Rocky road with extra nuts (not the delicious kind)

I haven't been able to write my blog in a while. It feels like since moving to this new city in Japan EVERYTHING has happened. The last few weeks I've had the sensation of living in a fog: not sure what exactly it is that I'm doing or even how I'm feeling.

When I first moved here I was so excited about the new beginning with so many things to look forward to: a job that I was sure will be challenging yet fun, a beautiful small coastal city to live in and all unknown adventures waiting for me. Retrospectively thinking I've had one of the worst starts I never even considered possible.

Forgetting the fact that I actually had a little accident on my first day in my new city after falling off a bike and injuring my left arm I thought things were going to sky rocket towards better things. I am an eternal optimist you see, it's in my nature to genuinely believe things will get better and happier times lay ahead. I was bitterly mistaken this time around. It didn't take longer than a couple of days when I started hearing things from my co-workers: they were apparently getting to know me and like me because they told me they needed to let me know about things that were going on in our work place. I heard about their tribulations with the company we were working for and it all seemed like a slap in the face. My heart sank a bit. What was I in for?

None the less I kept my positive attitude as I was sure if I just continued feeling optimistic about the future it would unfold beautifully. I truly was in good spirits despite all the warnings that my colleagues gave me.

And then things got strange. Shortly after that they got horrible: word reached our company in the form of the police that my colleague had killed herself.
I felt everything around me become a blur. Nothing made sense.

I could go on and on about the shock, self-blame, feeling of absurd surrealness, sorrow and pain... It was all there and after 3 weeks some of it quite obviously still remains.

The aftermath of a suicide is almost unfathomable. All of us at work were in a state of shock and things were made worse when we were told by the management not to tell anyone about what had happened. We were simply told to put on a happy face and fake it. Inside I felt such resentment and anger towards this policy but I was too distraught to fight against it. I was a zombie numbed by the absurdity of the situation and the personal pain I was now told to hide.

It has been a rocky road.

Now enough time has passed that I can look at things that have happened here with more perspective. The pain and the question "why?" still remain and I know they'll never cease to exist - though time will help. I still feel torn about my life here but I'm taking it one day at a time. I'm trying to focus on keeping a positive mind and believing that tomorrow will be a brighter day. Things will work out; I can do this.
Life must not only be lived but most importantly, be enjoyed.


R.I.P. all those dear to us that have departed.

All aboard!

I sit on my reserved seat in a shinkansen, a Japanese bullet train, once again. A week ago I was heading in the opposite direction in more ways than just the physical point of view. A week ago there was beautiful sunshine and my mind was glittering as well, feeling extremely happy, excited about the new road ahead of me. But today I’m leaving behind Kyoto, my first home in Japan and heading towards something new; my massive suitcase filled with junk I’ve bought to make me feel more ready to attack this new change.

It’s raining and that perfectly suits my mood. After pouting by myself the entire morning and feeling nervous about leaving Kyoto, I shed a few tears over someone very dear to me I had to say goodbye to. And I’m a little terrified of moving to somewhere completely new again; my new apartment which I have not yet seen, my students which I have not yet met and the everyday life in a small coastal city I have yet to discover.

But I know myself so well I already know tonight my mood might have changed completely. Right now I might miss the comfort of a person dear to me and feel anxious about jumping to something unknown again – but as a matter of fact I’ve done this all a million times before and I know I’ll be fine. Better than fine, as it usually turns out. Later I will say to myself “what WAS that fuss about!” and laugh out loud at myself.

New beginnings are always a mixed bag, though. In a way I perfectly understand people who choose to stay at their comfort zone and never really challenge themselves: we all enjoy the (false) feelings of safety. When the going gets rough most people want to go home because that’s the ultimate safe place. When I feel under the weather it’s not easy to find that “safety” because as it turns out, I don’t have a home. Which has been completely my own choice for many years now and I still stand behind it. Since I don’t have the safety of a place to call home I’ve had to grown to be my own safety ring. I’ve become more confident in who I am and in the choices I’ve made that if I really have a bad day I can take look in the mirror, weigh my options at my current life situation and remind myself how I got to be there. My safe place is the confidence I have in my choices. And it has really liberated me in a lot of ways.

