January in Japan

Three Weeks of Food, Culture and Friends

Winter in Korea is cold. It’s so cold. Temperatures can get down to -20°C… so I decided to book a trip to Japan to escape the worst of it. Don’t get me wrong, I love cold weather, but two months straight and you begin to feel differently. I left Korea and its -11°C weather, and flew to Japan, landing in 11°C (still not warm, but marginally better – I’m not built for winter okay) wearing layers upon layers. Happy to be able to take off most of them and not get hypothermia, I left the airport and was picked up by my friend, who was on his exchange year out in Tokyo. My friend had been in Tokyo long enough to know it well, which meant I was in good hands.

There is something about seeing a city through someone who lives there, rather than someone just passing through. He knew which ramen shop was worth the detour, which train line to avoid at rush hour, which areas to shop in to avoid being sucked into a tourist trap. Tokyo, for the uninitiated, is overwhelming in the best possible way. Every street has something on it. Think, neon signs, food around every corner, bustling with people. Every basement hides a restaurant, a bar, a tiny ramen shop with six seats and a queue out the door. We ate a lot. We walked even more.

The Food

If Korea taught me that food could be an event, then Japan taught me it could be an art form. I ate ramen in a place so small my elbows touched the walls. I had sushi at Tsukiji market, standing up in the cold, and it was one of the best moments I had experienced. Convenience store food, cheap and delicious, was incredible – the variety of fresh foods, and the quality of the products was a massive highlight. A 7-eleven onigiri at midnight after a day of walking is a must-do experience.

The Cities

After a few days in Tokyo I joined up with the tour I had booked, and we left Tokyo via shinkansen to Fujiyama. The views were incredible, and we hiked up to a viewing point of Mount Fuji. We caught it on the perfect day – cold but clear. we stayed in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, with an onsen, great to relax in after a day of hiking. We went to Kyoto, visited temples early in the morning before the crowds arrived, walked through bamboo groves in the kind of still silence that doesn’t feel real. I had never heard a sound like bamboo in the wind before, but I understood why people go back. Nara was chaotic in the most charming way – deer wandering freely through the streets, completely unbothered by the people around them, occasionally stealing snacks. Osaka was louder and more chaotic than Tokyo, but with an air of mystery within it. For me, Tokyo was a futuristic city, like something out of a dystopian novel, but Osaka was a collision of old and new and I loved it for that.

The People

The best parts of the trip weren’t the landmarks, as much as I loved them. They were the late nights with my friends and the people I met along the way – dinners that stretched longer than planned, conversations in a mix of languages, the particular warmth of being somewhere far from home, but not feeling too out of place. That’s the thing about travelling during an exchange year: you’re surrounded by people who have also chosen to uproot themselves ,and there’s an easy shorthand in that. Everyone gets it.

Three weeks passed in the way good time always does – quickly, and leaving you a little fuller than before.

Thanks for reading all the way down here,

Mallie x