Notes from Tokyo
Patience is a virtue. Not mine, though.
Had I known my friend Matt moved through the world with the urgency of my mother browsing scented candles at Marshalls, I would’ve packed lighter for our trip to Tokyo. Maybe just a carry-on and a book on mindfulness. But there I was, day one, teetering behind him with two suitcases, an overstuffed backpack, and the simmering rage of someone about to miss the last train because their friend couldn’t find his reusable water bottle.
We were piggybacking on someone else’s group trip for the twelfth anniversary of our friendship. Neither of us had the bandwidth to plan one. Matt was excited to eat lamb, raw fish, and every smoothie from 7-Eleven. I was there for vintage shopping. With thirty approaching like a slow-motion car crash, my closet had turned on me. The crop tops that once flattered now made me look like I’d shoplifted from Claire’s.
Landing in Tokyo felt like arriving somewhere better. The floors were clean enough for surgery. Trains ran like NASA had scheduled them. No one yelled into phones or ate boiled eggs in public, which is really all I ask of a city.
But I was already unraveling. In a Sapporo department store, I blacked out and woke up holding an Issey Miyake dress that made me look like a half-finished origami project, and a structured grey top that screams, “up before the crack of dawn to feed the chickens.”
By the time we hit Tokyo, I was cracked open and ready to spiral. Matt was my stylish devil on the shoulder. I wandered shops like I was searching for a new self or, failing that, a discount. I wanted to look like someone with a vacuum that has attachments. Someone who stops drinking when they’re “good.”
Matt gassed me up like we were drunk in a bar bathroom. Every outfit was met with “You look incredible,” like the linen trousers weren’t just pants but a prophecy. His support was financially mortifying but excellent for morale.
Naturally, one skirt we cheered on went perfectly with another bad decision: the Margiela Tabis I’d splurged on months ago, half-off at $500. I’d been treating them like museum pieces. But in Tokyo, I decided no more preciousness. Time to look hot.
We walked home from the train station like we’d done a full grocery run. Matt had 30 thrift-store T-shirts, all somehow perfectly packed, and I was cradling two skirts I might one day leave to a deserving niece.
Then came the moment that summed us up. After a wild goose chase to a closed gyoza spot, we settled for shawarma. As Matt ordered, he backed into me full force, stomping my feet like I was an inconvenient rat. I silently thought, Where was this energy when I needed help shutting my suitcase in Sapporo?
Traveling with a friend is like sitting next to someone on a long-haul flight. You learn their quirks. Matt’s include forgetting sunglasses in hotels with one flat surface and asking every morning, without fail, “Did you put on sunscreen?” Which feels like a gaslight. How could I stay mad at someone who texts me my own location at midnight with “Just checking you’re safe”?
In Shinjuku, his lack of urgency became endearing. We’d be racing for a train when he’d spot a Lawson and line up to buy a single stick of butter. Then he’d spend the next six minutes rubbing his finger together like a fly in an attempt to open the plastic bag. I can’t remember if he said, “I really shouldn’t have put so much moisturizer on my hands,” or, "it’s like wrestling an eel at a Renaissance dance.” Regardless, it all happened in slow motion for me. But just when I thought I might leave him in a cradle fast asleep on someone’s doorstep, something changed.
On our last night, we said goodbye to friends outside an izakaya. At 10 p.m., I said, “Shoot, we forgot sheet masks.” We turned, and there it was: a giant neon sign flashing MEGA. We locked eyes, then darted across the street like it was a mission from God.
Welcome to Don Quijote—Japan’s answer to, “What if you combined a CVS, a pawn shop, and a fever dream?” The aisles are narrow, the ceiling low, and it smells vaguely like bubblegum and those little silica gel packets. Socks next to sake. Somewhere in the back, someone’s buying an air fryer at 3 a.m.
Here, among sushi erasers and bidet attachments, Matt and I found our shared tempo. For once, neither of us had anywhere to be. We spent two hours browsing with the reverence of pilgrims. At one point, we lost each other in the costume section and reunited holding tiny plastic hands meant for your fingers.
We emerged with four items each: lip balm, a bear-shaped hot water bottle, a cartoon frog folder, and an emergency poncho. None of it necessary. All of it essential.
In that moment, Matt wasn’t slow and I wasn’t efficient. We were just two slightly unmoored people, enchanted by a place that made no sense and therefore made perfect sense to us.
Matt knows the last train is leaving, but still stops to buy butter. Why? “You never know when you’ll need it.” The train fades. I think: This is how stories start. Not with perfect timing but with someone who buys butter anyway.
I’m usually the fast one, the planner, darting through the airport like Liam Neeson in Taken. But the moments I remember? They’re the ones that didn’t go as planned. Like this one.
Traveling with Matt didn’t just test my patience. It cracked my illusion that my way was the only right way. Where I tighten, Matt loosens. Where I rush, he lingers. At first, I saw it as irresponsibility. But somewhere between Sapporo and Tokyo, I realized it’s trust. A belief that the world won’t fall apart if you slow down.
In a city that runs like a watch and dresses like a runway, we stuck out. Not how I expected, but as ourselves. One slightly behind, the other slightly ahead, but always tethered.
On our final day, Matt knew checkout was at 10 a.m. Did he sleep? No. He packed until 2, then hit an onsen at 5. I found him in a random apartment down the hall. I texted, “Are you alive?” He replied, “More than ever.”
My obsession with punctuality isn’t adventure. It’s anxiety cinched under a pleated dress I’ve worn for six days straight (cost per wear, people.) Meanwhile, Matt is the chaotic heart of my favorite memories. In a world of deadlines and boiled eggs in public, he reminds me to linger. To buy the butter. And, when climbing eight flights of stairs in Don Quijote, to clench my ass, because if we’re going to be late, we might as well look like we’ve been through something worth showing off.