Japan 2019 Back to the Future

This time 10 years ago, in 2009, a warm afterglow of the recent Japan trip still lingers. The magic of the trip, travelling by bike for over a 1000 miles across Japan was my first big solo adventure and the memories and experiences seem burned into my memory. Some images and scenes, forever.

I can still vividly describe the feelings, sights and sounds of the visit to Kenroku-en, one of the 8 famous Japanese National Gardens. The intimacy of the tea ceremony in the tea house, the slowness of time and the intensity of connectedness to my new adventurous self and my surroundings, never left me.

Now, 10 years later I shall return. It will be my 9th visit to Japan and I have spent over a year collectively in the land of the rising sun. So much so that I feel pretty at home wherever I go in Japan. It's not only the people that I feel close to, its the culture, the food and everything around it that I feel connected to. It's no longer alien as it was in 2009.

This year I shall return and, armed with a 1-week Japan Railpass - a travel document for tourists that allows you to take most trains on any route for 1 week, including the Shinkansen (Bullet trains) - I shall re-trace my steps back to Kanazawa, my half-way stop on my 2009 cycle trip. Here's what happened back then. I want to find Minorou-san's house and see if he's still there and well. I want to see Kenroku-en again and stroll through its beautifully landscaped gardens. It will be different, I already know. Back then I was in analog mode. I had no tech literally apart from a physical camera to take pictures. My phone stopped working back then immediately upon landing and I didn't think to buy a mobile wifi hotspot, something I do now all the time.

It was compass, map and intuition that guided me back then together with my Japan Travel Guide and the daily need to find an onsen (Thermal Spa) or ofuro (Bath house) to clean myself after a day's cycle. The adventure was real back then as I had no way of communicating with family or using the internet for anything, with the absense of Google Maps being both a curse and an opportunity and invitation to discover place and to strategically 'get lost' (some say getting lost is an interesting way to get to know your surroundings).

Let the adventure begin.