The Adventure I Call My Life: A Whole New Kind of Tourist

I know this post is long overdue, put it took me a while to process my trip to Japan this past June with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Mia. I had an incredible week, saw a lot of interesting and beautiful things, ate great food, and just plain had some fun. That being said, the experience as a whole was, how can I put this lightly…overwhelming. I knew the trip would be overwhelming when I bought the plane ticket, but I had no real grasp of just how overwhelming it would be, nor did I anticipate which things I would find overwhelming.

I suppose one gets used to their surroundings. After living here on Pohnpei for a year, I’ve come to expect a certain level of development—one that I’m completely comfortable with now (most of the time, that is). The first big shock of our trip was during our layover in the Guam airport. Like most airports, there are several little shops lining the main strip. What really got me, surprisingly, were the lights. Every store was incredibly bright, shelves were backlit, and some displays even seemed to have spotlights fixed on them. I just couldn’t handle it. We walked past the shops two or three times before feeling brave enough to enter, and even then we only stayed a few seconds before retreating back into the terminal. I live in a world of natural light. Daytime lighting is pretentious and unnecessary, and nighttime lighting is a single light bulb, or perhaps two. That’s it. The amount of lighting used in the airport was shocking and intimidating.

And if I thought lighting was scary, the second I entered the airport in Narita, Japan, I was utterly terrified. The sheer volume of people attempting to squeeze through walkways almost brought me to a standstill. Mia and I just gave each other wide-eyed looks and pressed on, desperately trying not to get separated or trampled. And then to add to my airport stress, our mode of transportation out was by train (which we managed to navigate thanks to the limitless kindness of Japanese people). Now, my only transportation here in Pohnpei is my own two feet or a car going maybe 40 mph (if they’ve got a lead foot). When that train pulled away, I felt like a kid on their first roller coaster. I honestly thought I was going to puke or die, or both. I think I embarrassed Mia by making a loud comment to as much while violently gripping my seat.

But, we made it to our destination and into the guidance of Mia’s friend from college, Kassi. The rest of the week was jam-packed full of excursions. As it turns out, Mia is quite the planner, which is just as well, because I was so dumbstruck most of the time that I would not have been able to make a sound decision. We had a daily schedule, and Kassi helped us immensely by writing out instructions for our train trips each day. Figuring our way around was no small task, but again, our success can mostly (okay, wholly) be attributed to Mia. Fiercely determined to see all the things on her list, Mia dragged me all over Tokyo and more, fearlessly navigating the subway map and using her four or five Japanese phrases she taught herself. It was a whirlwind of sightseeing, but wonderful indeed.

The biggest takeaway from the trip for me was the genuine kindness I saw in almost every single Japanese person we encountered. Not one person seemed put out with our language deficiencies or our fumbling around with the foreign currency. We were constantly met with a smile and gracious assistance, many times from people who themselves didn’t speak a lick of English. Although on more than one occasion, an English-speaker came out of the woodworks and just appeared at our sides in a moment of panic (usually in a train station) and helped us find our way. I will never forget how friendly and welcoming the Japanese people were.

As for things we saw, my favorites were the giant Buddha at Kamakura, along with other countless beautiful temples we wandered through in the surrounding areas, meeting actual summa wrestlers on the street, and eating delicious food. May favorite food was fresh sushi at a popular conveyor belt restaurant, where the food literally just constantly scoots by your table and you just graze as you see fit. Pure brilliance. One of the best days was when we went to Kassi’s school where she teaches and observed her kindergarten classes. It was such a cool experience to take a break from the tourist thing and just see Japanese people in their everyday routine. We even got a chance to play with the kids, and that was such a treat. It’s nice when games don’t need words and laughter comes in every language.

Although, I must admit that most of the trip is quite a blur. Mia took avid notes (that I will be copying from her one day), but I was just so overwhelmed for the majority of our stay that all I could do was take it all in. The busy, crowded streets, the sensory-overload of smells and sounds and lights at every turn, the enormously tall buildings, and the overarching technology that was involved in almost everything we did (I swear, even the toilets were smarter than me). It was all so foreign, but in more ways than one. I wasn’t just an American dealing with your average culture-shock. I was an America who just spent the previous year on a developing island nation. It was just plain insane.

I think our experience is illustrated well by our behavior on our first train, when we got a good view of everything. The train was packed, and we were trying not to embarrass ourselves by appearing too touristy, but we just couldn’t help it. One of us would spot something and try to nonverbally alert the other. We just kept excitedly nodding at things outside the windows as they zoomed by. And the funny thing is they weren’t anything particularly special. They were like cars, buildings, bridges, or trees. Big whoop. But it was exciting to us, the Pohnpeian-Americans, and that’s all that counts.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip. Enjoy!