A Message from Tokyo – January 2025

Goodbye 2024. Hello 2025.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Sitting here at my garden table on the first Sunday of January 2025 feels no different from any other day, but I’m grateful for the upcoming year that stretches out before me, waiting for me to carve.

Japan experienced a year filled with significant events, ranging from natural disasters to groundbreaking achievements and cultural milestones. The year started with the massive earthquake in the Noto Peninsula on New Year’s Day marking the most disastrous start of a New Year.

In this post, I will narrate an incident that left us with mixed feelings at the start of 2024!

On 1st January 2024, we were returning to Tokyo from our holidays and traveling in “Resort Shirakami,” a resort train from Aomori to Akita. We boarded at 13:53 from Aomori to reach Akita at 19:01. At Akita, we had to take a transfer to Akita Shinkansen at 19:10 for Tokyo, our last destination. From Tokyo station, we were also to take a Tokyo Metro train to our home station, and this was to be the second last train for the day.

There is one very special spot while traveling on this train where JR’s resort train “Resort Shirakami”, slows down when it comes close to the Senjojiki coast and stops at Senjojiki station for about 10 minutes for visitors to enjoy the view of the coast. We got down, explored the rocks, clicked a few pictures, and took a few videos at the coast.

The view at sunset is magnificent and is selected as one of the “100 best sunsets in Japan”. The time was 15:59 to 16:14, perfect to catch the sunset (if you are lucky to get good weather).

The train started, as usual, we homo sapiens were ignorant about what was in for us.

The train suddenly slowed down after a few minutes and stopped. Didn’t know why but we all started chatting “Look train is slowing down and stopping for us to view the scenery and coast view from a different spot, so lucky we are”, as this was not the planned activity…We were beaming with excitement for something special for us, possibly because it was a New Year’s Day, we thought.

Then comes the news through the train conductor, that there has been a major earthquake in the Sea of Japan and Sunami warning has been issued, and all trains have been stopped. This was the moment we got a little panicked only for this, that we would miss our connecting train – We had to catch a Shinkansen within 9 minutes of our arrival at Akita. We tried to keep cool and kept clicking pictures of the beautiful coastline.

The time passed, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, now 30 minutes, and our anxiety deepened. We explained our situation to the train conductor on taking a transfer to the Shinkansen at Akita at 19:10 – the last train to Tokyo…And the answer was that there was no clarity on what would happen; what time the train would resume…

Then we took out Google and what we read was horrendous…

Senjojiki Coast faces the Sea of Japan (WE KNEW THIS), and is a bedrock beach formed with the uplifting of land due to an earthquake in 1792(WE DID NOT KNOW THIS).

After knowing the above, our thoughts started gaining more momentum and anxiety increased. We were optimistic that nothing worse might happen and started working out various alternatives. But we were sure that we would miss our connecting train at Akita, even if the train started now “We have to stay at Akita and leave later and this later (the next day or a few days later or a week later or more) is also not still clear, as we do not know what will be the situation going to be after this major earthquake. We only knew that at Epicenter and nearby areas, there had been major damage.

The Sunami advisory at the Sea of Japan had still not been lifted and all trains in the anticipated impacted areas were standing still even after one hour, leaving our anxiety to its maximum now. All kinds of thoughts surrounded us, as our train was stranded at the coast.

We saw the train conductor approaching our cabin and conveyed to us that our information that we had to take a Shinkansen from Akita to Tokyo had been passed on to JR Akita.

Finally, after about 1 hour 15 or 20 minutes since the standstill, there was an announcement – “The train would move for Akita in a few minutes”. The Sunami advisory had been lifted; we guessed. And the train moved.

Now as the train moved, the train conductor came to our cabin and told us they would try to reach us to Akita as early as possible and told us to contact JR Akita after reaching Akita station. We knew this was just an assurance but we will be delayed indefinitely. Our thoughts again started racing up and down with various alternatives.

But in all this hustle and bustle of the situation and our conflicting thoughts, my wife was quite confident that JR East would do something for us, but what that would be we did not know (our thoughts started contemplating alternatives here too😊).

Can’t control one’s mind!

The Train kept running at a faster speed I guess that is what we realized. It was quiet for the next few hours and our minds were also blank.

Now the train was approaching its final stop and we got ready to get down as immediately as possible. The time now was 19:45 as the train stopped at Akita station. The train had covered the distance at a faster speed, otherwise we would have reached much later. We picked up our luggage and started running out of the compartment to go to the JR Shinkansen office to check the next course of action or plan. As we were getting down, we were taken aback…

Can you guess what did we see?

