Last time I was in Japan, in January of 2008, I was entering (without realising) the stage that I now refer to fondly as "my nervous breakdown".

Aside from the fact that I was in reverse culture shock and jet-lagged as fuck, Tokyo 2008 was when the initial phases of my paralysing anxiety hit with a force such that I stayed inside my friend's apartment, alone, for the better part of four days because it was too difficult to go outside. I managed two excursions. The first, up the hill and around some maze-like streets, to a Daimaru where I stocked up on enough Japanese snack food and creme caramel to get me through a nuclear winter; the second to Ueno Zoo, because..you know... penguins.






I wandered the National Museum but saw nothing except the way I stood out, and a side-trip to Ginza very nearly did me in. Too many people, too much happening, and I was the only one who was out of place. In retrospect, Tokyo is a very, very bad place to be when you are starting to totally lose your shit. At least I managed to take some photos, or I would think back with disbelief, not entirely convinced that I had been there at all.

The Imperial Palace Gardens are very peaceful. Luckily I had met up with our good family friend that day, or I would not have gone at all. I bought a drink from a vending machine that appeared to be a can of grape soda, but was in fact, jelly.

❤

This time around, Japan will be different for me. I will wander, full of the magical pills that make anxiety a physical impossibility, and I will see things differently. I will be with the person I love, instead of being stuck with someone I didn't. I will stuff my face with the foods I love to eat, and not just the ones that are at Daimaru, and I will definitely see some monkeys. I don't care how, and I don't care where, but I will see some monkeys.

Also, we will take a day trip to Nara, and instead of a repeat of deer-trauma 1995 where I was pinned against a tree by a flock of rabid bambi, desperately holding my packet of deer food aloft while my parents laughed and took photos, I will prevail.


❤