On the 2nd of April i got up at 4 in the morning to get ready for my very early flight to Tokyo via Paris.
The person i used to be would have been completely freaked out by the fact that it was a morning flight, cause she really fucking hated those, and she certainly wouldn’t have stayed up late with her awesome girlfriends, packing and talking and getting slightly drunk.
And she never would have gone off to Asia by herself.

Good thing i’m not that girl anymore, cause the person i am now woke up, packed the rest of her shit,cleaned up the apartment a bit, and called a cab for the airport.
She arrived in Charles de Gaulle, ate a macaron from Ladurée, bought a converter plug and hopped on the long flight to Tokyo without the slightest hint of panic.
She might have been a bit weirded out at first, like she’d forgotten someone or something at home, but mostly she just enjoyed the feelings of freedom and adventure, like they were completely new to her, which in a way they were.
Traveling alone is incredibly empowering.

I arrived in Tokyo super early in the morning.
Made my way from Haneda to Asagaya, passing by Kōenji on the train, thinking how weird it was not to be getting off there as usual.
If i hadn’t been so tired i probably would have spotted my hotel from the tracks, it’s that close, but i was, so i didn’t, but the friendly station Kōban pointed me in the right direction, and within minutes i was sitting in my tiny temporary home, enjoying the view from my window, a soy matcha latte from the local Starbucks, and the fact that the hotel had free wifi, even though the website i booked through said they didn’t.

Normally, when arriving in Tokyo, we head straight to Inkrat, but seeing as i arrived on a Thursday, they were closed, so i had the whole day to myself.
I unpacked a bit, then headed to Shinjuku in the rain.
I bought an umbrella, did some shopping recon, went to the Keio department store to get a wifi pass i ended up never using, and because Tokyo is so small and random sometimes, ran into a friend from Luxembourg at what’s probably the busiest train station in the world.
At night, after a quick trip to the hotel to get some dry pants, i walked to Kōenji to eat at a vegetarian restaurant that was located on a street i used to live on, but i never noticed it before.
I’d printed out a long list of vegetarian places i wanted to visit while there, and i’m happy to say that i actually made it to a bunch of them, and that most of them were amazing.
The ones i missed, i plan to check off my list on my next visit.


So that was my first day in Tokyo, on my own there, or anywhere, for the first time ever.
Obviously i’m not gonna get into that much detail with the rest of the trip, but i’ll try to describe some highlights, even though it was pretty much all highlights.
And to those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, and know of my struggles with panic and anxiety, i’m happy to say that there was none of that shit. Like, none.
I’m not saying i’m cured, cause i’ll always be a sensitive person, but i haven’t felt anxiety or irrational fear since the breakup. I literally have become a completely different person in just 4 months, and the person i am now… well, i don’t wanna brag, but she’s kind of a bad ass.


Here are some more analog photos from around Tokyo.
I went to hanami a lot during the first week!