My time in Vancouver ended with an argument with Natalie. 

It was an argument we had had before and would continue to have in the future. I was burning with anger that she had chosen the morning I left Canada to have another fight about it. 

We were sat on the bench of the same bus stop I had arrived at nine months earlier. We traded blow after blow of loving hate. If anyone had been around, it would have looked fairly ridiculous, thankfully nobody was. 

By the time we arrived at the airport the fighting had fallen away. 

I knew we would see each other again in a few weeks and this bus stop brawl would be almost forgotten. So I decided to forget about it and focused on the flight ahead and what I had to do when I got to Tokyo. 

The flight over the north Pacific was quickly becoming my favourite, the smoothness of the ride, not a hint of turbulence, good food, friendly people, beautiful plane. 

I can’t remember once feeling the usual horror thoughts of the tube falling from the sky and crashing, ruining my day. It was a nice flight. 

As the plane landed I felt almost sad. I would have gladly done a hundred times across the Pacific or a few laps of the world in the thing. 

The flight had been so enjoyable I had barely even attempted to sleep. 

I walked out from the usual curiosity of the customs officials and into arrivals. 

I opened the door of a smoking area and looked at an abandoned lighter on the ashtray. I thought about taking it but decided to ask the Japanese guy sitting beside it if he had a light. 

He pulled out a lighter, “You need one?” 

I was tired from being in suspended animation for the last 10 hours, “Yeah.” I said bluntly. 

“You keep it.” he said. 

I looked at the lighter then back at him, “Are you sure?” I asked. 

“Yes, I have many!” pulling another lighter from his pocket. 

I lit the cigarette and sat down on the bench. He picked up his paper and proudly showed me the myriad of Japanese. He was laughing and joking about something I tried hard to understand, but I could only gather when to fake laugh during the pauses. 

He ran his pencil along the columns, “When is your birthday, what month?” he asked. 

Now finally understanding his enthusiastic rant, “September.” I replied. 

He circled a horse and smiled, “Nine.” he said confidently. 

“I hope it’s lucky,” I got up from the bench and put out the cigarette, “thanks for the lighter, good luck with the horses.” 

I was glad my first welcome back to Asia was such a warm one. 

I found an uncomfortable airport chair and sat down. I rubbed my tired eyes and scanned my surroundings. 

‘Back in Japan then.’ 

I took out my phone and video called Natalie. 

JAPAN > CANADA 

            °°°°° ° ° ° °°° 

“My love!” 

“AHHHhhhh!” 

I can’t remember the conversation. I only remember the feeling the conversation left me with. I felt love. There was someone on this rock of vibrating atoms that loved me. 

That knowledge gave me energy. 

I walked towards the airport train station and eyed up my choices of getting into the city. 

When you stand in front of the map of the Tokyo subway system you lose all hope of anything going to plan. 

A lady approached me, “Do you need a ticket?” she asked hesitantly. 

I showed her the directions and made an attempt to perfect the station name, “Nihonbashi.” 

She guided me towards the machine and asked for ¥1000. In most countries I would have held onto it, but Japan’s too safe to worry about things like that. If someone’s trying to help you, they are probably trying to help you. 

With a few touches and clicks I had my ticket. 

“Make sure you go this direction,” she said, pointing behind me, “take the train towards S*%@*@[]{}^^^^=+=+-•••|||.” 

I looked in the direction she was pointing and turned to walk through the ticket gate. 

I walked towards the platforms trying to figure out what she had said, it began with an S that’s all I knew. 

An hour later I was in Yokohama, eyeing up my new choices of how to get into the city. 

Actually, out of one city and into another, Yokohama isn’t even in Tokyo. 

I decided it was best to go back to the airport and get some sleep and figure out a less complicated route by myself in the morning. 

It was fine. I knew how to make the most of an airport. 

Airports are not just a place to get from point A to point B, these places got chairs, toilets, smoking areas, observation decks, WiFi, power sockets, vending machines, they’ve got a lot of useful stuff. 

I woke up from a few hours sleep on a cloth covered bench and went to find a smoking area. 

These smoking areas were great. All enclosed behind frosted glass. They were everywhere. Most of them were empty too. Huts of solitude. 

I slid open the door and sat down on the comfortable bench. 

I smoked like a happy chimney. 

I took photos of myself smoking like a happy chimney and then went online to search for the best way to Shinjuku. 

The route into downtown Tokyo was a lot simpler than I had made it, a monorail with a change and then a few stops to Shinjuku was the least complicated of the routes. 

I had already thrown away any hope of staying at the hostel I had booked and decided the best choice was to trust my younger self and find the net rooms I had made home in 2013. 

It must have been 6 foot by 4 foot but it was my place in Tokyo and for such an expensive city, a 24hr place to sleep for a few thousand yen was a steal. The price beat most capsule hotels and hostels while providing an improvement on privacy and comfort. 

