by Mana Sato
PureTravel Writing Competition 2023
Why does it feel so surreal to be back in my own country? The peculiarity of the letters on billboards and the words around me. The orderliness of the people working here. Even I feel out of place on this land.
It’s always this sense of alienation that accompanies my return to Japan from a stay overseas. I had in fact just come back tonight from a week of balmy vacation in Malaysia and experienced the very sensations for what seems like the nth time.
It so happens that many of my flights in the past have landed at night and tonight was no exception. The night view that greeted my eyes and welcomed me home seemed ever more distant in a city that’s fallen asleep. Despite being known for having one of the most cosmopolitan megalopolis in the world, the streets are dark here in Tokyo; the streetlamps offer the least amount of light just enough to see where you’re going, not to reveal what really lies there. The eerie atmosphere that pervades the area seeped into me as always, and it was like staying abroad had strengthened my affinities to places other than home.
But that’s not to say home isn’t home. The sense of relief that came alongside the turbulent landing to Haneda International Airport was of greater intensity than one when the aircraft tyre hit the land of Kuala Lumpur. It’s because there is that sense of alleviation that engulfs me upon arrival that the uncanniness of an estranged situation confounds me.
It’s not a sudden shock that overwhelms me, however. It’s more of a heavy smoke slowly permeating through the air that diffuses into you and your inner soul, taking over your senses and influencing you to sink into that mystical ambience. Rhythmic and beautifully cadenced, the gingery coloured xenon lamps lit up the urban and quiet streets of midnight, as my taxi sped through the empty highway of the Shuto Expressway towards Greater Tokyo. It’s the same route that my friend and I cycled through during the day a while ago, but it just doesn’t give off the same level of cognisance.
Perhaps it’s the amalgamation of the time spent in foreign land multiplied by the obscure and somewhat unfamiliar presence at this time of hour that produces this two factor theory of emotion. Perhaps I’ll never get over it. But I know it’s one of the beauties of travelling; the sense of excitement and anticipation you feel when you touch foreign soil, then that sense of consolation and idiosyncrasy that welcomes you when you come back. And I can never get enough of it, because I would travel just to feel this feeling again.
