The weight of departure

It's past 11pm and I'm sitting cross-legged on my hotel bed, watching the rain streak down the window. Tomorrow I leave for Chamonix—well, technically I start the journey tomorrow. The actual bus doesn't leave until October 7th, but I need to position myself in Europe first. I've booked a flight from Osaka to Paris for June 5th. Two more days in Kyoto, then this chapter closes.

I'm not ready.

I know, I know—I've been here for 23 days, which is pushing every boundary I set for myself at the start of this journey. Three to four days per place, I said. Maybe two weeks for somewhere truly special. But Japan has stretched that rule until it's barely recognizable. And the strange thing is, I don't feel guilty about it. Not the way I thought I would.

The rain is coming down harder now. There's a heavy rain advisory until noon tomorrow, and they're warning about potential thunderstorms in the morning. I arrived in Kyoto thinking the rain would frustrate me, that it would ruin my carefully planned visits to Fushimi Inari and Ryoan-ji. Instead, it's taught me something about acceptance.

What I came here to do

I had this whole list when I arrived from Nara. Visit the famous temples. Walk through the bamboo forest. Experience a tea ceremony. Document the trees. Test whether I could maintain the stillness I'd found in Nara while surrounded by crowds of tourists.

I did some of those things. I made it to Fushimi Inari at dawn yesterday, walking through those endless torii gates while the mist clung to the mountainside. The tourists came later, but for an hour it was just me and a handful of early risers, and the sound of our footsteps on wet stone. I visited Ryoan-ji this afternoon, sat in front of that famous rock garden for close to an hour while rain drummed on the temple roof.

But I didn't do everything. I never made it to the bamboo forest—kept telling myself I'd go tomorrow, then tomorrow, then tomorrow. Never experienced a proper tea ceremony. Only walked part of the Philosopher's Path. Didn't even see the Golden Pavilion.

And somehow, that feels okay.

The lesson I keep learning

In Nara, I learned to be present. To let go of my checklist mentality and just exist in a place. But Kyoto has taught me something different: that being present doesn't mean you have to do everything. That sometimes the most meaningful experiences come from returning to the same small café three days in a row, or spending an entire afternoon watching the rain fall on a temple garden.

There's a tiny shrine I found on my second day here, tucked down a narrow alley in the Higashiyama district. No tourists, no signs in English, just a small wooden structure with a red gate and a stone basin for washing your hands. I've gone back there every evening around sunset. Not to pray or meditate or take photos. Just to stand there for a few minutes before the light fades.

I can't explain why that shrine matters to me more than the famous temples. Maybe it's because I found it by accident, or because I've never seen another foreign tourist there. Maybe it's because the old woman who tends it always gives me a small nod when she sees me, this tiny acknowledgment that I'm not just passing through.

That's what I'll miss most about Japan, I think. These small gestures. The way the café owner near my hotel started preparing my coffee the moment he saw me approaching. The shrine priest at Ryoan-ji who, after seeing me return to the rock garden a second time, quietly placed a cushion beside me without saying a word.

The mathematics of leaving

I've been doing the numbers in my head all evening. I'm 280 days into this journey. 220 days left. I've spent 23 of those days in Japan—nearly 10% of my remaining time. That seems like a lot until I remember that I still have an entire world to see. South Africa. Peru. Iran. All those places I dreamed about before I left Kristiansand.

But here's what I'm starting to understand: this trip was never really about seeing the world. That's what I told people, what I told myself. But sitting here tonight, listening to the rain, I realize I came here to learn how to be still. To figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. To change myself so I could change the world.

And I'm not sure I'm any closer to that answer than I was on September 2nd when I left home.

No, that's not true. I am closer. I just don't know what the answer looks like yet.

Tomorrow, and the day after

The forecast says the rain should clear by afternoon tomorrow. I'm thinking I'll go back to Fushimi Inari one more time, walk a different path up the mountain. Maybe I'll finally make it to that bamboo forest, though honestly, I'm not sure it matters anymore.

On my last morning—Thursday morning—I want to return to that small shrine in Higashiyama. I want to be there when the old woman arrives to sweep the leaves. I want to bow to her properly, the way I've seen Japanese people do at temples, with real intention behind it. I don't know if she'll understand that this is my way of saying thank you, not just to her but to this entire country that's taught me so much about slowing down.

Then I'll take the train to Osaka, catch my flight to Paris, and start the long journey toward Chamonix. Four months from now I'll be on that bus, heading into the Alps, and Japan will feel like a dream I had once.

But tonight, it's still real. The rain is still falling. The city is still humming beyond my window. And I'm still here, trying to absorb every last moment before I have to let it go.

I've learned something important these past few weeks: that leaving a place doesn't mean you've finished with it. That you can carry pieces of it with you—the stillness, the small gestures, the way light falls through a temple garden after rain. That maybe the point isn't to see everything, but to truly see something.

Two more days. Then I close this chapter and open the next one.

I'm not ready, but I never will be. And maybe that's exactly as it should be.