My friends were not coming. The news hit very hard as I was walking down the sun-lit post-typhoon corridors of Narita International Airport. In some way my obscure airlines I had been so concerned about flying with made it to Japan in the aftermath of Hagibis, while my friends suffered a cancelled flight blow at the hands of a well-established company. I had to take a moment to let the understanding seep in. Having recently moved to Kyrgyzstan alone for work just to find myself uprooted and lost, I craved for some shared adventures with my friends, thus a prospect of a two-week solo trip seemed daunting. So much so, that I was too distracted to take the right train out of the airport and circled right back to where I started. Searching tiredly for the right platform with my backpack and camera bag hanging from both sides, I felt like a pitiful clumsy sight. A young Japanese man turned to me, took off his round green fancy sunglasses and asked whether I needed help. Just as he spent a moment too long looking for the best possible route to my destination, ultimately offering to accompany me, I instantly felt relieved. Keishi had recently moved back from Vancouver determined to help travelers whom he would encounter in Japan, as he had the firsthand experience of what it means to be a foreigner in a faraway land. I was the first lucky beneficiary of that beautiful promise. Frowning about how crowded Tokyo had become, he giggled on describing his favorite hidden places in the capital. And the invite to show me around the city didn’t hang in there for too long. So, my fast-paced introduction to Tokyo began. From vintage camera shops hurdled in the basement or overlooking the city from top floors, to neon lights reflected off the transparent umbrellas of a steady stream of passersby under continuing drizzle, I couldn’t get enough of the city beating this busy well-organized energy. Everything seemed to have its lane and purposefully move in a designated direction. Although getting a film camera was definitely my goal, I was floating so effortlessly with my eyes and mouth wide-open thanks to Keishi leading the way. Probably that’s why I was targeted with a leaflet advertising maid cafe, triggering a muffled response from Keishi that he would come with me if I wanted to visit it, as he had done for his foreigner friends, but he certainly does not go to those infamous places that had completely captured the Western imagination about contemporary Japan. A fervent break-dancer, Keishi didn’t like clubbing in the popular Tokyo Shinjuku district either for the cramped obnoxious atmosphere in there. Seemingly estranged from his own city by the hordes of tourists, he still exuded such an incredible patience with me while I was checking and holding numerous vintage cameras in my hands, searching which one was supposed to be the best match for me. Finally, we popped in a Japanese pub with sticky floors and rowdy groups of men to try mouthwatering omelet rolls with soba noodles sent down with gulps of warm sake. Keishi was sharing his wisdom and national pride about never getting a hangover from sake. Snacking on fried fish-bones delicacy whilst listening brought back my childhood memories of sneakily biting off the tails of small fish my mum fried. It was my favorite part of the dish and discovering that it was not only appreciated but also made into a whole separate dish on the other side of the world taught me the importance of indulging in my weirdest habits as they would ultimately be reciprocated and pampered somewhere somehow. Never in my travels had I felt so welcome. Keishi’s hospitality that came to embody the Japanese hospitality for me, was even more awe-inspiring as the country was grappling with the consequences of the worst natural disaster in decades which sowed so much death and destruction. Dignity, composure, respect and patience were the weapons of choice in the face of such terrible odds. Leaving Tokyo with a new film camera in my backpack I enthused over the solo trip across Japan I was about to embark on.