The First Time I Met Japan

I was 22.
It was the end of the academic year, and I’d just landed in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Not Tokyo, not Kyoto, not Osaka, not the Japan of postcards, cherry blossoms and viral videos, but the island up north. Where summers are crisp, and the air smells like new beginnings. The land of Ainu tribes. Where people greet you with wide-open smiles that reach their eyes.

This was 2016, and Japan wasn’t nearly the hot tourist fantasy it is now. Back then, even the “famous” spots felt half-asleep. Hokkaido felt practically untouched. It felt like stepping into something secret, something still real and raw.

I went there for work: cleaning rooms in a local hostel in exchange for a free bed and a taste of the culture I’d been studying at university and was dying to experience. I was deep in my Japanese studies back then, and something inside me knew it wasn’t enough to sit in a uni classroom. I needed to be there. I needed the smells, the textures, the awkward silences, the streets I didn’t know how to navigate, the noodles I didn’t know how to order yet, the language I’d only hear between four walls in class.

Before arriving, I had no idea what to expect. And that’s what made it so fucking exciting. I’ve always been drawn to that feeling: stepping into the unknown, not having the answers, and feeling comfortable in the uncomfortable. 

There’s a quiet kind of magic in surrendering control and letting a place change you.

Letting it reshape you. 

Read that again.

Japan did that to me, from the very first moment. Japan does it to most of us to be honest, but very few are brave enough to embrace this feeling. I bloody love this feeling: the thrill of feeling lost. “Lost in Translation”. All these sensations that make people incredibly scared, stressed and powerless, I fully embrace them and they make my fucking blood pump faster in my veins. 

I craved that unknown. I always have. 

I remember walking through the streets of Sapporo, letting the city literally wash over me - the skyscrapers like sleeping giants, the scent of asphalt after the summer rain blending with the smoky, divine smell of chicken skewers sizzling just beyond a sliding wooden door. I felt like a complete alien. I was a complete alien. Me and my friend were the only Western faces around. I stood there in stillness, letting that moment unravel before me: words in Japanese I didn’t understand, faces I’d never see again, stories I could only imagine. All mostly decorated in black suits, fancy shoes and a 24 hours briefcase.

I remember my first time doing almost everything.
My first hot bowl of ramen. I completely burned my fucking tongue, but it was so damn delicious I just kept slurping. Also, my first time ordering ramen.
There was a ticket machine at the entrance: a pretty common setup in ramen-yas to speed things up. At the time, I had never seen one, and my Japanese reading skills were… let’s say, humble. So ordering that bowl of ramen became a whole thing.
Everything felt hard.
And it was hard.
But I was approaching it all with love and patience, without taking myself too seriously, and eventually, it started to make sense.

My first time at a Japanese supermarket.
My first time discovering that they mark sushi and sashimi half price right before closing time. Excuse me?? Did I just land in paradise?? They’ve got sashimi discounts in heaven?? 

Asking for a plastic bag at the checkout took me 20 minutes. We just… couldn’t understand each other. This was pre-Google Translate-on-your-phone days.

My first time speaking Japanese with a real Japanese person.
OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!!!
It delightfully scared the shit out of me.
Which made me so happy. I think they understood me (???). Doesn’t really matter, I survived.

And then, my first karaoke night.
One too many sake bottles and Strong Zeros in, and suddenly I’m wearing a Power Ranger costume, scream-singing in a private karaoke room with my friends, while the waitress keeps sliding the door open with yet another tray of drinks.

I decided to take Japanese Studies at Uni because I wanted to decipher the language.
All those kanji, all those symbols and alphabets, seemed like the secret key to open a door to another universe.  And maybe, just maybe, if I learned to speak the language, I’d finally unlock it.
I thought that was enough, knowing the words. Speaking them back. Translating a sentence and thinking, I get it.

But I didn’t. Not really.

The moment I landed in Hokkaido, it hit me like a wave I didn’t see coming.
Because this culture - this world - doesn’t open up just because you studied the grammar. It doesn’t just hand you the key. People get frustrated when they land in Japan and realize things are different than at home. Because not everybody speaks english or because it takes time to understand the subway system. Or because there are etiquette rules that are not present in their home country. But the truth is,

It takes time.
It takes quiet.
It takes being willing to feel stupid, out of place, awkward, a million times.
To bow too deeply or not bow when you were supposed to. To speak too casually. To realise halfway through a sentence that your tone was wrong, and there’s no way to take it back.
To be the outsider. Not because people are cold, but because the space you’re trying to enter isn’t built for quick arrivals.
You can’t just walk in. You have to be invited.

