The Promised Land
I flew into Tokyo on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow—the route wasn’t particularly full, and I had half the cabin to myself, which meant I could sleep in pieces rather than trying to pretend the experience was anything other than a long, uncomfortable interval between here and there. You just push through it. Eight hours of recycled air and bad movies, and then you’re supposed to arrive magically renewed.
The first moments in Japan were both the most vivid and oddly quiet. The airport hit you with the language first—the Narita announcements in Japanese, the constant half-smiles of the staff, the polite firmness of everything. And of course the luggage had gone somewhere else. Aeroflot, again. I stood at the back counter trying to communicate through gestures and bad English with a man who smiled regardless of whether he understood me, because what else could I do? I was already here.
Getting into the city had options. I could have taken the express train if I was in a hurry and had money to burn, or I could take the local line—the slow one that stops at what felt like a hundred stations, that runs mostly above ground so you actually see the landscape change from airport to suburbs to the beginning of the real city. Since most travelers rush, I was alone on the platform at ten in the morning, waiting for a train that felt like it was taking its time on purpose.
I bought a Pocari Sweat from one of the vending machines and thought about where I could go. Not Shibuya, not yet—everyone does Shibuya. There were all these other names on the map: Kamakura, Funabashi, Yokosuka. Places that probably had their own weird logic, their own neighborhoods where people actually lived instead of performed. The real Japan, the stuff you don’t see on Instagram, was supposedly out there somewhere beyond the tourist corridor. But I knew I probably wouldn’t get there, not on this trip. Not unless I had a reason to, or a friend dragging me.
Standing there, watching the train approach with barely a sound, it hit me that I could go anywhere from here. The city was right in front of me, every direction open. I’d made it to the place I’d wanted to reach for years. Not everyone gets that moment—the one where the thing you imagined actually starts. The doors opened. I got on. And it was real.