Traveling of the Radar: Deep dives into lesser-known events

Going to a new country for the first time can be new and exciting for many people, me included. I felt myself get very overwhelmed within the first few weeks and it felt like I had to fit everything in the first week. A word of advice that is always hard to follow is to take a moment to breath and really figure out what YOU want to do.  

Like many, I fell into a pitfall of wanting to join every excursion or outing that came my way. It felt like everyone was miles ahead of me in knowing what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go. Except I came to quickly realize what others wanted to do was not what I wanted to do.  I was only following the crowd because if I didn't it felt like I would fall behind and not have any "cool" or "fun"" stories to share. 

It's like everyone says one person's travel experience will not be the same as the person's right next to them. One of my friends enjoys the party life and can be found out in the Tokyo city life more often than not, another one of my friends enjoys the more niche locations Japan has to offer and can be found at some hole in the wall mom and pop shop.  As I began to reflect on my own interests and wants, I realized that they were vastly different from a majority of the people I had hung out with at first. It wasn't a bad realization; it was more of an eye-opening realization that helped me realize what I truly wanted in my own abroad experience. I wanted to travel to the countryside and travel the vast lands of rice fields for miles and miles. So, I began my search for places to travel. 

Years and years of scrolling later I came across a festival happening in Toyama, the Tonami Yotaka Festival. In the briefest explanation possible this festival begins at around 8pm and goes to 11pm and showcases a variety of beautiful floats that will end up crashing into each other. Here is the site I used to create my entire Toyama travel itinerary LINK: Tonami Yotaka Festival | Events | The Official Tourism Website of Toyama "Visit Toyama" and while not my own photos I hope this explanation will entice you to go see this festival yourself. It was a surreal experience to watch these massive floats crash into each other in the pouring rain with the crowd cheering each step of the way.  If you decide to travel abroad in the spring, I highly recommend visiting Toyama and experiencing this festival for yourself in its entirety.  To get back on track the main point I would like to speak on is my experience in Toyama and the many people I got to meet there. With this post I do hope you begin to consider looking for more unknown places within Japan to explore, if not Toyama then somewhere of your own personal interests. 

Whilst planning my adventure I decided I wanted to keep my spending to a minimum as a lot of the cost would go into travel. Among my searches for stays I found a dormitory place called Yosuga. A local stay where a lot of the local college students come to hang out on a normal day. The cost for a night was only about $25 dollars and I was sold (of course after a lot of research on the validity and safety of it). 

When it came to our check in time we were met with lovely college student hosts that showed us to our rooms. It was me, my friend, and two other Japanese travelers how had booked a stay. Everyone in the dormitory was beyond sweet and we found ourselves chatting with all of the guests late into the night. As we struggled to get a coherent conversation going with broken English and Japanese it never felt uncomfortable or awkward. Eventually my favorite question was asked, "why are you here?", met with the curious gaze of some of the locals. Because why would two foreigners choose Toyama mas a place to sightsee and visit, somewhere that not many Japanese people travel to see. 

One of them questioned us on where we had been and was surprised when we said we've been to Yamanashi and Kanazawa but never Osaka or Kyoto. Choosing to travel to lesser-known areas is not the norm among foreign travelers. After a laugh I explained that the main reason we were there was for the festival, to which they said they had never heard of before. What an absolute shocker! I had figured something like that would be well known among people, only to find out that this niche festival to foreigners was also niche to the locals.  We then went down a rabbit hole about what the festival was, where it was, and when it was. So much so that we ended up inviting them to come with us. Though they didn't join us they had actually still went to the festival and when we met with them later that night, they talked about how exciting it was and how lucky they were to have talked to us about it. The whole stay in Yosuga felt very homely, like I was coming back to an old friend's house. So, if you are ever traveling in Toyama and need a cozy place to stay, I highly recommend the Yosuga Dorm. 

Aside from the stay I made it my mission to travel the most of Toyama that I could, and that I did. During my time there I was able to fit in Toyama, Takaoka, Tonami, and Kurobe into my travels. That's almost the whole of Toyama prefecture in two days. When I recount my travels to my Japanese friends a lot of the time I am met with, "I've never heard of that place before", or "Wow I don't know where that is!". It makes it all the more fun to talk to them about my travels as I am also convincing them to travel out there themselves later on too. One of my favorite places had been Takaoka, famous for being the birthplace of the popular series Doraemon. A fact I was unaware of but found interesting to learn about. We visited Takaoka around 7 A.M. through 1 P.M. and barely saw anyone there. Even local people were sparse on the Saturday we visited; it almost felt like a ghost town due to the lack of people. We were able to visit a few museums and found an unexpected free zoo like area within the nearby park area. Though the zoo was a little bit sketchy since it had both penguins and flamingos. A combination not often seen for a variety of reasons, but I digress.

 Following that was Sunday where I turned into a solo traveler for most of the trip. I had met up with the other half of our group for a small amount of time but found myself parting with them since they were hungry and I was not. Which is another note I would like to share with everyone, you need not do EVERYTHING as a collective. If there is something you want to do and no one else does that does not mean you can no longer, do it. I find a lot of people fall into the FOMO trap where if everyone is doing something they must follow in fear of missing out on something. This comes at the expense of personal interests and often leaves a trail of waking regrets. 

So, next time you find that your interest is yours alone don't be afraid to part from the main group for a bit to experience something special. When I parted from the group and began to walk to who knows where I got to experience a very special walk for myself. I walked hours in a direction and found myself in an area called Nyuzen. Now there is absolutely nothing in Nyuzen except for rice fields and local houses. For miles. And I mean miles and miles and miles of rice fields and houses with nothing else in the distance, not even a stray convenience store.

At first it felt a little boring to walk around for minutes on end with no change in scenery and then the first hour hit and I began to feel a serenity I had not felt in a long long time. At that point I had walked a good couple of miles without seeing a single person of any kind.  It was just me and the sound of nature dancing around my head, all my senses full of it. Then one hour turned to two then to three, three hours of walking around this countryside town without a single person in sight, it truly was just me in my solitude. In my solitude I felt a calming peace take over as I ditched my electronics and took in the vastness of the skies ticking down the time above me. I found that as I returned to civilization, I had reached a newfound peace I never expected to come out of this trip. Something so internal had fundamentally shifted within me to a noticeable degree for myself.  I feel so much more connected with my feelings and desires coming out of that experience. 

So, while this was more about my own experience traveling to a lesser-known area, I hope you take away that you don't always need to follow the crowd. Take a breath and think about what you want out of the trip you decide to take. If you find it is different than the rest, take the leap and plan your desired trip. Don't be afraid to peel off from the group, live without those pesky regrets of not doing something for you.