So the definition of a tourist that google just found for me:

Tourist is someone who visits a place for pleasure and intetest, usually while on holiday.

Before we moved here, I visited Japan 3 times as a tourist.

Now when I’m living in Japan, it became obvious to me what a difference it is to visit a country and to live in one… when I read a blog of someone who has been to Japan for 2 weeks and thinks they know it all… all those travel blogs became a bit meaningless… a good metaphor… travelling is like looking at a box of bizzaire chocolates, living in the country, working, mixing with the native people… is like actually eating them.

Nothing wrong about being a traveller… but it’s only a superficial feeling of being adventurous… or getting to know a new culture… All the experience I’ve gained while travelling (and we have done a fair share) is nothing compared to those 8 months living and working in Japan… and of course I will keep being a traveller… there is not enough time to live in all those places one wants to visit… and quite few places on my must see left… but after living in Asia for this short while, I’m now aware more than ever about the difference between visiting a place and being in one…

I was born in the Autumn of 1975 in Poland. It wasn’t the best place and time to be born. Poland needed another 15 years to overcome socialist regime… I remember martial law and empty shelves in shops. And my brother arrested just before taking his A levels… Nevertheless I have good memories from my childhood. When I was 24, I decided to go to London for 6 months… I ended up staying there over 17 years… Today I went to the local immigration bureau to pick up my new japanese working visa…. I’m no longer a dependent on my husband’s visa. I can now work full time in Japan…

And as I had some spare time this afternoon before picking kids up from school, I went shopping… I hanged around… did some people watching… and then it hit me… me… a girl from Gdynia, Poland, I am now living in Tokyo… that Tokyo, the capital of Japan. I do know that millions of people live in this city as well… but if a fortune teller told my parents in 1975 that one day their daughter would live in Japan… they would have laughed their heads off… In those days Polish people could only go on hols in Poland or in one of the neighbouring, socialist countries. We were not allowed to have passports at home… they were given only to be used on preapproved trips abroad… Even if sb told me 5 years ago, that I would live here… I would have thought it’s possible but not probable…

I do hope there are more nice, unexpected things ahead of me in the future…