I Miss Japan So Much

I miss Japan ━ that’s not news to anyone who has been reading the blog for a while. But when I could smell Japan on the potato gems I ordered from Leonard’s House of Love, the local pub in my neighbourhood in South Yarra, I realized that my body ━ my olfactory memory ━ is missing Japan too. So much so that it has started tracing the smell of Japan, my Japan, all the way from here.

8,191.28 km away.

I catch the smell of Japan from the freshly made coffee Fafa put on my bedside table. From the bowl of piping hot Tempura Soba served in Samurai, the Japanese restaurant in Hawthorn that we drive 15mins weekly to have during lunch hour. From the bubble tea face mask, I slather myself with on Thursday nights. From the matcha powder that I resort to drinking when I still need a mid-afternoon boost after two cups of coffee. I get it from Fafa’s Forest perfume and his SKII products that I occasionally use without asking his permission.

I miss Japan terribly. I have written about it plenty of times before. But the yearning for the land of the rising sun kept coming back, each time stronger than ever, when I couldn’t do anything about it. Yet.

I miss immediately tearing the wrapping and holding the sticky seaweed part of the Onigiri before putting it into my mouth the minute I step out of the Konbini (Japanese convenience store). I miss standing in front of the shrine, simultaneously feeling insignificant and blessed.

I miss hunting for a winter jacket in Harajuku because the one I brought wasn’t cool, thick, thin, long or basic enough.

I miss the back-and-forth bowing. I miss hunting for exciting food and mysterious skin-care products in the supermarket. I even miss the multi-purpose hotel spray.

And oh, don’t even let me start with the train! I miss the train, the train station and the long train rides.

I miss the familiar and tantalizing smell of coffee around the Good Day coffee shop on top of the Oshiage train station. I miss the calming voice from the speaker on the elevator, train and train station.

I even miss the tet..tet..tet.. sounding traffic light.

I miss how happy I am once I reach Japan. I miss the excitement of seeing the Torii Gates on the horizon. I miss finding kawaii stationery. I miss sitting in Starbucks, sipping coffee, writing my journal, or simply reading a book or chit-chatting with Fafa. I miss spending hours in the Kinokuniya bookstore. I miss eating MOS rice burgers for breakfast and strawberry cake for dessert.

I miss celebrating. I miss celebrating New Year in Japan.

I miss roaming around the Tsukiji fish market. I miss being an outsider while partaking in the culture. I miss learning and experiencing new and unusual things that are in Japan.

Logically, I know it’s best to curb this obsession before it gets more out of hand, but I want to bring more Japan into my life until I can travel eight thousand kilometres to be reunited with it.

I am tethered to Japan.

It’s the only pocket of the world I obsess about, which is not great since I still have the whole world to fall in love with. But as they say, the heart wants what it wants.

We have celebrated Christmas and New Year in Japan for the past three years.

If it weren’t because of Covid, by now, we would have bought the tickets, applied for the visa and booked our room at One@Tokyo hotel in Oshiage.

In a pandemic-sans world, by now, I would have made a complete itinerary on what to do, eat and see day by day in Japan. I would have started counting the days before our trip. Today would have been day 30 as we usually travel on the 24th of December.

Like how it was in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

In a grander scheme, I am not allowed to complain, given how good life is going at the moment.

But I also know something will feel incomplete on the 1st of January when we are not ringing in the new year with sushi and sake. And I won’t have the usual Japan Trip: The Good, The New and The Culture post published on the blog in the first week of next year.

I also can’t help but wonder, if we had gone to Japan this year, what kind of things we would have gotten to experience there.

Maybe soaking in the Kusatsu Onsen or eating the famous Nozawana pickles. Maybe we would have gone to Tottori or at least Hiroshima. Maybe I would have the chance to practice the language I have been dedicating 10 minutes a day to learn for most of the year.

Maybe I would get to tick off from my ultimate Japan trip list or possibly add more to it. But I would be okay either way because I will always miss Japan.

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⛩️ ━ KK