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Copy path90 days in Japan without a plan.srt
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90 days in Japan without a plan.srt
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Delete (Only to help line up the initial sync)
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There I was in the middle of Tokyo, bumming free wifi off the subway station, wondering if the Japanese farmer I talked to over email would even show up. If he didn’t I was going to have to knock doors and ask for help in my broken Japanese.
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I was stressing! I arrived in Japan for the first time only a few days before with nothing but my carryon bag and 3 Japanese college classes under my belt. I reserved a high quality sim card but the shop in the airport where you pick up was closed when I landed!
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So things started a little rough. But I had prepared for this! I took 3 college Japanese classes and my last class was about nothing but directions, which was really all I needed.
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When I got off the flight, I was trying to figure out how to get to my hostel I booked, so I went up to the bus ticket booth and asked the ladies working there how to get to Sakura. They understood me, but I had no idea what they said! Now I was really worried. The only thing I felt confident about in Japanese was directions! I had no idea how I was going to survive.
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Eventually with a lot of pointing and charades, the bus ladies helped me find the right subway line to Sakura. During the whole ride, I was shaking with fear, terrified I was going to be completely lost without service somewhere in Tokyo.
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When I got off the train, I had to screenshot the map to the hostel because I had no service. Somehow I made the 15 minute walk with no real hiccups, but that 15 minute walk felt like 5 hours. I finally checked in, got on the wifi and let my family know I was safe. Now I just needed to figure out what I was actually going to do in Japan.
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Thankfully I had heard about something called WWOOFing from a good friend. It’s basically an organization that connects you with local farmers that give you a bed and food in return for working on their farms. I luckily had a cousin staying in Tokyo so for 2 days I crashed on a REALLY SMALL couch at his place in Tokyo while I frantically messaged hundreds of local farmers across Japan.
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When I left my cousin’s place, I was still having issues with my sim card, so I had to rely on the free wifi in subway stations to make my way from Tokyo down to a small town called Fuefuki in Yamanashi. When arrived at the last train station, it didn’t have wifi, so I was just hoping they would recognize the white guy with a suitcase when they pulled up.
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I was relieved when a guy pulled up in a little KEI truck, pointed at me and said “WWOOF?”! I gave him the thumbs up and got in the truck. He didn’t speak any english at all, so my total immersion in Japanese began on that ride.
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At first, I could barely communicate, but I forced myself to do my absolute best to use every I knew and to stretch myself. The days were spent working in their peach orchard with Mt Fuji in the distance and the evenings were spent eating delicious Japanese home cooking. They showed me Natto and I would showed them S’mores. After dinner, we would sit around the table for hours and talk. My Japanese got pretty good
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It was one of the best times of my life, and while I was out working in the orchard, I would think about what I wanted to do with my life. This was when I had the first thought of starting my own business and becoming an entrepreneur. Now 8 years later, I am living the dreams I first had while in the countryside of Japan while building Viddy Studio.
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That trip set me up for my whole life. Ever since then, I’ve always known that no matter how crazy it gets, I’ll find away to figure it out and turn a crazy situation into a growth opportunity.
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I’m not saying you shouldn’t prepare properly for a leap of faith, but most times, you have to jump before you’re ready and figure things out along the way. If you wait until it’s perfect, you might miss the window of opportunity.