But alas, for some reason or another life is sometimes terrifying. I often wonder to myself what it is that we people are so afraid of in life? I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m doing something right because every year I grow less and less afraid of living a life filled with new challenges and adventures. I’m pretty sure constant challenges are the key, or as the cliché famous amongst travellers goes, “life begins at the end of your comfort zone”.

I very recently watched a BBC documentary about J.K. Rowling and when she talked about her passion to be a writer it really hit home for me. “As soon as I knew that people wrote books (…) I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I can’t ever remember not wanting to be a writer. (…) I can’t honestly understand why you don’t want to be a writer. I can’t understand why the whole world doesn’t want to be a writer. What’s better than it?” Rowling completely describes how I feel about globetrotting. I travel because I think it’s the best thing in the world and nothing else compares. I simply can not fathom that not everyone want to leave their jobs and travel aimlessly!

Alas, these butterflies in my stomach today should turn into jolts of excitement and happy tingling by the end of the week. And THAT is what I travel for!

Shinkansen, a Japanese bullet train

My dawn in the land of the rising sun

I’m sitting in a bullet train en route to Tokyo from Kyoto. It’s an absolutely gorgeous day, first of May; sunny and balmy, I can’t help but smile. But I have butterflies in my stomach for reasons I haven’t fully fathomed yet. The following six days will be a little traveling holiday before I get ready to start my new job as an English teacher in a small city in southern Japan.

I feel nervous yet excited about my new life in Japan that’s about to start for real. I’ve been here two months now and thinking back I was pretty reckless (or just plain silly) to come here without a job waiting for me: there have been very limited options for me work-wise and I ended up not getting a job in Kyoto, which was something that I had really hoped for. And I can honestly say that without having a friend here I would’ve been much worse off. 

I met a Japanese man during my summer holiday in Japan last year and we became good friends. He invited me to come and stay with him in Kyoto when I told him I had completely fallen in love with Japan and I’d decided to return after my previous teaching contract in China ended. Having a friend, a local who has been able to help me with anything and everything has been priceless, honestly. I truly feel I would’ve been lost without his help and guidance – or at least things would’ve been A LOT harder for me on every turn. 

I thank my lucky stars on daily basis for having a safety net here. It has made all the difference for me.

As it comes to my love for Japan it is definitely still rising in scales. After my vacation here last year I was so stoked about this country and told everyone about my decision to just fly here in search for a new beginning. A friend did hand me a warning before I left, saying that though I loved Japan so much during my holiday it would be a completely different thing actually living here long term. I didn’t like hearing that, but I grant now it had a lot of truth in it. When I got back here and wanted to settle down I found out that I can’t for instance get a normal SIM card for my phone as a tourist nor can I rent a house independently. To be able to function “normally” I needed a work visa. The only way to get that was to be employed. 

It was quite hard to realize how everything seemed so strict and there were rules for everything. Some I thought were even ridiculous, like what they call “key money”, which when renting an apartment is pretty much two months’ rent you give (!) to your landlord because of his good will to rent the place to you… Traditions like these are - I hear - starting to change slowly.  Possibly due to the population in Japan getting more “Western”, who knows.

Even if it has been somewhat difficult getting a job here and sometimes local customs irritate me I can’t say that I find any of that off putting at the end of the day. I am still in awe how functional, modern, yet traditional Japan is as a country. I love how people are polite, shy and smiley. I get a positive kick every time a subway station attendant loudly gives thanks to people for buying their tickets, when in public transportation people scooch over and make way to give seats for more people, how there is this air of calm and positiveness. Right now I’m wondering why anyone would ever want to live anywhere else than Japan; the food, the culture, the people, could it just get any better? I think I’m on a Japan-high.

Yes, my love affair with Japan is only starting but I can’t wait to get it on full gear. Here we go!

I even love these cutouts you can find in many places all over Japan!

