tokyo – Lost in Translation

(A Cautionary Tale)

Part 1 of 3 | Posted in: Jet Journey

If you’ve been following along, you know Japan has been calling my name for a long time. This is the story of how my husband and I finally answered — impulsively, joyfully, and with absolutely no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

The Night We Did Something About It

There’s a version of this story where we planned carefully. Where we researched for months, compared flight prices, built a meticulous itinerary, and approached the whole thing like responsible adults.

That is not this story.

This story starts on a random night in March. I had just finished teaching my college classes for the semester. We had just gotten married. And somewhere between the relief of finishing my master’s degree and the newlywed energy of what do we do next, something in us just said — go.

We’d talked about Japan for years. Years. It was our dream destination in every sense — the culture, the architecture, the history, the food, the everything. It was the place we referenced constantly when watching J-Dramas and anime together, the place we’d say someday about so many times that someday started to feel like a word that meant never.

So one night we looked at each other and said: sure. Yeah. Let’s just look up the tickets.

An hour later they were booked. Non-refundable. Done.

And then the realization hit.

One Month. Zero Plan. Two Very Impulsive Newlyweds.

We had one month to plan a two and a half week trip to Japan with absolutely zero clue what we were doing.

Not six months. Not three. One single month to figure out flights, hotels, trains, itineraries, visas, packing, and approximately four thousand other things we hadn’t thought of yet.

Were we young and a little impulsive? Yes. Yes we were. Do I regret a single second of it? Absolutely not.

We spent the first three or four days just dreaming. Instagram first — scrolling through reels of cherry blossoms in full bloom, late-night street food stalls, and the chaos of Shibuya Crossing, saving everything, building a visual wishlist of what Japan could look like for us.

Instagram was for dreaming. Wanderlog and Klook were for the actual itinerary building. Google Maps for logistics. And more YouTube videos than I can count.

Eventually we landed on this: Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Nara, Uji, Hiroshima, and Osaka. Ambitious for one month of planning? Maybe. Perfect for two people who had been dreaming about this trip for years? Absolutely.

We also decided on backpacks instead of luggage — a decision I want to give us full credit for because it was genuinely smart. We knew we’d be jumping from city to city constantly and we wanted to be as mobile as possible. No rolling suitcases on cobblestone streets. No checking bags. Just us and our backpacks, ready to move.

We felt very prepared. We were not fully prepared. But we felt it.

The Morning Everything Almost Fell Apart

The day of our flight, I woke up to a storm.

Not a light drizzle. A storm. And a notification that our flight was delayed by twelve hours.

Twelve. Hours.

I want to paint you a picture of what twelve hours of delay does to a meticulously planned — okay, a one-month-scramble-planned — two and a half week itinerary. It sort of makes your mind melt.

That was the moment it hit me — we might actually mess this up before we even left.

We lost two full days on the trip before we’d even left the airport. Which meant scrambling to cancel hotels, rearrange bookings, and make some painful decisions about what had to go.

Hakone got cut entirely. We went from several days in Nagoya to one single day. My husband, who was already scared of flying and had been very bravely holding it together, sat in that airport for twelve hours watching me frantically reorganize spreadsheets on my laptop.

But here’s the thing about a twelve hour delay in an airport when you’re about to go to Japan for the first time — even that couldn’t touch the excitement. We were going. Finally, actually going. A storm and a scrambled itinerary and a very long airport day couldn’t change that.

And so eventually, finally, we got on the plane.

Next time: We land in Tokyo, attempt to navigate the train system with zero Japanese, and discover that we forgot to plan anywhere to sleep for the night.

Have you ever planned a trip completely spontaneously? Tell me about it in the comments — I need to know I’m not alone.

— Katherine, somewhere in Arkansas, waiting on an email 🌸

If you’ve read my last post, you know I’m currently deep in the waiting phase of the JET Program. This is the story of how I got here in the first place — including the part where a song from an anime is entirely responsible for a major life decision. No notes. No regrets.

The Part Where This All Starts (At 2am, Obviously)

It started, as so many great decisions do, in the middle of the night.

I was half asleep when the TV flickered on and a sweeping, unmistakable melody filled the room — the opening theme to InuYasha. I had no idea what I was watching, no idea where it was from, and absolutely no business being awake at that hour — but I was glued. Completely, irreversibly, embarrassingly glued.

Despite being a pre-teen with school the very next day, I did not go back to sleep—shocker.

Instead, as many of us do, I spiraled. One anime became five. Five became ten. Ten became a genuine obsession with the language underneath all of it — the rhythm of Japanese, its elegance, the way every syllable seemed to carry meaning before I understood a single word.

I know what you’re thinking. Anime girl. And listen, you’re not wrong.

But I promise it got bigger than that. Eventually.

The Part Where I Learn and Grow

I took Japanese in college, which is where things got real fast.

Studying the language formally — actually sitting down and learning to read, write, and speak it — only made everything worse. Better. You know what I mean.

I made friends I still have, including one in Kyoto who has shaped my love for Japan more than she probably knows. I read everything I could find about the culture, the literature, the history. I went down more rabbit holes than I can count.

And somewhere between verb conjugations and kanji flashcards — around the time I realized I was doing extra study for fun — I had to admit this wasn’t a phase anymore. It had become something I couldn’t ignore even if I tried, and trust me, I didn’t try very hard.

The Part Where I Get On a Plane

So eventually, my husband and I did exactly that.

Two and a half weeks in Japan, wandering and getting wonderfully lost in a place we’d both been dreaming about.

Spoiler: it felt exactly like I always knew it would — but also nothing like I expected, which is honestly the most “Japan” answer possible.

I could write an entire post about that trip — and I will, don’t worry — but the moment I keep coming back to is a woman from Uji.

We were lost — but honestly, in the best possible way. We were trying to find Byōdō-in Temple and failing spectacularly when she stepped in, our words doing their very best across the gap between her English and my enthusiastic-but-chaotic Japanese. We laughed at the confusion, she pointed us in the right direction, and somewhere in those few minutes, something shifted. We were lost in translation, literally and completely — and yet we walked away with something that made us feel more human than we had all trip. Connection, simple and unexpected, from a stranger in Uji.

Such a small moment. Yet, it’s the one that stuck.

I came home from that trip feeling restless.

Unpacking our bags, talking through everything we’d seen — it just hit me.

I couldn’t give this up.

The Part Where I Do Something About It

Which brings us here.

I applied to the JET Program — which I talked about a bit in my first post — because it felt like the most direct path from where I am to where I want to be.

I made it through the application. I survived the interview. I am now firmly in the waiting stage, refreshing my email every four minutes like a completely normal and chill person.

If JET says yes, I’m packing my life into suitcases and going.

If life takes a different turn, I’ll be starting a PhD in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, researching how the Japanese language shapes identity and expression in popular culture — which is really just a fancy way of saying the InuYasha spiral never fully stopped and I decided to write a dissertation about it.

So… What Now?

Either way, I’ll be here — writing about all of it, one post at a time, from one Arkansas girl who heard a theme song in the middle of the night and never quite recovered.

If you’re on your own version of a language spiral — or just curious where this one goes — stick around. I have a feeling this is only the beginning.

Welcome to Lost in Translation. I’m really glad you’re here. 🌸

— Katherine, somewhere in Arkansas, waiting on an email

Tag: tokyo

That Time We Planned a Trip to Japan in One Month

(A Cautionary Tale)

Why I Applied to JET (And Why Japan)