How I got interested in Japan #

College #

My interest in Japan first started in college in the late 1990s, when I joined my university’s anime club. They held showings weekly showings in a big lecture hall on campus from 7 p.m. to midnight. The turnout was always big and enthusiastic — I really enjoyed hearing people’s boisterous reactions at dramatic moments — and I often went with my friends (who probably went along to indulge me more than to enjoy the showing), so I think that really colored the positive associations I have with anime.

During this time I was introduced to a number of anime series that I love to this day, including Rurouni Kenshin and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I usually bowed out of the showing by around 10 or 11 p.m. (I’ve never been much night owl) but I went religiously every Friday for my first two years of college.

I remember one weekend when I went to the anime club’s Friday night showing and then to another anime showing at the student union that weekend. Even though I’d never studied Japanese, the constant hours of unmitigated Japanese that I was hearing led to my having dreams in what clearly sounded like Japanese.

JET #

After I graduated, I continue to seek out anime and watch what I could, though it was much harder to access back then. While working at my first job out of college, a friend got into the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program, which plops participants into schools across Japan to serve as assistant language teachers. Hearing about my friend’s experiences inspired me to apply, too.

I got in, and soon found myself on a direct flight from Houston to Tokyo with my cohort in the summer of 2003. It was there that I first met Sally: She and I had been assigned to work in the same prefecture, Tokushima-ken, and were assigned to share a room at the Tokyo Hilton during orientation.

It was a fortuitous pairing because we ended up becoming close friends as we navigated the intricacies of living in Japan as foreigners for the next two years. My time on the JET program remains a defining experience for me. We both had arrived not knowing any Japanese (something I don’t necessarily recommend ) and found ourselves learning both the language and the culture at the same time. By the end, my language skills remained laughable, but at least I knew enough to fumblingly travel around on my own.

In 2005, Sally and I both returned to our home countries — Sally to England, and myself to the U.S. Though in the interim we were able to visit each other, it wasn’t until 2013 that we reunited in Japan.

Return to Japan #

Finally I was able to take advantage of the fabled JR Pass, which allows unlimited travel on most Japan Rail trains but is only sold outside of Japan. We used it to cover a lot of ground, including Tokyo, Tokushima, Matsuyama, Nagasaki and Kagoshima.

Given how pleasurable it’d been to be back in Japan as a tourist (living as a temporary resident is an entirely different matter) in 2013, I was looking forward to the next trip back. This was back in 2019 as I started to make plans to visit again in spring 2020, this time with my sister Van. I was hoping to make it for cherry blossom season again so Van could experience that particular delight; she’d visited me in the summer of 2004 when I’d been living in Japan.

Alas, COVID had other plans. In the end, I had to cancel all our reservations in late February 2020, weeks before Van and I were due to leave that March: for the JR Pass, the hotels and flights. I’m so grateful the vendors all agreed to refunds or credits.

It was such a chaotic, scary time on so many levels. Between 2020 and 2022, I quit my job, went back to school, moved across the country and got a new job. So it wasn’t until the latter half of last year that things stabilized enough — and, most critically, Japan reopened its doors to tourists in October 2022 — to put the trip back on the docket.