Forecast for the week: only slight showers of stress, mostly delightful, clear minds

During the first couple of years of my travels I only did tropical, exotic places like South East Asian countries or Australia and so whenever talking back home to friends and family the first question they'd ask was "how's the weather, is it hot?". Replies for my confirmation of good weather were "ooh"s and "aah"s, happy and jealous squeals. For Finnish people weather is very important - possibly because the weather back home is four-seasons-in-a-day sort of phenomena and summer is always too short.
One could say people back at home are somewhat obsessed with the weather and link it to happiness: sunshine equals good, happy life whereas anything else totally sucks and there's no way life could be satisfying.

When I posted pictures of the hot places I visited or lived in I would get an abundance of comments saying how wonderful life must be over there - because naturally life would be worry-free and perfect because the sun was shining and I was in the tropics. But when I moved to New Zealand and experienced my first winter in three years, posting pictures of snow covered nature barely anyone dared to comment on them but I remember one of my friend's comments: "well now I can honestly say I'm not jealous of you". This made me laugh out loud as it struck me so ridiculous. I thought about telling this friend that my life was genuinely so happy in this new country that I had completely forgotten the weather was actually not hot and tropical - yet I was loving it, whoaa!

Fair enough though, I have sometimes shivered in cold weather in a strange country and felt miserable. Those times the lousy, cold weather seemed to emphasize my misery of not having a job, catching a cold or adjusting myself to a different, strange country and culture. If you're not feeling good about yourself then grey skies can definitely make you feel worse. But I have discovered that if you're happy with who you are the weather makes little difference.

We've all seen those pictures on Facebook when someone travels abroad and posts a picture of the hotel (infinity) pool or the local tourist beach, maybe commenting how "life is good" or how they can finally relax and enjoy themselves. And yes, surely it's wonderful to enjoy good weather BUT I can't help but cringe when I think that majority of people have to travel approximately two times a year to a foreign country to lounge in a tourist resort's poolside deck chair surrounded by a hundred other tourists from around the world - also whom all can only feel relaxed there, a thousand kilometers away from their homes and jobs. Does happiness come as a two week holiday to a beach resort?

Personally I have very much knowingly stepped outside the rat race, taking time to just "be" and enjoy this great existence. Perhaps I used to be one of those people who thought that sunny, hot weather meant happiness, but after adapting to a much more free life style I've experienced happiness "outside the weather" if you will. I've spent a rainy, cold autumn in a small city in New Zealand, wrapped up in warm blankets watching TV shows and baking; to be fair on another occasion I took a month to island hop around Fiji with my main objective to acquire a tan. I succeeded in relaxing and enjoying my time, making the best of it, no matter what the weather.

Someone once said "weather is a state of mind". I believe that means when you're happy with who you are and how you live your life then you won't need sunshiny tropics to feel good.

Ps. Right now I live in Japan, it's a spring day and it's raining. And can you imagine it; I feel good.

New beginnings....yet again. Hello, Japan!

Here I go again.

Leaving the seemingly comforting idleness of my parents' house (and my home country) after a short visit was both exciting and terrifying. I felt the same warm rush of energy go through me as I always do when I embark on a new journey. Every time I jump head first to a new adventure there are still butterflies in my stomach although I've been traveling "professionally" for almost six years now. It's a sensation that's both wonderful and scary!

En route to Japan my mind was jumping all over the place. On one hand the experienced world traveler in me was relaxed, confident and had a strong knowledge that things will always work out. On the other hand I was a bundle of nerves, questioning my irrational jump to the unknown - yet again - and my biggest worry was hammering at the back of my head over and over again: what if I won't find a job in Japan after all?

A friend of mine who has also spent many of her years traveling and living abroad once told me that she keeps getting herself into situations that are challenging, nerve-wracking and out of her comfort zone. And that she absolutely loves it! For if not for those sensations of butterflies fluttering inside you, the "putting yourself out there" thrust and then the amazing rush afterwards, what is there to live for? What she said made me think about my life style in a new light. After pondering about things a bit I realized that those extreme sensations were exactly what kept me going, too: the thrill is addictive.