And somehow, in Hokkaido, I was.
Not all at once, not in some dramatic movie moment. But in the tiny, everyday things.
The old woman who smiled and asked if I’d eaten.
The shopkeeper who helped me count coins when I fumbled with the yen.
The friend who gently corrected my Japanese without making me feel small.

No one handed me a key. They became the key.
And without saying it out loud, they were saying: You can stay. You’re safe here.

That’s when I understood: the door was never really locked.
It just needed me to slow down. To shut up. To listen.
To stop trying to conquer the culture, and let it change me instead.

And then there was Miyake.

Tiny, hidden izakaya. No sign outside. Just four stools, two tables, and shelves stacked with sake bottles, dusty CDs, and memories. We found it by accident - like all the best things - on a night we said ‘yes’ to getting lost and ‘yes’ to everything that would come to us. Miyake greeted us with a grin and a red apron, poured us sake, and hit play on an old stereo blasting Japanese rock from another time. He barely spoke English, and my Japanese was clumsy. It didn’t matter. None of it ever really matters when the connection is real.
He SAW us.
He welcomed us.
He fed us with whatever he’d picked up at the market that day.
And we came back every single night after that.

He became our Japanese grandpa.

He brought us food on his day off, worried we might go hungry. Took us to record stores and secret jazz bars. Lent us books. Shared his world: gently, patiently, like a slow gift. And when I returned a year later, after moving to Tokyo, nothing had changed. We just picked up where we left off -  like our place in each other’s lives had been waiting there the whole time.
Years passed. Life moved. But I still go back. 2023. 2024.
There is no trip to Japan without seeing Miyake.
That place isn’t just a memory.
It lives in me.

Most of my real interactions with Japanese people happened inside Miyake’s izakaya. That tiny place became the stage. Only true locals know it, and they keep coming back. Everyone knows everyone. And honestly, there’s no other way: it’s so small, you have to notice each other. Salarymen unwinding after work, tired chefs sneaking in for a beer and a cigarette during their break, musicians passing through town, the owner of a karaoke bar grabbing a warm bite before starting the night… they all ended up at Miyake.

It felt like the place people went when they needed a break - a pause, a laugh, friendly faces, a bowl of something hot and comforting. When we walked in the first time, you could feel every pair of eyes turn to us. Not judging, just curious.
Who the hell were these two foreigners? How did we even find this place?

Little did I know, we’d become friends with most of them.

After finishing my work at the hostel, I had planned a trip with a few friends, other uni students, to explore the country. We all met up in Osaka.

Isn’t it funny that Tokyo ended up being the last city I visited that first time in Japan?
It makes fucking sense now.
I had to wait for it.

OSAKA.

Holy hell, Osaka. What a fucking ride.

We had an absolutely batshit night, one of those chaotic good ones where you don’t even try to plan anything and yet everything unfolds like a fever dream. We were a bunch of Uni students on a tight budget, hungry, reckless, too young to know better and too excited to care.

It was the night I first discovered the sacred Japanese ritual known as nomihodai / tabehodai - aka “all you can eat and drink” - aka pure, unhinged bliss. Twenty euros got us bottomless food and drinks and we took that quite literally. We drank like idiots, stuffed our faces like we hadn’t seen food in weeks, and laughed so hard I thought my stomach would explode. I won’t go into too many details (some stories belong to the gods), but let’s just say it’s still one of the most ridiculous, unfiltered, unforgettable nights of my life. I still laugh just thinking about it as I am writing this here.

And then came the hotel.

Now, remember: we were broke. Like living-off-onigiri broke. So we always chose the sketchiest, cheapest, possibly-haunted accommodation, as long as it was semi-central. But in Osaka? Osaka said, “Let me show you what ‘rock bottom’ actually smells like.”

The place was… I don’t even know what to call it. A “hotel” in the loosest possible sense of the word. It was smack in the middle of one of the city’s dodgiest streets -  and I swear, the moment we opened the door, the air assaulted us. A thick, sticky, permanent fog of cigarette smoke just punched us in the face. It wasn’t just a smoking hotel…. it felt like the hotel itself was smoking a fat fucking ciggie and enjoying every drag.

