I Miss Japan So Much

August 16, 2025

A picture of the Albuquerque bridge at night, taken in November 2022

I miss Japan so fucking much every single day. I miss being able to walk nearly everywhere I wanted with the beautiful scenery around me, especially when walking through the countryside, although walking through cities were cool too. I miss shotengais especially, although it was a bit of a pain to walk from one end to the other just to get to one store/restaurant, there was a lot of cool shit you could find, like in the one near where I lived, they had a McDonalds that was like 3 stories tall because it was in a narrow building. I miss walking on the streets while listening to an album/Spotify playlist or a video I had downloaded to my device, whether it was from Youtube (I saved A LOT of Super Gaming Bros, AVGN, Vinesauce, and Caddicarus vids to watch while I was out) or a TV show like South Park, Robot Chicken, or Superjail. I was there from December 2015 to July 2021, then went back from August 2022 to September 2023.

I miss the food, I ate A LOT of curry while I was over there, lmao. Specifically, CoCo Ichibanya's shrimp curry, that shit was like crack to me, it was only like $5 for a bowl, plus I always got fries and a drink with it, sometimes naan if I really wanted to. They had surprisingly good Italian food over there too, there were plenty of places that offered pasta or pizza dishes, there was one location in particular that had a Carbonara pizza, it was a pizza (duh) with little bits of pancetta (or bacon, w/e), some runny egg, and pepper on it and it was amazing, especially after I put on some spicy oil they offered with it, plus I got a view of the outside, it was near the 99 Islands in Sasebo so I got a great view of the nearby sea with the sun all bright outside, though even if it was raining or night it was still cool to see. Of course I tried a lot of sushi over there, it was mainly from those conveyer places like Sushiro or Hamazushi, mostly the former though, I had mixed experiences with the latter, especially because there was one near my house and it wasn't that good after my first few visits in 2019, I think they changed something by the time I got back because it was never that good afterwards. Ramen was great too, didn't eat it as much but what I ate I remember liking, both standard/tonkotsu ramen and udon. Lastly, yakiniku was pretty cool (but expensive), although I only went to places that you just pay at the entrance and you get unlimited orders for about an hour, the ones where you had to pay per item I never liked, especially since most of the time I went to those it was before I had a job (or ability to really earn money :P), so I had like 2000 yen on me and that didn't go far at all. But a place where about 2500 yen gets you an hour of meat you can grill and some veg? That's a hell yeah.

A picture I took on a walk back home in May 2023

I REALLY miss walking around everywhere and finding all these cool places, being able to just go into any building I thought looked interesting. Granted a couple times they turned out to be Pachinko parlors (my worst enemy), but I find some actually cool stuff, like there was a full on arcade I found, two of them actually, one was near a huge mall area and one was on one of the streets near the base. Already mentioned it but the best part about walking was being able to listen to my music while just experiencing everything, walking around at night listening to some chill techno or rock was an otherworldly experience, especially in the more "downtown" parts of the city, being surrounded by buildings, all those lights illuminating the area around me... Even in the less busy or more rural areas, it was still amazing. A lot of music I associate with particular moments, like a lot of Tony Hawk's Project 8 soundtrack I listened to back in late 2018/early 2019 while out and so a lot of songs I associate with that time, especially songs like Your Little Hoodrat Friend and In This Legacy, in fact just in general I walked a ton when I was 15, found a lot of the 'regular' spaces I visited around then, especially restaurants I loved visiting. Of course the malls were cool too, there was one main one I went to, it had a full on arcade on the 3rd floor, a store that sold pop culture related stuff and ofc various clothing stores, the jackets I wore for the longest time I got from there, and still own several shirts I had bought over there. I of course also miss the convenience stores, mainly Lawson and FamilyMart, their chicken in particular was SO fucking good, especially for convenience store food, plus there were a lot of snacks and other food I could grab, I tried a lot of stuff for the first time, some bad but mostly good.

