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It was my second visit to Japan. This time for the iconic F1 race. And with it came Nagoya, a fascinating city I hadn’t savored before. Today, just my first day back in Tokyo, I explored a LOT already—and as if everything wasn’t enough, more amazing plans were yet to come. It sounds too good to be true, and it actually was. But to my surprise, the pinnacle of what I considered as “a trip too good to be true” didn’t happen in any of those agendas. 10PM. I thought I’d just wrap up my long day, go straight to bed. But as I stepped into the hostel building, seeing that fluffy sofa chugged at the living room corner, I felt like my last energy suddenly vaporized and my body demanded to crash there. So I did. While sinking myself between the cushions, I noticed two guys playing a game. A PlayStation game, an original Japanese, and my all-time favorite: Tekken. I stayed put, hoping for an offer to play, and it worked! One of them, Kevin, transferred his joystick, little did he know that it’d be their downfall. Because I owned the game. They took turns challenging me, and took turns tasting the bitterness of defeats. It was fun and we laughed, a lot. The next thing we knew, people were crowding the TV area already. We then arranged a tag-team tournament. And it was a perfect decision, as the game made us bond. We forgot that half an hour ago we were silent strangers; now we played like noisy childhood friends. At some point we even laughed too loud the hostel staff had to shush us. Midnight. It was either because we maxed out the fun, or we were too scared to get kicked out, but we stopped playing. No one had the heart to break the club yet, so we just chilled and talked: me, Kevin, Ramtin the other original Tekken player, two other fighters whose names I forgot, plus a guy named John who had been playing guitar all along. As time went by and we were running out of topics, only John's lazy guitar tunes left to be heard. Then he started strumming something familiar. Something iconic which only by hearing the chords, we knew what it was: John Mayer's "Stop This Train". It swayed us away so quick, maybe because we were tired and it was late, or, maybe because John was as good as John Mayer himself. He finished. We sighed, real deep. I requested something else and he picked "Who Says", again, by John Mayer. This time with vocals. I knew all the lyrics to this song by heart, but I used to relish it in its entirety. So it really surprised me when John reached that certain part, and that verse I knew so much hit my off-guard emotions. "Who says I can’t get stoned? Plan a trip to Japan alone Doesn’t matter if I even go Who says I can’t get stoned?" Ramtin and I exchanged looks when it came out, grins appeared as our sleepy heads lifted from the sofa. I was secretly filled with pride, for actually living that trip to Japan alone, got stoned by this song with a bunch of solo travelers who knew nothing about one another. I’m sure the others felt the same way. 2AM. John finished. The whole living room was quiet, but not for long because we’d sigh again, even deeper this time. Now we really called it a night. It was such a pleasant closure and we better not spoil it. We bid farewell, which for most of us, it was the last time we ever saw each other. It's crazy to think that the connection I made with these strangers could be so meaningful in just four hours, before finally we'd be strangers again. Four hours, that at least to me would stay in my heart forever. Never had I imagined that, out of many other events worthy enough to be the cherry on top of my travel history, I found it at a place often taken for granted. Who says your amazing stories can only happen at extraordinary places?