I hadn’t planned to visit Japan this fall … But when we learned the country would open its borders to regular tourists just days before the Japan Writers Conference, my husband encouraged me to shift gears. Wouldn’t it be better to present in person, rather than over Zoom?

Yeah.

A couple of weeks later, I stepped off an airplane in Tokyo. It had been fifteen years since my previous visit, twenty-six years since I’d called Japan home.

This is the first in a series of posts from my trip.

From bright colors to bright colors—Minneapolis to Tokyo!

Waiting for a bus, I sipped Kyoto-style chilled vending machine tea, with somebody’s cigarette smoke swirling about me and people passing by, including a woman wearing a blue sweater boldly emblazoned “DAFT.”

It felt strangely like … I was home.

#japanquicktrip2022