This past weekend, I made the decision to get out of my comfort zone. One could argue that I had done that by leaving for a country where I don’t even know the language. I would say that it’s not enough. The problem was that living at one of the school’s dorms became a crutch. Being at the dorms allowed for me to have a bit of America, even in Japan. I made friends with other American students studying abroad and we could flock together. Safety in numbers and all that jazz. We moved in groups because doing things on our own in a foreign country was scary. This kind of group comfort was fine for the first few days, when I was still trying to gain my footing. Two weeks in though and I decided enough was enough. I didn’t want to continue to be dependent on my friends. I wanted to spread out my wings and fly on my own.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying my friends are weak for staying in groups or anything like that. Nor am I saying that I was tired of my friends. My thoughts were more along the lines that I came to Japan in hopes of gaining more confidence in myself. However, I have not really done anything that forced me to be uncomfortable or lost. In order to fix that I decided that Sunday I was going to go to Asakusa on my own. I planned to take a look at the Drum Museum and the Sensō-ji Temple. Also, I hoped to gain more confidence in navigating the train system.
Rather than going through a timeline of my trip, I’m going to state a few things I did learn:
The best way to learn a train system is to navigate it yourself. I did not by any means become a Japanese trains expert by the end of Sunday but I was now able to read the train maps with more confidence and pinpoint when the express trains were coming versus the locals. Going along a new route forced me to pay more attention to what was happening with the lines and platforms. This in turn forced me to pick up more tips on how to navigate the trains.
Getting lost can be more fun than it sounds. When I got to Asakusa, I had intended to head to the Drum Museum first. I ended up getting lost trying to get there. That was okay because I ended up finding one of the shopping streets instead. I wandered among these streets for a good hour, turning this way and that, never really knowing where I was. Until I somehow ended up at the Sensō-ji Temple. Go figure. I did not end up going to the Drum Temple but that’s fine. Instead I got to see all these cool shops and food stalls, which I had not been my initial intention.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. When you don’t know the language, like me, this can be hard. Not because you are afraid to ask per se, but more like you literally cannot because you don’t know the words. This is where gesturing really comes in handy. On two separate occasions, I had to ask for help during my trip. Both times, using hands and nodding managed to get my message across just fine.
All in all, I got back to my dorm alive. I survived the trip and grew as a person as a result. Now I’m not afraid to travel on my own in the future. Whether this translates to more solo trips during my stay here or gives me confidence to travel abroad on my own after graduation, we’ll just have to see.