Boarding pass

Melbourne — Tokyo

Former Asakura Residence, Daikanyama, Tokyo

After two hours of sleep, I’ve made my 6am flight, and I’m finally back flying through the air. Shooting through the sky in a bullet. And finally back to writing, too. I’m currently on a flight to Tokyo, about to spend almost four weeks exploring Japan. I had a desperate yearning to return as soon as possible after I first visited in October 2019, when the world was a little more simple, for obvious reasons. Somehow that was five years ago — so perhaps that’s why this feels particularly profound and extra long-awaited. Japan has had a very visceral hold on me, one that has always gently tapped on my shoulder asking: when will you return?

I’ve had a forever fascination with Japanese culture. When I was 5 or 6, I used to get up at 6am, and the best thing on TV at that hour was a Japanese language program on SBS. It interspersed Japanese language lessons with studies of the culture — snapshots of home-cooked cuisine, family life and office life of Japan in the 90s. Given my young age, my eyes were opened wide by this immersion into what felt like an alternate reality. I can still remember the very gentle, peaceful nature of this program, which eventually translated into real-life experience.

In my teens, we hosted many Japanese students in our home and experienced the culture first-hand. We’re still in touch, and two of whom I’m thrilled to be visiting again on this trip, five years in between visits, and some 15 years since we first met. I’m excited to share these stories.

I’ve deeply missed seeing new things and capturing new places, and have felt creatively stagnant for some time, hence the radio silence between posts. But hopefully the following four weeks of food, art, friends, nature, onsens and retail therapy will bring this back. Finishing this post, I’m now two days into the trip and I can confirm it’s already happening. The gentle encouragement from those of you who have told me to keep this going means the absolute world to me.

Thank you for reading,

Mad x