Putting on Your Own Sunscreen: Part 10
Right here, right now
I’ve started writing this piece in many different places over the past few months.
In an air-conditioned Starbucks, soaked after a mad dash from the train station umbrella-less during Japan’s stuffy suffocating rainy season.
Lit up by sunshine, sitting at the desk in my cosy little apartment shared with my best friend in a seaside town on the west coast of Japan.
On a train, coasting northwards towards a night of the most extraordinary fireworks I’ve ever seen.
In the final month of Japan’s summer, hot and sweaty in the lakeside cafe I’ve been working part-time in for the past few months.
And now, back home in Nozawa Onsen, perched in a little room on a street I spent many wintry nights skipping down after dining on gyoza and chūhi.
The weather is a contrast to just five months prior when I was sitting, turtle-neck jumpered-up under the greatest invention known to man - a kutatsu. It’s a heated table with a blanket over it to tuck your legs into. My ski village was still blanketed under a thick layer of the good white stuff.
Ski season was a wild adventure. I spent my days wearing my body out, out of my head and fully in the moment. Picking up kids who’d fallen over, heaving up fully-grown men who’d also caked it for the third-time in a row in the last 15 minutes. I wore my knees out practising moguls.
I feasted on gyoza and soba noodles mixed with foraged mountain vegetables. I fuelled myself up on the energy of the extraordinary people I lived and worked with. It was an eclectic mix of people from around the world; the tallest man I’d ever met from the Ukraine, hordes of Kiwis who felt like home to be around, sweet inspiring Aussies with big travelling and nursing dreams, funny Brits with all their quirks and dear UK humour that I fell in love with during my time there last year. There were Spanish babes and the best Dutch roomie. I was scared to come to Japan. But it was the best decision ever.
All too soon but soon enough, the days became HOT and I wished my ski school had a uniform sports bra.
Ski season ended in early March and I moved to a little seaside town called Joetsu, finding myself living with a boy from my high school (IYKYK).
The cafe where I’ve been working is owned by a Californian. I’ve been making coffee, drinking coffee, eating chips like a starving seagull and serving burgers. I also run the social media for one of Japan’s oldest adventure tourism companies! And funnily enough, that company is run by a Kiwi. From the chaos of ski world, life then quietened down with the occasional all-you-can-eat + all-you-can-drink sloshin’ to keep things interesting.
I am craving a boogie. A big one. Preferably several days long.
And now, this chapter of my life in Western Japan is coming to an end. And it’s been a pretty special one, albeit not without its challenges.
Some of the highs:
The hot and humid air of rainy season during June had me feeling a little trapped. One day I drove to the ocean, taking a more scenic route to the supermarket where I was meant to be heading to find dinner ingredients. For some reason, I always feel lighter when standing at the seashore. I watched the sun dip slowly into the ocean’s arms to rest for the night in a steady embrace and then I took my sandy birkenstocked-feet back to the car, detouring again to a group of people having a BBQ on the beach. They’d been smiling at me and for some reason, so I thought I’d say hello. Turns out they were a group of Filipinos who work at a nearby factory. They were celebrating a birthday and invited me to try some Filipino-style spicy chicken. It was the most random interaction but I left with a happy belly and many recommendations of places to visit in the Philippines.
My cafe co-workers include two of the smiliest people I’ve ever met. They help with my Japanese. Which I’m bad at but one of my best friends back home is half-Japanese and I am determined to have secret Japanese conversations with her one day back in New Zealand. I drive 50 minutes to get the cafe. It’s tiring but there’s a little treat of golden hour on the drive home, the highway guarded by mountains.
Almost every weekend has been packed with adventures. An overnight trip to Kanazawa to see one of my best friends. Hitch-hiking around an island off the coast of Niigata where we had a Taiko drumming lesson. Multiple mountain climbs - no bear sightings yet. Family and friend catch ups in Tokyo, a city I am determined to spend a year living in. Mexican fiestas in Niigata city. The most amazing fireworks I’ve ever seen (backup career = firework designer).
One weekend, my dude and I got up early, picked up a fried-chicken pancake breakfast from the konbini and headed to a nearby mountain to climb. We boosted up the mountain and then on the drive home, we spontaneously decided to drive around the mountain and came across Togakushi, an old ninja village. Little special moments always happen when we adventure together.
Another mountain we climbed was Mt Hiuchi! We set off early and bet the estimated summit time by three hours! Although we did the hike in the midst of Japan’s summer, there was still snow at the top and some blooming sakura. We were above the clouds and the views were like the traditional Japanese scenes printed on screen doors.
I’ve never lived in such a drastically seasonal place and it’s been so beautiful to see the way the world comes alive again. A world coloured by whites, blues, greys and browns, so quickly became dominated by all-shades of green. The cherry blossoms bloomed and then came the tulips, forget-me-not and daphne. It’s a beautiful reminder that humans too change like the seasons. Hanami is a time in Japan where people picnic in parks surrounded by sakura, delighting in the flowers, magic. On the way to Hanami, we biked past a bunch of grandpas sitting at a table in a field, jolly and merry, raising glasses of sake as they cheers us on our way.
