After moving around to different countries my whole life, I always felt like I didn't have a place where it could permanently settle. Nothing seemed to be the right fit. Maybe it was because I'm small, weird, somewhat antisocial, or I just couldn't get along with the culture and people. It didn't matter what the reason was. Something always felt like it wasn't right.
That changed the moment I stepped out from the train station in Tokyo the first time.
All of the doubts that people had about me traveling alone to foreign country melted away with the rain as I walked in it that night. After taking three trains from the airport, some help of a lovely Japanese woman that missed her bus just to help me, and finding my way to the hostel, I had finally done it.
I watched out of my hostel window into the streets that were so quiet. The only sounds were the echoes of the thunderstorm, and rushed footsteps.
12 years ago I put all of my hope into a country that I had never been to before, scared as hell that it would be nothing like I imagined it to be and leave with disappointment. I was wrong.
My priorities had changed. It wasn't my expectations that mattered anymore, it was the fact that I was beginning a huge adventure to soak in as much of the beauty in the world as possible, and that drive comes from within.