Throughout these years of traveling I've been in many situations that have been out of my comfort zone and those have been the situations that have forced me to grow as a person. Let's be honest: when everything is going smoothly and as planned, there is no thrill nor are you challenged to better yourself in any way. But a lot of "personality nonsense" such as excess vanity, self delusions and pride gets stripped away when you step out of your comfort zone over and over and over again. In a way you could say that stepping outside your comfort zone becomes less uncomfortable.

This time around arriving in Japan wasn't as big a step to the unknown as it could've been as I was lucky to have a friend here, a beacon of comfort that has certainly made me feel like home in a very short time. Unlike other countries before where I have traveled to in search of a new beginning, now I have been lucky to have a person to lean on. It has really made a difference this time and though I definitely still know I've taken a step out of my comfort zone I am completely enjoying the ride that I'm on. How's that for a paradox!

For now I have no idea what's in store for me in Japan - and I'm enjoying the uncertainty.

Sake jars

Homeless?

Traveling is wonderful. You get hooked on it so easily that you feel like you never want to stop or go back home.
We've all heard the phrase "back to reality" and it's usually used by people returning to their homes and "realities" after a holiday. It's an interesting choice of words when you think about it. Wasn't the holiday a reality? Why not? Too good to be true? Why couldn't it continue? Why couldn't THAT be your reality instead of the one you're living now?

This is possibly how I first started to challenge the thought of "reality" and what it was. I had been on a backpacking holiday for almost a year with a good friend and as she needed to return home for work and responsibilities, I was fully aware that I had cut all ties back home in case I didn't want to return. And I didn't.

Throughout my first year or two backpacking I had a revelation. It's almost as if you've opened your eyes to the beauty of life: you realize there's no need to return to the "real" world of routine, boring stability or any of those familiar, mundane things that make the average everyday life. After I experienced this moment of clarity I started seeing the world in a different way. I realized that the world really IS your oyster! Instead of restrictions and limits I started seeing options, dreams, ideas and unlimited possibilities. The world changed for me.

Since those days I've done a whole lot more traveling and living abroad and have been lucky to meet other people who do what I do. We each have our different stories and ways of making it happen, but there are a few people out there who go around the globe, traveling with no apparent cause. Simply because we can.
I could get all poetic here and talk about the beauty of life, how short our time on this globe is and of the importance to stop and smell the roses - and all that is definitely a big part of why I do what I do - but I keep traveling because I know once I've tasted this life of a vagabond existence I couldn't just settle down anymore and be happy. For now, happiness for me comes from the adventures and instability. Being "homeless".

This year has been a great one already: since I finished my year in China and returned to visit my family and friends in Europe I have been happier than in a long time. Though it has been very interesting meeting new people - trying to introduce myself, who I am and what I do - and it has been increasingly difficult for me to answer simple questions that people normally ask each other, such as "what do you do for a living", "where do you live", "do you have hobbies". I'd like to think of myself as a quite witty individual so many times I've given answers like "I'm homeless, actually" or "I change jobs like underwear, at the moment I'm not working, just traveling", or even "my hobbies depend on the country I live in, really". Sometimes people are horrified when I tell them I don't have a permanent address and I even had someone offer me to come stay with them for the night because they were afraid I was literally out on the street!

I've found that many people do not "get" the traveling, rootless way of life. It seems incomprehensible to many that anyone would be wanting to live with such uncertainty and lack of security, homeless. I have been bombarded with gazillion questions and the most popular one always is "how can you afford this life style?". To be honest my way of life is not that expensive. And funnily enough I seem to have more money saved on my bank account than many of my friends who work full time to pay for their mortgages, car loans and debts... To be fair I have no material things to show for my wanderings: all I have is stored within me as memories, wisdom (hopefully) and personal growth.

I might be homeless for I have no place to call my own - nor do I yearn for it.  ...Yet I feel at home in a place filled with friends or even strange, smiling faces. I have been welcomed to different places and homes of others such as if they were my own. In this way I have more homes than anyone could hope for. I feel I have no need for the traditional "home" because I feel homey in so many different places.

