[2021-11-24] My First Time in Japan [r3j0PhBulB4]

As we patiently wait for Japan to

gracefully reopen for us smelly gaijin, I

thought I'd reminisce about my first ever

trip to Japan. I can't believe it's been

over 11 years since I set out on that

fateful journey. It all started when I

accidentally discovered anime when I was

about 18, and I developed this fantasy of

moving to Japan and having a Japanese

girlfriend. So I decided to teach myself

Japanese using a variety of different

websites. After mastering the basics of

the language, I decided to go on to Japan

Cupid to find a Japanese girlfriend. I

quickly found one, and after chatting to

her for a few days, I asked her to be my

girlfriend, and she said yes. I saved up

my money from my part-time job, and I

booked my ticket to go to Japan. I booked

my ticket so that I would arrive in the

first week of February so I could spend

Valentine's Day with my new girlfriend,

because I'm so romantic. It was my first

ever time going on a plane by myself and

going to a foreign country by myself. I

used to think it looked so difficult

booking plane tickets and going to the

airport and finding which plane you have

to get on, but it wasn't as difficult as I

thought it would be, and I got on my plane

and arrived in Japan without any problems.

I was so excited I couldn't sleep on the

plane. I sat there during the whole flight

just staring at the monitor on the back of

the seat. I sat there watching the hours

tick by as I imagined all of the

wonderful, amazing things me and my new

girlfriend would be doing. So after nearly

12 hours of flying, we finally touched

down in Tokyo, and my girlfriend was

waiting for me in the airport. And when I

first saw her in real life, it wasn't

exactly love at first sight. But I thought

to myself, well, I'm kind of stuck in this

situation. I can't really get out of it.

It's a bit awkward, but maybe it will work

out. She helped me find my way to my

accommodation. I decided to book myself

into this guesthouse because at the time

Airbnb didn't exist and I wasn't rich

enough to be able to live in a hotel. The

guesthouse was basically a very big

building which had about 60 or 70 people

living there, and we all shared the same

kitchen, bathroom, and toilet. When we got

out of the airport and we were finally in

real Japan, I was just completely

overwhelmed. My senses were overwhelmed

with the sounds, the smells, the sights.

I had been watching anime nonstop for

about 2 years, so I kind of knew what to

expect, but it was just a completely

different experience being there myself,

being surrounded by the sounds of the

Japanese language. Seeing all of the stuff

I've seen in anime in real life was just

amazing. I felt like I was in anime myself

and I was the main character and I was

about to embark on this amazing adventure.

So my girlfriend helped me check into the

guesthouse and everything was sorted out.

But then she had to leave and go home,

and I was completely left all alone,

which I wasn't really expecting. I felt so

lonely and anxious in this strange new

country. I even wet my bed on the first

night. I was kind of imagining that as

soon as we meet, we'd be together every

day, all day long. But the reality was she

was a very busy university student

preparing for her final exams and also

preparing for interviews and to get her

first job. And I felt completely

devastated when she told me that we could

only meet maybe once or twice a week. I

had no plans up until the end of March,

which was when I would start my language

school in a Japanese language school. And

I had no idea what to do. I didn't have

any friends there. I didn't have any other

activities to do whilst she was busy. And

the idea of making friends at the

guesthouse kind of terrified me. So I did

a bit of exploring by myself, but most of

the time I just went to the shopping

center and I sat there watching people. I

was so bored every day just sitting in

that shopping center. I had nothing to do.

I didn't even have a smartphone to look at

because it was 2010 and And most people

didn't have smartphones yet. I think at

the time the iPhone 3 was out and there

were a few Android phones, but most people

still couldn't really afford a smartphone.

It was a very luxury item to have a

smartphone. And all I had was this crappy

Samsung flip phone which you could just

send text messages and make phone calls

on. It's funny to think that back then

smartphones weren't really a big thing and

people weren't glued to screens all the

time. So the weeks went by and me and my

girlfriend, we met up maybe a couple times

a week, went on a few dates. We also went

to Disneyland on Valentine's Day, and we

had a very disappointing night. There was

just no real chemistry between us. We had

very different personalities. She was very

serious and mature, and I was very

childish and immature. And the

relationship kind of dragged on for a few

more weeks before she eventually ghosted

me, blocked me, and stopped replying to my

messages. And to be honest, I didn't

really care because by then I had started

to make friends at the guesthouse. After

weeks of just sitting at the guesthouse

all by myself, people started to

eventually come up to me and say hi and

ask about where I was from and stuff like

that. I met so many fun people from all

over the world and we became friends. We

ate dinner together and it was a lot of

fun. And then one day these 2 Korean

ladies came to the guesthouse and I kind

of fell in love with one of them. She was

just so different to the Japanese

girlfriend. She was fun. She was a bit

childish, a bit playful, and just very

easygoing to talk to, even though it was

kind of difficult communicating with her.