We saw the JR East people standing there and waiting for us. Before we could gather ourselves on this action, they immediately asked us to come along with them and told us to be quick. We didn’t know what was happening, just kept following them without using our brains, without any thoughts whatsoever.

At 19:49, we realized that we were at the Shinkansen platform and saw a Shinkansen train on the tracks. These 2 staff members told us to board this train immediately in any compartment and signaled us to board the compartment in front of us. Now while boarding, we saw a display, “Destination Tokyo” and there was an instant sense of relief.

While running to board the train, we kept saying “Thank You” multiple times to these JR staff members.

As soon as we boarded, the train started in under a minute. We went to one of the big windows at the door and bowed to these staff members in a gesture that meant thank you and were at the door till they were visible. We couldn’t even say a proper thank you.

While in the Shinkansen, we were getting composed and assimilating what happened between 15:59 and 19:52. The feeling was both overwhelming & happy at one end and gloomy & sad at the other.

We reached Tokyo station just in time to catch the last train to our home station and reached home on the 2nd of January after 1:00 am.

On reaching home we realized the severity of the aftermath of the earthquake in the affected region. Till we reached home we were in ourselves only, I guess it is human nature to safeguard yourself first before you can help others.

This holiday travel was different this time as, it triggered a whole spectrum of emotions, from anticipation and excitement to overwhelming and unexpected angst and apprehension. 

Looking back now on 2024, this one Serendipitous Encounter taught us the beauty of embracing uncertainty.

I also like doing a bit of a roundup at the start of each year to look back on the one that has just passed.

In 2024, we made family domestic trips within Japan to:

Yamanashi (March)

Tochigi (April)

Miyagi, Akita, Aomori. Iwate (April – May)

Tochigi (September)

And explore more of Tokyo and Chiba culturally.

International Business Travel I did:

Singapore (April)

Malaysia (May)

Indonesia (May-June)

Bangkok (July)

India (August)

Bangkok (September)

Our son graduated from Junior High School and joined Senior High School.

We completed 1 year in our new house.

We had guests visiting us thrice from 2 countries.

I was also very lucky in September when Mrs. ROY KAPUR surprised me with a BBQ party at her Japanese University campus where she had graduated.

The FEELINSIDEJAPAN Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/FeelInsideJapan

The page now reaches 15000 people family per month, which is kind of crazy to think about!

Thank you all for your comments, likes, and support this year. I do try my best to acknowledge and respond to each and every comment/message.

To sum it up – The year 2024 was a year of resilience and milestones.

Hello 2025

With the state of the world at the minute, I know better, than to set any goals that could be unachievable. Saying that I always do like having a few things to work towards, and so these are merely guidelines for myself more than anything.

Wait for Permanent Residency in Japan – While I am already stable with ongoing 3–5-year visas, having PR would mean I never have to worry about a visa ever again and could come and go from Japan without any restrictions (similar to what is like traveling to and from my native country) and could pursue whatever I would want to in Japan. I applied at the 2023-year end and it takes a year to process, and most people who get it had a long association with Japan (10+ years).

Revisit Okinawa and other Okinawa islands – We visited the main Island during COVID-19. Since we love a tropical climate and serene beaches, kill two birds with one stone and visit other Okinawa islands also. (We had this trip planned/booked for New Year 2024 but something felt it otherwise and canceled.)

Skii time – More than likely, Nagano or Niigata? Our son missed out on Skii time in 2024. It could be possible this winter, but it could be February too.

Make it through the year! I’ll try to be as flexible as possible and be kind to myself.

I would of course be traveling in Japan to assimilate it more culturally and also sneak a few international trips. And would also be planning throughout the year to see if a visit to a new country is possible!

The ROYKAPURWORLD website

On the ROYKAPURWORLD website, I am planning to work out a solid format after all these years of existence and misses, with posts generally following one of the below templates:

‘Tokyo Musings’ – a monthly or Quarterly round-up from Tokyo for each month or  quarter of the year

‘Postcards from…’ – a blog post when we travel somewhere (domestic & international)

The FEELINSIDEJAPAN Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/FeelInsideJapan

2025 will be the year when the FEELINSIDEJAPAN Facebook page will be the main portal for our content, and something we enjoy maintaining: interacting with our followers, meeting new ones, and building up a strong audience.

This year I will try to pin down our style in terms of aesthetics, and would be happy when people would instantly recognize a FEELINSIDEJAPAN photo before even reading the name.

2025 is here. I look forward to spending another year with you all – let’s enjoy and feel the quieter side of Tokyo together! Stay safe and healthy. PK / ROYKAPURWORLDRWORLD