Now as a new chapter in my life is about to begin I say farewell to my cozy pit stop "home" in Europe. I'm happy to pack my bags and head out for new adventures. For "wherever I lay my hat, ..."

Bù xiè xiè zhōngguó (No thank you, China)

It finally happened. My time in China finally came to an end! A whole year of novelties, tribulations and all things I never expected! But I made it. I feel no less than a survivor, that is how mentally challenging the year was.

And it has taken time to recover. Leaving China alone was such a hassle it was completely traumatizing and at a point during the journey I actually broke down crying, thinking I would never be able to leave the damn country. Quite typically the outbound journey from my little rural Chinese city towards safe Europe was a big mess. It was the cherry on top of my foul tasting Chinese year.

To quickly give an idea of what my last days were like in China, I'll only mention a few fun facts: my agency hadn't paid me for 2 months of work and I was up to my eyeballs trying to make them pay; I got an intense diarrhea (again); I was thrown a grand birthday party; I got asked to stay for a second year; I spent two weeks and was unable to buy extra luggage from an airline; I had to figure out how to transfer money abroad from China; and last but not least, what was supposed to be an easy 70 minute flight to Beijing turned out to be a horror day of cancelled flights, dirty taxi drivers, Chinglish and misunderstandings, bureaucracy, lies and heaps of stress. In a nutshell: it was a big, emotional week leaving China.

But as I boarded the plane in Beijing heading towards Copenhagen, Denmark, I felt the presence of other Scandinavians and I slowly started to relax. My stomach was a burning furnace, but as language barrier was no longer an issue, my mood (and stomach) was relieved as I was able to get lovely, Western medicine for my condition. Even the Scandinavian air hostess was so lovely I got emotional for not having to deal with cold, rude Chinese people no longer. I wept as the plane took off. The realization that every second was getting me further from the damn country was blissful: I would never have to come back.

When I finally reached home my parents came to pick me up after I had been traveling pretty much non-stop for 48 hours. Home; homeland and my little hometown had never felt sweeter and more welcoming. It was difficult to describe to my family and friends how ecstatic I was simply because there were no people screaming, honking their vehicle horns 24/7, defecating on the street, staring or laughing at my white skin... Chinese culture was finally out of my life! People I encountered now were polite, well behaved, they smelled nice and didn't need to shout to communicate - and best yet, they understood me perfectly without a translator app!

I have tried to figure out whether I was a fool to stay in China for such a long time. I kept thinking to myself at the time that it was bound to get better: surely the worst had passed and I had immersed to the way of life there. But honestly speaking I never did enjoy it completely. Surely I enjoyed certain aspects of my life there: the attention, perks of being white, relatively easy money I made, good food (to be fair I ate my share of horrible things, too) and friends I made.
I can't see myself ever returning to China. Not ever for a holiday. In all honesty: I keep seeing nightmares where I'm still in China and for some reason or another I'm unable to leave. I always wake up stressed out - but feeling so damn lucky I'm actually out of there!

Seeing Chinese people and hearing the odd Mandarin being spoken around me when I'm in big European cities has to this day given me the creeps. I can't help but turn around and stare at these Asians who are polluting the sound waves coming to my ears. I get angry as flashbacks begin to flood in my mind's eye. I obviously still have issues with all things Chinese. Safe to say I won't be planning a holiday back there - ever.

So is there something one could learn from my experience? Myself included?
I think I would still recommend a person who is interested in traveling and new experiences to go to China. Even take up a teaching job! But definitely pay attention to where you are going and ask yourself what it is that you wish to gain from your time in China. Ironically before leaving to China I got asked if I had preferences about the location and I remember saying "oh I don't know anything about China, but I want to experience the real thing so feel free to send me somewhere outside the big cities!". This turned out to be my mistake. The city where I was sent to was just too small. I was not up to the challenge of being the first white person those locals ever laid their eyes upon. The language barrier destroyed my independence - or at least the sense of enjoyment in general.

As a positive I must say the year has made me stronger. I also know better now what it is I want from life and what I will avoid; what are my values, what kind of people I feel connected to; what makes me happy.

I'm happy to build my future on that.

Goodbye China; forever!