Japan Made Me a Traveler — And It’ll Likely Make You One Too
And yet my ID is definitely still a homebody
Now, don’t get me wrong — I still prefer to spend my free days lounging around at home, sipping my self-prescribed, daily dose of caffeine, and writing articles like this whilst lying supine on my tatami mat floor.
But when the weather is just right, when the seasons bring with them some spectacular, time-limited views, or when I’m about to drown myself in a coffee-induced stupor after writing (badly) for days on end, even I know it’s time for a change of pace.
And Japan is a good country to do so.
And it’s not just because I’m a student looking to make the most of the two years living in my dream country before my visa expires (after two years spent locked up at home — which would normally be an introvert’s dream) — though that’s definitely part of it.
Rather, Japan just makes it that much easier to travel, that much more fun, but also that much more suitable for a student introvert whose first impression of “traveling” is crowded touristy spots, reachable only by a five-hour, wallet-draining Shinkansen ride.
The Transportation System is Simple, Cheap & (Relatively) Reliable
Okay, so I’m probably a bit biased since I come from a city where walking anywhere is the key to getting run over, melting into a puddle from the year-round sweltering heat, and getting lung cancer from inhaling too many fumes from the too many vehicles rushing down the streets.
And while we do have a relatively functional public transportation system, many people in Jakarta have their own cars or motorcycles since they’re the easiest way to get anywhere (though not the most efficient, considering Jakarta has consistently ranked high on the list of most congested cities in the world).
This means even the simplest outings like going to the supermarket, hanging out with friends, or wanting to sit in an AC-equipped cafe for a nice cup of coffee alone must be done by — you guessed it — traveling.
No wonder I ordered that much more delivery back home and needed a whole month to get used to walking a mere fifteen minutes upon moving to Tokyo.
But even if my stamina reserves have increased significantly since then, I still wouldn’t embark on that two-and-a-half-hour trek to districts like Shinjuku or Shibuya — and why would I when Tokyo has a whole convoluted network of train and bus lines that could take you anywhere in half, even a quarter of the time?
As Pallavi Goswami cleared up in one of her articles for Japonica, whilst there are a lot of stations and train lines, as long as you have a working phone with an Internet connection, you simply need to follow the directions given to you by Google Maps to get to wherever you need to go.
Even Japanese people themselves won’t know the names of all the different stations on a train line if they don’t ride it on a daily basis.
Besides, if you’re going somewhere further away for a special trip, say to Kamakura or Mt. Fuji, there’s not much reason either for you to remember how you got there by the time you come home.
You can also be spontaneous with your plans.
Back home, Jakarta’s odd-even number plate system (only odd-numbered cars can go out on even-numbered days) makes it necessary for you to plan an outing a few days ahead.
Of course, you can always try to get creative with your routes and timing, but sometimes you just can’t avoid those streets where such rules are in effect.
Also, asking your parents to think through this dilemma just to drop you off and pick you up after a day of dilly-dallying with your friends can be a bit too much to ask for.
With Tokyo’s public transportation system, however, you can be sure that there’ll be a train every five minutes or so every single day. And, obviously, it doesn’t need you to have to ask permission from someone to use — or to have your own vehicle for that matter, which needs that much more money to maintain.
Different Districts Already Have Their Own Vibe
Even within Tokyo alone, it feels like you’re traveling somewhere different if, for example, you go to school in Shinjuku and decide to hang out in Shibuya one particular day.
I always found it easier to describe the districts in Tokyo in terms of color: black for “chill” Shinjuku, pink for bubbly Shibuya, gray for the chill (in a different way from Shinjuku) otaku mecca that is Ikebukuro — to name just three of the most famous neighborhoods in the aforementioned city.
To be a little more specific, if I just want to grab a quick bite with friends and/or do some window shopping, then casually browsing the floors of the Lumine department store at Shinjuku Station (or any of the other department stores at and near Shinjuku Station) before waiting in line at budget friendly Kurazushi or Sushiro would be the way to go.
Shibuya is where I would do more of my serious shopping and cafe-hopping, as in actually going into stores to try on cute clothes and searching for trendy new coffee shops in between the equally trendy and Gen Z-appropriate activities of looking at art installations and singing karaoke.
Ikebukuro is where I would go at least once a month to embrace my inner otaku and do a shopping haul through most of used goods retailer’s, K-Books’, 14 branch stores for anime, game, and other J-culture and media memorabilia whilst being surrounded by my fellow otakus with no fear of judgement whatsoever — hence, the supposed chillness.
And this brings me to my third and last point, that:
You Don’t Need to Go Somewhere Far — Or with People — to Feel Like You’re Traveling
Jump on the nearest train line and randomly get off at one of those stations you’d normally skip on the way to work/school, and chances are you’ll be surprised at the different atmosphere that neighborhood just ten, fifteen minutes away from you can already offer.
And even if there’s not that many things to do there — just the one cafe where you can sit down with a good book for a couple of hours, a long, winding river that you can just walk along whilst contemplating about life and its mysteries, and a small bakery perfect for purchasing the next day’s breakfast on the way home — well, it’s not a bad way to spend your day anyhow, is it?
Traveling doesn’t have to be ticking the big boxes on your lifelong bucket list, snapping pictures of whilst undeniably beautiful sceneries of cherry blossom trees in full bloom with one of the biggest Buddha statues in the background.
Traveling is also what you choose to do randomly in your free time, when you’re simply looking for a change of pace and when you have the freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want, even if you don’t actually use that privilege very often.
And there’s no better place to be a traveling introvert than a country that seemingly embraces solitude, where activities like eating or karaoke which you’d normally think would take two or more to be enjoyable can actually be done alone — and accepted as such.