I miss the trains, I didn't ride them extremely often but they were really useful from getting to an area that was too far/tiring to walk to and from, in particular my city had a train station that went to both an amusement park (Huis Ten Bosch, was styled like a Dutch town) and to Nagasaki, was about a 2 hour ride iirc but was still great, took a trip there in December 2022, visited both the Mirai Cocowalk and the Peace Park, rode a tram to get to/from there, the Cocowalk in particular was a REALLY cool mall, it even had a ferris wheel on the roof. But since I'm talking about trips, I took two to Fukuoka, didn't take a train but took a bus, there was both a bus offered by the base (drove to the airport, mainly for people who were picking someone up/being picked up or people who were leaving outright) and both a bus ran by the city/prefecture, either way it got me to both the airport and more importantly, Hakata Station, AKA my own personal heaven on earth. A MASSIVE train station (like 11 floors iirc) that also functioned as a mall, WITH a big outdoor area AND two more malls near it?! The nearby mall had a Namco arcade in it which was cool in its own right, but that pales to Hakata station itself, it had movie theaters, a ton of restaurants and general cool stores (like they had a music store in there, with drum kits and keyboards), but best of all, a full on Pokemon store, AKA my own personal Mecca. I always visited it whenever I went to Fukuoka, I went there once in March 2023 as a general trip and went (and stayed) overnight in June 2023 for my 20th birthday, most of the plushes I still have I got from there, including my big Sprigatito plush (it cost about 4000 yen but was so worth it). Nearby there was also Canal City, admittedly the place wasn't as cool, it kinda had an issue of being basically a maze, but there were still some places worth going to in there, mainly, it had a Kirby Cafe, went there for my birthday and was both a really cool spot and had some pretty good food, it was pricey but was absolutely justified as a one-and-done.

But the biggest trip I took was undoubetly to Tokyo in August 2023, if even the airport I went to was cool (it has a big ass Pokemon mural when you get out!!), then it's already one of the best cities I've visited, and actually being there didn't disappoint. Shibuya was a must go and actually walking in that big crosswalk, all those stores nearby, being surrounded by all those people, all the signs around was one of the best things I'll ever experience in my life. I unfortunately didn't get the chance to visit Akihabara, it was a bit far from my hotel and I didn't know how the train stations/buses worked fully, but I went to a big Pokemon Center on my second day there, it was in a mall like usual but it was WAY bigger than the one in Fukuoka, it looked cleaner comparatively and ofc had more stuff, I also saw Tokyo Tower on the way there, it was unintentional too, but hey, I saw it in person. The next day I went back to Shibuya, and I had one place in mind, the Nintendo store in one of the malls, it was my lifetime dream to finally see it in person and it was every bit as cool as I thought it would be (there was also ANOTHER Pokemon Center nearby so uh, oops), there were other stores nearby too, like one dedicated to Capcom and another for Shonen Jump stuff which made it even better. There was a Tower Records a few blocks away after I got out, so stopped by there, admittedly a lot of the albums there were expensive so didn't get much, but they had copies of Casiopea albums, so picked up Mint Jams, Make Up City, and Super Flight (they also had Cross Point iirc, I didn't get it though). I will say though, I kinda picked a bad time to go considering it was summer and the heat in Japan during summer is absolutely brutal, it's so humid AND hot, so uh, not fun.

Unfortunately though, all good things have to end... I thought I was staying there for another year in 2023, hence the birthday trip, but my mom got a job on a base back in the states (probably THE stupidest decision she's ever made in all honesty), and she was scheduled to start work and be there in September 2023, so with one last trip to Huis Ten Bosch and one final day being out, I left on September 4th, 2023, for good this time.

I wish I could've had another year there, I wish we never left in the first place, to be in one of the coolest places ever then be yanked away and placed in one of the absolute worst states in the US is just absolutely heartbreaking and makes me upset everytime I think about it, my best hope is to land a job myself on a base there, but I don't think that's happening until my late 20s or early 30s, maybe later.

I just miss Japan so much...

If you wanna see more pictures I took, here's some I couldn't fit in here