She couldn't speak English and her

Japanese wasn't very good, and I couldn't

speak Korean. But still, we clicked almost

instantly and things happened. There were

a bunch of other Korean people at the

guesthouse as well, and since I was kind

of dating one of the Korean women, I was

accepted and welcomed into the Korean

group of people. I always sat with the

Korean people, I always had my meals with

the Korean people, and I suddenly lost

interest in Japan and Japanese, and I

became fascinated with Korean culture and

Korean language and food. And I started

studying Korean as hard as I could because

I really wanted to understand what they

were saying. I really wanted to be able to

communicate with them and my girlfriend

more efficiently. And it kind of became

this running joke in the guest house

because people would always see me in the

living room studying Korean with a bunch

of Korean textbooks, and they would joke

saying, Daniel, why didn't you go to

Korea? Why did you come to Japan to study

Korean? It was just a very unexpected turn

of events. I was so into this Korean

woman, I just really wanted to learn the

language. And the Korean people were so

warm and welcoming. They were so happy

that I was interested in their culture and

their language, and they were very happy

to give me Korean lessons and teach me

everything about their country. And I

soaked it all up like a sponge. So the

weeks went by, and I spent every day with

the Korean people. We went out to karaoke

and restaurants and to visit places in

Japan. I felt like I finally found my

people, my community, and I never felt so

happy in my life before. As someone who

had always been like a social reject and

isolated from people, I had a girlfriend

now and I had friends, and I felt like I

was accepted by a group of people. I felt

like a completely changed person. So the

end of March finally came, and I was

having so much fun, and I was so

distracted by all this Korean stuff. I

completely forgot that I had to start

Japanese language school, and I was just

completely uninterested in studying. I

just sat in the class just daydreaming and

fiddling with my pen and drawing silly

things in my textbook. I made friends with

a bunch of Taiwanese people at the school,

and we hung out, went to karaoke

restaurants and stuff like that, and it

was fun and everything, but I just

couldn't concentrate on studying Japanese

anymore. At that time in my life, I felt

so satisfied and fulfilled. I had so many

things going on. I had all these friends

at the guest house, I had these friends at

the school, I had this Korean girlfriend.

And I look at my life now where I have no

friends, no girlfriends, not studying

anything, not doing anything fulfilling,

and I just wonder, how did life go so

wrong? And the months went by in the guest

house in Japan, and I was having such a

great time, but then things started to to

get very sad and go downhill. Most of my

friends were foreigners, and they weren't

in Japan for very long. They were just

there for a few months or a few weeks.

They would eventually go back to their

home countries, and one by one, my

friendship circle started to get smaller

and smaller and smaller. And then the day

I was dreading most eventually came. My

Korean girlfriend had to go back to Korea.

She was only able to stay in Japan as a

tourist for 3 months, and she had already

been there for 3 months, and it was one of

the saddest days in my entire life when I

had to say goodbye to her. I went with her

to the ferry and we said goodbye, we

hugged, we took pictures. I remember using

the zoom lens on my camera to zoom in onto

the ferry as it slowly sailed away, and I

could see her jumping and waving at me,

and then she faded into the distance and I

was alone again. I headed back to the

guest house by myself and I felt so alone.

Most my friends had gone by then. There

were new people at the guest house, and I

made friends with them as well, but it

just didn't really feel the same as

before. I became very withdrawn. I started

hiding in my room for most of the time,

and I would just cry myself to sleep every

night. And I felt so miserable, I even

stopped going to the Japanese language

school. The guest house just became this

empty, hollow shell without her. I felt

like I was having a mental breakdown. It

was really bad. After a few weeks of this,

I started to feel a little bit better,

and I started hanging out with people a

bit more. But my time in Japan was coming

to an end. I had to get ready to go back

home to England. Me and the Korean lady

were still talking to each other over

email, and she actually came back to

Japan. She missed me so much as well. She

came all the way back even though she had

just left recently, and we stayed in a

hotel together for the last few weeks,

and we explored Japan, went to different

places, traveled around, and it was such a

nice way to end my time in Japan. On the

last day, she came to the airport with me

to say goodbye, and we hugged and kissed

and promised to meet again. And we did.

After that, every year I would go to Korea

for a few months, and I stayed with her.

And for about 6 years, we had this

long-distance relationship, and we

traveled to lots of places together. She

came to England, she came to my house, we

traveled to Paris and Norway. And the last

time we met was in 2016. She came to Japan

again to see me. And we stayed in a hotel

for a few weeks, and that was the last

time I ever saw her. And the reason why it

ended was mainly because I think we just

started to drift away from each other and

I started seeing other people, and it

just— it wasn't very sustainable as a

relationship. So yeah, that was the story

of my first trip in Japan. Started off

with an obsession with Japan and Japanese

and having a Japanese girlfriend, ended up

shifting into an obsession with Korean,

having a Korean girlfriend for almost 6

years. But that's how life goes. It always

has these unexpected twists and turns,

and unexpected opportunities can just come

out of nowhere, and they could lead to

very interesting things.