to view sakura, and ate out at a gyūtan (beef tongue) restaurant, a dish of the city of Sendai. Raghav and I commented how we’d eaten so many kinds of foods in Japan and literally on our third to last day we were still eating new dishes.

At some point in all this I asked if this was okay, that they were spending this much time with us. I’ll add that this was our first time meeting Ryu’s girlfriend who was so kind to join. They both responded decidedly that they had nowhere else to be, and after that we proceeded to go to a roof skate park, a large izakaya outdoor food court with eateries that each offered foods from each Japan prefecture, and a game center with impossible claw machine games, Mario Kart, gachapon, and photo booths. We ended the night at another izakaya, this one more traditional, and ate oden, a cozy, typically wintertime food of tofu, daikon radish, konjac, and fishcake that are simmered for hours in a light dashi stock. It was really just the best day.

You may notice how the photo booth altered lip shape and color, eye size, nose structure, face shape, and lightened the skin tone.

En route out

I am currently typing this up on my phone on our long layover in Kuala Lampur. We left Japan about 12 hours ago on a midnight flight. Our last week ended up being quite busy, seeing friends and loved ones nearly each day there. It blew by, leaving me a little exhausted. And now it all has ended.

Currently we are headed to London for our friends’ civil ceremony. We planned the ending of our Japan trip to coincide with this. While there is much more high energy that we’ll need as we reunite with a number of friends, it is also comforting to transition out of a meaningful and altering Japan trip into the coziness and familiarity of friendship. It is yet another ‘coming full circle,’ as we had started our travels back in mid-January in Singapore visiting our friends there.

In the weeks to come I anticipate writing one more post with final reflections on our Japan trip, and then at that point I’ll be concluding this newsletter. To have been able to share this trip with you all, our friends and family and loved ones, has meant a lot to me. It has been heartwarming and moving that you’d follow along in our travels for this period of time. Thank you.