The rooms? Literal holes in the wall. 2x2 meters, crumbling tatami mats that smelled of tobacco and ass, futons sprinkled with ash like it was goddamn seasoning. It felt like a parallel universe. It was a completely different Japan from the one I’d grown up romanticizing, but it was also real. It existed. It exists. A version of Japan not made for postcards or tourists or Studio Ghibli fantasies.

I laid down on that cigarette-scented futon with a hangover brewing and my mind spinning, and I just felt. Disgusted, slightly fascinated not gonna lie, exhausted, grateful. It was like the universe had smacked me over the head and said: “This too is part of the story.”

We left Osaka the next morning, dragging our hangovers and shame behind us, backpacks digging into our shoulders, reeking of beer and bad decisions, but laughing our asses off rebuilding the previous night piece by piece like a puzzle.

We then visited Kyoto and Nara, and for a moment, it felt like time had stopped. I hold a memory of Kyoto very close to my heart. We had decided to visit one of the temples, don’t ask me which one, I don’t remember. It was a hot, summer humid afternoon. Back then, Kyoto was only mildly busy with tourists…yes, there were people around, but nothing like the crowds you see today. I remember my friends and I laid down on the wooden engawa, the outside walkway of the temple, just to rest and recharge a bit… and we ended up falling asleep. Just like that! With the sound of birds in the background, the thick summer air on our skin, and the stillness of that sacred, magical place wrapping around us like a soft blanket. In a Kyoto that wasn’t yet overwhelmed. In a moment of peace that feels almost unreal now.

The group split after Kyoto, and only me and two other girlfriends decided to keep going. We rented a car. My god, what a bold fucking choice.

I was the first to drive, leaving the car rental place nestled in one of Kyoto’s narrowest alleys, driving on the opposite side of the road. That’s when the real adventure began. I had recently come back from a year of backpacking through Australia, where I’d learned to drive a van on the left. So I thought, “Pfft. Easy. I’ve got this.”

Spoiler: I did not fucking have it.

Driving in Japan is not like the vast, empty highways of Western Australia. It’s tight. It’s winding. It’s fast. The streets are narrow as hell, and all the signs are in bloody Japanese (duh!). My Japanese was very much in progress, so when we accidentally entered the wrong highway gate and blocked traffic - yes, we blocked the entrance to the highway - we had to somehow explain in Japanese that they needed to let us reverse back out. I don’t even need to say it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, do I?

But that was just the beginning. Because the best part of that trip was that we had no plans. None. Our only “goal” was Mount Fuji, but we had no idea where we’d stop, sleep, or eat. Turned out, we slept most nights in the car.

Now imagine this: 3 girls, 3 massive backpacks, crammed into a tiny Japanese car, passed out in random parking spots, charging our phones in cafés like absolute goblins. It was ridiculous. It was perfect.

Eventually, we hit our limit. We needed a real bed. And a fucking shower. So I made a Couchsurfing profile on the spot, and found a kind Japanese girl willing to host us. Couchsurfing is always a gamble, could be heaven, could be a crime documentary waiting to happen. But in Japan? Your chances are pretty damn good.

And she was lovely. I’m talking proper, heartwarming, next-level Japanese hospitality. Her tatami room was prepped with the fluffiest futons, and after nights of car-sleeping, they felt like literal clouds. We were ecstatic. She lived with her grandmother, the sweetest old lady, who cooked us breakfast the next morning. All homemade. Fresh fruits and vegetables from their own garden. I could’ve cried. I think I did. I felt so grateful. So grounded.
I’ve always trusted my intuition. She always brings me to the right places. And that time was no different.

With our bodies restored and spirits full, we finally made our way to Mount Fuji.

Now - here’s one thing you must know before going to Japan: seeing Fuji is not guaranteed. It’s shy. It hides. You have to meet it in the exact right moment, at the exact right time. Otherwise… it disappears. And that’s exactly what happened to us.

We stopped in a tiny village at the foot of the mountain, and when I say tiny, I mean maybe three houses, and walked around, probably looking a bit deflated, since Fuji was covered by clouds. But we were trying to at least enjoy the peaceful atmosphere of the green rice fields, taking photos, savoring life. There, a curious old lady came up to us, clearly reading the disappointment on our faces, and softly said:

“富士山は今眠っている。”
“Mount Fuji is sleeping now.”

