Japan
Since I got back, the weather in my city has been gloomy, and next week doesn’t look any better — just clouds and rain, almost like autumn showed up uninvited. I was really hoping to get back into riding my bike around the city, maybe even take a few routes through the forest, but that didn’t happen. Instead, I ended up spending the evening at home in front of my laptop, watching YouTube. It’s ironic, because during my trip I barely had time for screens, and now I’m right back to it. To be honest, that’s the last thing I want — I’d much rather be outside, walking, breathing fresh air, and enjoying warm, sunny days.
My trip to Seoul, South Korea turned out to be surprisingly smooth—maybe even easier than my experience in Japan. From the moment I arrived at the airport to getting into the city, everything just felt convenient and intuitive. Taking the bus was simple, paying with my debit card worked everywhere without any friction, and the metro system was easy to navigate without overthinking anything. I never found myself confused or making mistakes, which made the whole experience feel very comfortable. In some ways, it even reminded me of the best moments I’ve had traveling around Europe, where things just work the way you expect them to.
I can already say that I don’t see any reason to come back again—even to another city in Japan. My main goal was to visit all the major places I had planned in Tokyo, and I basically achieved that. The only places I didn’t visit were DisneySea and teamLab Planets. To be honest, I didn’t feel 100% motivated to go there anyway, and another reason was that tickets were completely sold out. If I had the chance to buy them, I probably would have gone.
The day started with a small but annoying reality check: I was basically out of cash. When I checked my wallet before heading out, all I had left was a single thousand-yen note and some loose coins, adding up to roughly three hundred yen. Not exactly ideal, especially considering I still needed money for the airport and whatever the day might bring. Technically, I had USD and EUR on me, but I really didn’t want to touch it. Still, I had no choice in the end and reluctantly broke a fifty-euro note just to keep things moving.
The entire day, it just kept pouring—everything was soaked, and walking around wasn’t exactly comfortable. My morning didn’t really start until 10 AM either. I woke up early at first, but the sound of raindrops relentlessly hitting something outside my window convinced me to stay in bed a bit longer. Eventually, I got up closer to lunchtime. Surprisingly, it didn’t bother me at all—by the time I headed out after 12 PM, I actually felt energized and in a great mood. Since these are my last days in Japan, I wanted to make the most of it and turn the day into something memorable.
Early in the morning at around 6:50 a.m., when I was about to leave my accommodation and start the trip, I noticed that the door lock wasn’t working. It honestly surprised me, although now that I think about it, the lock had never really worked properly before. The door was basically just hanging in the frame, and when I tried to open it, I ended up just pulling it open with my hands since the pin code mechanism didn’t react at all. I had noticed something strange earlier too, but because the cleaning staff were coming regularly, I assumed they were just leaving the door open. Of course, I tried to lock it before leaving, but nothing happened. To be fair, the owner had already warned me that even the main building door wasn’t working, but still, the whole situation felt pretty weird.
From the morning, the sun was out, warming everything in that really comfortable way—not too hot, not too cold. I felt totally fine in my jacket, but a lot of people were already walking around in t-shirts and even shorts. I mean, fair enough—it’s their call. I kicked things off with some shopping and a walk through Ginza. While wandering around, I ran into one of my favorite stores, Uniqlo, and couldn’t resist picking up a few things. I ended up buying four t-shirts in random colors, plus one special edition piece with a cool print and the words “Peace for All.”
After the previous day, I was completely drained, so I let myself sleep in until 10 a.m. to recover some of that lost energy. Once I woke up, I slipped straight into my routine and focused on a few tasks—especially my blog posts. I couldn’t ignore them; consistency matters too much to me. So, until around noon, I stayed in my small room, working while listening to raindrops tapping steadily against something near the window.
At the same time, I was starting to feel properly hangry. The last real meal I had was on the airplane, and on my way to the room I hadn’t managed to find anything worth eating. Honestly, the night before I didn’t even feel that hungry—but morning had completely different plans for me.
I left Istanbul at 2 AM on April 6 and landed in Tokyo at 8 PM. It turned out to be the longest flight of my life. Even though I had previously flown to Thailand for a similar amount of time, this one felt endless—like I had been on the plane for twenty hours. I’m not sure why, but time just wouldn’t move. To make things worse, I couldn’t even distract myself with movies or onboard entertainment because my screen barely worked. Eventually, it completely gave up and froze on a black screen. Luckily, the passenger next to me was watching a documentary about wild animals and some world news, so I ended up half-watching along with him. In that sense, I guess I was lucky—I still got some kind of in-flight entertainment.