I went and interviewed two workers at Japan’s oldest operating vineyard - Iwanohara. Although my lack of Japanese made me feel quite embarrassed, we muddled our way through with lots of smiles and they emailed me with praise after the interview was published.
All the spontaneous ramen dinner trips out. All the Love Island episodes in, especially when paired with a hot pot.
All-nighter in Tokyo! Starting with an all-you-can-drink which cost $5 NZD, leading to me dancing like a backup dancer on a DJ’s stage for several hours, ending with me shuffling two sleepy as boys home on the morning’s first train.
Some of the lows:
Oh yes, life sure is a rollercoaster. My god have I been missing my friends and family. Homesickness, something I was already feeling at the end of last year, has well and truly set in, especially now I’ve found myself living alone again for the most recent few weeks.
After moving out of Joetsu at the end of last month, I found myself working at the cafe in a disorganised, chaotic environment, living in a spooky big house in the middle of the woods. It was actually really scary. I couldn’t lock the door, the house felt a little off, beds felt just slept in despite no one having lived there for months. I was also told it was haunted (lol). I didn’t feel safe… And so I left… at 3am on Saturday hahah. It was a good reminder to always listen to your gut and look after yourself, balancing out what’s worth your energy. As soon as I left that place, my entire being relaxed again. And the universe treated me with train side fireworks.
Did have someone follow me home and try look into our apartment. Apparently a pervert according to the police! It’s hard, standing out so much here. I’ve struggled sometimes with having to change how I dress and look.
For the past few weeks though, as my Instagram feed filled up with images of bikini-clad bodies holding Aperol Spritz basking in the European sun, I’ve definitely found myself longing to be back there. I ventured to Europe for the first time last year and had easily fallen in love with the late-night simple living, beautiful beaches and all-the-time gigs, festivals and dance parties under the sun. I’m going to head back next year, find a base and try to work as a real journalist. And I cannot wait.
But I also can’t wait to be smooshed in the arms of my friends when I travel home to New Zealand this summer. A restless feeling has captured me this last month and I am so ready for the next adventure! It’s such a frustrating human trait though, to be so easily distracted from where we are, right here, right now. And that’s the funny thing about being alive. Once you take note of the things you are grateful for in the present moment, you begin to lose sight of the things you lack.
I read the other day about, Ulko-Tammio in the Eastern Gulf of Finland National Park and how it has become the first phone-free island. Visitors to the Island are asked to keep their phones in their pockets. The goal: to encourage travellers to turn off their phones, take a break from social media and just enjoy nature. A pretty cool idea! When I was in Bilbao, Spain last year, being guided around by a dear Kiwi friend who lives there, I left my phone at home. I just had my camera and money to buy ice cream. I couldn’t connect with anything or anyone else but myself, my friend and the world around me. It was a fun experiment and with my trip to Japan looming, I toyed with the idea of spending a month in Japan without a phone. Obviously, as soon as I landed I chucked that idea out of the window because it can be hard enough to navigate around an English-speaking environment, albeit a country with three different alphabets.
Maybe one day I’ll set out (successfully) on a no-phone mission.
I’m sitting now, back where my Japan adventures truly began, the sweet village Nozawa Onsen nestled in amongst the Japanese Alps. Blooming colours spill over flower boxes. I spent 10 minutes watching a butterfly make a home in the colours.
As my overseas adventures are nearing an end, at least for a little bit, I’ve been thinking back on the past year and a half. And gooooood god, so much has happened.
I’ve visited 14 different countries. Spent several days on planes. Travelled across the sea on a ferry. I’ve lived in two completely different countries, making a little life for myself. I loved, I reunited, I lost, I reunited (again), and I loved (again). I’ve made best friends, ride or dies. I’ve worked eight different jobs, been fired from two. I’ve written many articles for different publications around the world. I’ve climbed mountains and I’ve skied down them. I’ve probably cried on the phone to my mum at every single airport. I’ve sent hours of voice messages to my long distance lovers aka. soul sisters. Alllll within 16 months. And soooo much more has happened! It’s not a flex. It’s just laughable. I honestly could laugh and cry at the same time at the wildness and randomness of it all. So many mistakes. So many different chapters written. The best chapter has been getting to know myself… Who I am, and what I want from this life.
I think the thing I’ve constantly been reminded of through it all, is that life is just so damn precious. It’s easy to get caught up in the little things, the arguments and stressors, but fuck that, it’s important to let things go and flow. Feel the fear and it anyway. Stay in touch with those you love, near and far. Don’t be scared to fuck up and fail, the mistakes are the good stories spilled over bottles of wine. Don’t be afraid to be bold and loud and messy and too much, it’s who you are, you can’t change that. Just always be learning, about yourself, the people around, you the world. Stay curious and open. And home is always with you. So treat her kindly.
One life baby. Gotta make the most of it. It’s as simple as that.