Mundane Journeys

A wanderer travelling through the streets of Japan filled with excitement and melancholy

I arrived in the evening at Osaka airport, my heart was filled with adventure, waiting to temporarily escape the confines of reality.

The first night, I visited the Chuo-Ku market.

Abundance of light, food, and luxury were brimming with anticipation as each passerby wandered through the streets. I followed the crowd with senseless delight.

The next day, I hopped on a train to reach my next destination — Kyoto.

I sat in a corner accompanied by the crowd, curiosity was my company. Life? Job? Passion? Love?

After a 30 minute journey, I finally arrive in Kyoto. As I filled my day wandering through the streets and corners of each alleyway, a sense of history developed within me.

The city was filled with memoir and modern classicism. Temples, Shrines, and Castles were the centre of attention with each passerby mesmerised by its beauty.

While the objects amazed me, nothing was compared to the sighting of Geisha, transcendence of both style and enigma. Their movements were rigid but with outstanding finesse.

In the evening, I then hopped on another train to my next destination — Karuizawa-Machi. As I arrived at the station in the wee hours of the night, the winter coldness crept slowly with clear malice towards me. With the loneliness of the night, every step I took felt heavy like carrying a dozen of bricks, I wanted to go home.

I woke up the next day. I opened the curtains to let the sunshine in and after looking through the window., my heart was at awe. The beauty of snow falling on the ground, forming on what seemed like a tangible form of clouds. The beauty of nature and time were right in front of me. All my worries and doubts melted away.

I spend the rest of the day basking under the winter sun. The coldness of the winter balanced the ever shining warmth of the sun.

After a couple of days, I moved to my next destination — Tokyo.

As I stepped out of the train station, the urban atmosphere and modernism hit me like a wave of tsunami. As I make my way through the crowds, I could almost taste the aggression and energy of its urban lifestyle. The city was surrounded by various forms of language, sound of footsteps, sounds of buses, and advertisements echoing through the streets.

As I make my way to the airport, melancholy and relief were my company. Beauty and rupture surge within me as I looked at the crowd and buildings not wanting to forget but remember the experience.