It took me all morning on my first try to find it, I didn’t. Shinjuku, the greatest maze on Earth. 

I needed to get some proper sleep if only for a few hours before I could find my way back to it. So I walked into a Manboo net cafe in Shinjuku and fell into an uncomfortable but much needed sleep. 

I woke up determined to find my Tokyo home. 

‘There should be a big green sign on this next street.’ I thought, anticipating the victory. 

I turned the corner and it was there. 

The banner hanging above a real estate company meant I was just a few feet from Manboo NetRooms. I was back home, one of my homes anyway. 

That airplane was a time machine transporting me back two years earlier, with only slight differences in the furniture but massive differences in my life. 

I was relishing the nostalgia until I remembered that I had felt isolated there before. It took a great amount of energy to get up and go outside to just buy groceries or explore something. 

I needed to change that. I had a chance to erase a regret. 

My first choice target of redemption was to walk to Shibuya, see the crossing and atmosphere and build up some more confidence in what can be a daunting place. 

The amount of people spilling into the streets, the streams of bodies through the stations – a soup of flesh and cloth that makes central Tokyo a hellish prospect if you’re in a low mood. I wasn’t feeling low though, I was high on lights and kawaii. 

It would be every 10-20 steps before another hit me. No choice but to look, trying my best to disguise the stare with a look at a building or car going by. Another and then another – the heels, the tights, the perfectly positioned face mask showing big mascaraed eyes and leaving the rest a mystery. 

I couldn’t recall Tokyo girls being so beautiful the last time. Although I had only seen the city through the eyes of a Shinjuku hermit in 2013. 

In a city of constant distractions they took top prize for my watch time. It would have been creepy if they weren’t staring back at me with just as much fascination. 

Everything was spinning and my neck was hurting by the time I made it to the scramble crossing of Shibuya. 

I knew by this point from experience that most places look different to the postcards or scenes from a movie. When standing there in front of the Empire State Building or Sydney Opera House your perspectives on them are forever changed. 

What you remember is what’s edited out, kept out of frame to preserve the international mystique. 

In the case of Shibuya the rail bridge to the side made it feel smaller, lopsided and irregular, it wasn’t the Times Square like phenomenon I was expecting but it also made it more lovable, less perfected and somewhat more sincere. 

I smoked a cigarette with the cool kids and watched the losers scramble across the scramble. Losers. Scramble losers. 

I kept on sucking the Tootsie Roll of death. 

‘How much longer will I suck on these wonderful things?’ 

My throat always hurt, I got headaches often, many times I would feel my blood vessels constrict, tight, in some kind of pain. How much longer? 

I didn’t know at the time. I was just asking the question. 

I did make one life decision there in Shibuya, I decided I preferred Shinjuku much more. Shinjuku. Fuck yes, Shinjuku. 

I discarded the cigarette then walked home to Manboo. 

It turned out I didn’t need a visa for Taiwan. 

My one year ban wouldn’t land me on some naughty list forever. 

All the workers at the Taipei Office in Tokyo were very nice and friendly and more importantly were competent, a damn rare thing in this world. 

A few days before I left for Taiwan the snow started to fall. I don’t know why but snow in Tokyo was at least 26 times more exciting than snow anywhere else. It wasn’t like it was a super rare phenomenon or anything. It was just the idea of it. Seeing Tokyo’s cyberpunk streetscape turn into a winter wonderland. 

But as snow does as it always does, it lost its appeal quickly. Just two visits to the konbini destroyed my already disintegrating shoes. The same shoes I had worn for most of my time in Canada and every day of that month of hiking. 

‘Come’on! Stay together! Just one more day!’ I would order them, as I marched through the freezing slush-filled Japanese streets for more disgustingly delicious Japanese snacks. 

They were a ticking time bomb. I knew at some point they would come apart completely. But I was trying hard to avoid shopping in Tokyo. I hated shopping in Tokyo. 

‘Come’on! Stay together! Just one more day!’ 

The shoes held. I made it to Narita. Slept upright on an uncomfortable chair and the next morning took my flight to Taipei. 

Tokyo has never been a city I can fall in love with easily. It can be a lonely and bleak place at times, unlike in other Japanese cities the allure of the foreigner is not as strong and the populace are more weary and self-absorbed. It’s quite ironic that the largest city in the world is actually a haven for introverts. 

And I am an introvert but being surrounded by tens of millions of other introverts is mentally exhausting. 

The city itself is science fiction made reality though and that more than makes up for the emotional shortfalls. It always has something of the unusual to offer up, stuff never to forget. 

Maybe it will take four, five or more visits before I can finally love it completely, but I saw more of the place on my second visit and as I left I felt excited for when that love would finally arrive. 

Tokyo was growing on me. I always hoped it would.