Why I went to Japan of all places

Apart from the obvious "What is your name?", and "Where are you from?", the question I am most frequently asked by people I meet in Japan is "Why Japan?". Usually, I jokingly reply something along the lines of "The weather is better", or "I grew up with Pokemon", considering there is rarely time to go into detail. The full answer to this question is of course a long and complicated one, but I will try to spell it out today, mostly for my own sake since no one is listening anyways.

In reality, I probably had the dream about going to Japan ever since I realised this is where all my favourite anime came from. Also, my favourite video game series, Gran Turismo, is Japanese. This was however, not enough to tip the scale far enough for me to take action. It was probably some time last fall when I realised I was nearing the middle of my twenties, and I would finish my bachelor by the next summer, that I started thinking seriously about what I actually wanted from my life. I also realised that the time of sitting on the fence watching life pass by, kicking pebbles around the yard waiting for my time to come, every summer thinking "just another school year until summer", was nearly over. I realised that the time I had been waiting for all my life was right around the corner, but I had no idea what to do about it.

A considerable amount of thinking later, I came to the conclusion that the natural place to start was figuring out where I wanted to live. Considering I had lived my entire life in Norway, a country time and time again receiving awards(UN rankings) for being the best country in the world to live in, the list started out by looking at which countries share many of the same attributes, like a good education system, good health services, and low crime rates. I also considered other important attributes that are not reflected in these rankings, like local humour, probability of encountering good looking women, and the weather. In the end the list came down to basically just Japan, what a lucky coincidence.

My first week in Japan

So far during my stay the weather has been really warm. This warmth is a totally new thing for me, considering my home town Ålesund is roughly 25 degrees Celsius colder than Osaka in this moment of writing. Certainly, we also have warm days at home, but they are rare. The biggest difference however, must be the humidity. Whilst a warm day in Ålesund is practically always accompanied, or likely even caused by a strong southern wind, the warm days in Osaka seem to have no wind at all. The feeling is best explained by comparing it to a sauna, everything is hot. The sun is hot, the air is hot, and the water is hot. For the most part, I feel no difference whether I am in the sun or in the shade, it kind of feels like walking submerged in a hot bath of very light water. Additionally, the tap water is so hot that it is probably hotter than the exercise pool at the swimming hall back home. On my first day here I showered without turning on the heater, and although a little colder than my liking, it was totally doable. This is not to say that I miss the weather I left. If I had to pick between a little too warm, and a little too cold, my choice would still be the warmer. Mostly I am just happy that I was able to try some real warmth before fall sets in for real.

The road to Japan

Last Monday, I woke up at 4 AM to eat breakfast. I ate my usual two baguettes, one with ham and cheese, the other with cheese and jam. This was also the last time I had coffee. After breakfast my mom was kind enough to drive me to the airport, and two undersea tunnels later I entered Ålesund airport Vigra, ready to get on the morning plane bound for Amsterdam. My transit time in Amsterdam was 5 hours, 5 long hours. In the end my departure time was creeping closer, and the other passengers started arriving at the gate. During the next hour I probably grew 15 centimetres taller. The flight itself was not only long, but also horribly cold. I wore a shirt, a sweater, and covered myself in a blanket, but still spent most of the trip freezing. On the bright side they kept bringing us food and drinks. My original plan was to sleep as much as I could during the last half of our flight, but in the end I only managed to sleep about an hour. On the bright side we arrived at our scheduled time.

The moment I set my foot outside the plane an incredible heat welcomed me, the contrast to the freezing plane could not have been bigger. It felt like stepping out of a cold Norwegian winter day and into a sauna. First up was the immigration control, a somewhat tedious process of waiting in line for some immigration officer to look at my documents and print me a resident card. After I got through this despite not being able to communicate with the non-English-speaking officer in any meaningful way, I went to the arrivals hall where I found my luggage waiting for me next to the conveyor belt. Then I waited in another line for the toll declaration check, and then at last, I could step outside after 23 hours of travelling.

Except it was not over quite yet, I was now at Kansai Airport, but my pickup point was Nagai station. First, I needed cash, a peculiar thing I normally only use if someone for some reason gives me cash instead of doing a bank transfer. So I found an ATM, probably my first time using one in several years, but I got my Yen without any issues, and went on my merry way looking for the train station. When I found the train station I was met by a route map that looked kind of like the one I got from the school, but at the same time not. I tried to find Nagai station on the map, but was unable to locate it. I did however remember that I needed to swap trains at least once, so I looked for the station where I should swap, and found something that looked familiar. Bravely I went up to the ticket machine, inserted some Yen, clicked the fare that was listed under the station I thought I was going to, and waited a brief moment. A ticket came out, followed by a large pile of change. Then I had to look for the actual trains. I first walked into something that appeared to be a staffed ticked office, thinking to myself that I should probably have gone here before I bought my ticket, I walked back out. Then I found something promising, a line of ticket gates. I slowly approached them, apparently looking like a big question mark, because a man in a uniform gestured at me for attention. I walked over to him and coughed up a sentence supposed to mean "Do you speak English?", to which he answered "Little." in distinct Japanese accent. I said "Nagai?", and he nodded, guided me over to the another route map and started pointing, said something about express train, local train, swap. After some minutes of him trying to explain me where I was going, and me trying to explain him that I might have bought the wrong ticket, we arrived at the conclusion that everything would be okay if I got on the next train from the platform directly underneath us, as long as I remembered to swap. I would like to thank this man for not letting me get on the train I thought I was looking for, that would have taken me in the opposite direction. When I sat down on the train, still not entirely sure if this was the right one, I noticed that I was the only foreigner in sight. Actually, this entire week I have seen a total of two foreigners who are not going to the school. It turned out got on the right train, and luckily there was a route map and a sign that always showed the next station, so I managed to find the station where I was supposed to swap even though I forgot the name the man at Kansai had told me. In the end I got off at Nagai station where I found a ticket checkout machine. It said insert ticket. I looked around for any signs of human life, but saw no one, so I tried to do as the machine said. After a brief moment the machine spat my ticket back out and started beeping. A man quickly came out from a door at the other side of the hallway, pointed at the window next to him, and ran over to the machine. I walked over to the window and waited. When he came back, he looked at my ticket and said "Okay.". I looked back at him and said "Okay?", and so he repeated "Okay." and pointed at the exit. A little puzzled I walked out towards the street, where, luckily, a school employee approached the only foreigner in sight. She then guided me to the school office, which turned out to be so close to the station that you could probably throw stones in between, if you are a little better at throwing stones than I am.