A sacred pilgrimage, two cities, five towns, ten Shinkansen rides, 14 days and 9884 pictures later, I am back from Japan.
We reached Melbourne this morning. I am tired, but I tried to stay up to sleep properly tonight, which makes me feel restless. Also, I had no appetite, which reminded me of my first Japan trip; I returned home (Singapore was home back then) craving Indian food so badly that I took a taxi from work to have lunch in Gandhi the next day. On the flip side, I weighed myself and discovered that I am 1kg lighter in the Southern Hemisphere.
Japan Jepun Jepang
Our Japan trip has been amazing! I learned so much more about the country and its culture, from staying in small towns during our Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage, knife hunting in Kappabashi to celebrating my birthday on an island near Kii Katsura and so much more, which I’ll write about here.
Meanwhile, I also learned a few things about myself in Japan, like how I am a complete packrat and a shopaholic there. I could not throw away anything I got in Japan, including bills and plastic wrappers. And it got exacerbated by my multiple hauls at LOFT and Matsumoto Kiyoshi.
We also repeated some of our traditions while in Japan: breakfast at MOS Burger, celebrating something with a visit to Gyukaku and eating 25 Tebasaki chicken wings each for dinner. These were the things that we used to talk about nostalgically during Covid. And it felt so good to experience (mostly eat) it again.
Conversely, Japan – especially Tokyo and Osaka have started to lose its’ charm. These metropolitan cities had the same vibes I got whenever I visited Singapore – familiarity.
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[…] the first day, we topped up our Suica cards (a Japan trip essential), had lunch at the fancy Yoshinoya, bought hot canned coffee from the vending machine, […]