Traveler in a Suitcase!: 2019

3AM

October, and I’m Still Learning

Feels like just yesterday I arrived in Tokyo: wide-eyed, terrified, clutching convenience store onigiri like it was emotional support food. I couldn’t even order lunch without rehearsing it five times in my head. I got lost in Shibuya. Twice. Bought the wrong train ticket. Twice. Cried once. (Okay, three times. But silently.)

First month of school, I smiled like I belonged there. Took a million photos. Memorized names I don’t remember anymore. Everyone else looked so sure of themselves. So I faked it. Worked part-time, forgot how to sleep, and crammed kanji like my brain was a sponge that didn’t sign up for this.

Honestly? It was brutal.

But I laughed about it. Because what else do you do when you’re drowning in grammar and identity?

Eventually, I gave up on being a top student and focused on being human. Started talking more. Listening harder. Learning how Japanese jokes land, how silence means everything, how friendship isn’t always loud.

My Japanese still sucks, but I learned how to stay in a sentence long enough for someone to trust me.

And somehow, in all this chaos, Tokyo started to feel like home. Not in a perfect, peaceful way but in the way broken things still fit into corners.

I made friends. Real ones.

We shared hotpot, bad karaoke, awkward confessions. They loved me. Or at least, the version of me I was trying to be.

And now?

I’m leaving.

Starting this month, I move back to Indonesia. New chapter, right?

Fresh start. Better mindset. More grown-up decisions.

(That’s what I tell people.)