And it stuck. That sentence… it remained somewhere deep inside me. She could’ve said anything like “You can’t see Fuji today” or “Too bad, it’s cloudy.” But no. She personified the mountain, like it was a sacred being, casually taking a nap.

In that moment, I understood something I never could’ve learned from books or blogs. For the Japanese, Fuji isn’t just a landmark. It’s an entity. A living, breathing force. Mysterious. Majestic. Respected. And with one soft sentence, that old woman taught me more about Japan’s reverence for nature than anything else ever could.

Wow.

Now, if you know me, you know I come from a small tiny village in the middle of the Italian countryside. Which always made me dream of the Big city life, since I was a child. So finally, after all this time in Japan, I would meet her. I had been waiting so long to be part of her, see her, live her, explore her.

TOKYO.

I thought Sapporo was already very buzzing and lively, but I had no idea what was waiting for me. And isn’t that delicious? When you think you’re living something extraordinary, and life has actually in store something even more astonishing?

As I land my foot in Tokyo for the first time I. just. simply. CANNOT. believe. what was in before my very eyes. What was ALL around me. I met so many versions of myself for the first time in Tokyo. I flirted with so many version of myself. I watched myself growing, learning, changing.

The energy of that place felt fucking alive. I felt fucking alive. The city pumped like a body, and I became one of its organs, beating with its rhythm, breathing with its lungs. The neon lights at night marked the rhythm of my body and I completely surrendered to it. I had an explosion inside of me. I thought how to squeeze Tokyo in these few lines I am writing and - I simply can’t. Tokyo is my favourite city in the entire world. When people say they’ve been there and haven’t liked it, it makes me like it even more. Because the truth is - Tokyo isn’t for everybody. Tokyo isn’t there to people please. To make it easy and comfortable for you. 

Every tiny shop, every bar, every park bench, every temple corner, it’s all so deliberately beautiful. You’ll find soap dishes shaped like peaches. Gadgets you didn’t know existed, that serve no real purpose other than to make your life a little softer, a little more fun. Everything is crafted with care. Everything is there to elevate the everyday. To make your life a fucking delight.

There’s something magical about big cities where nobody knows who the hell you are.
But in Tokyo? That feeling is on steroids.
You know you’re in the biggest city in the world. You feel it in your skin that you’re breathing in the same air as 36 million other people.

Some say it’s overwhelming. That it swallows you whole.
I say it sets you free.

You wake up, and you get to choose.
Who do you want to be today?
Someone else entirely? Cool.
Your full self, without holding back? Even better.
You can wear whatever the fuck you want.
You can go all out, or not brush your hair at all.
Nobody cares. Nobody’s watching.

You're just a speck in the crowd. And somehow, that makes you feel infinite.

Tokyo. I hope it knows how much I love her.

I will write a whole ode about Tokyo whenever I’ll find the words for it.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Tokyo wasn’t just a city for me.
It was a mirror. It reflected something I had felt my whole life, that it’s okay to be different. To not follow the map. To want more, to want beauty, chaos, color.
In Tokyo, I felt home.

Every city has a rhythm. And when we travel, we become dancers - awkward at first, unsure of the steps, but slowly adapting, slowly flowing. And being in Tokyo, I felt like I was just finally starting to dance my dance, not the dance that other people chose for me. Not the dance people want you to dance. Not the small, people pleasing, fucking boring, shrinking dance that doesn’t step on anyone’s foot. And only recently am I realizing that. Only after coming back to Tokyo the year after, and after visiting other times, do I realize how much Tokyo shaped me.

Every time I visit a new place, I see fragments of my past and clues of my future self. I taste her, I touch her, I hear her, I observe her - and she changes.

And while floating in that in-between space, that gap, between the person I was and the one I’m becoming,
I pause. I breathe. I remember:

“You are here.” A little, yet powerful body which is part of this endless city. I am here.

That sentence is not just a pin on a map.
It’s a declaration. A quiet kind of fucking triumph.
A reminder that I dared to move, to feel, to live. To let myself be ready and open to whatever comes.

To all the so-called “crazy ones” out there - keep going.
Trust your journey. Trust your senses.
Everything that happens to you is not an obstacle, it’s an opportunity. So take it. Dare to leap.

And who knows…
Maybe we’ll meet again, somewhere in the middle of our trip.
Maybe at Miyake’s izakaya, maybe in the neon-lit narrow alleys of a sleeping Tokyo at night.