“Visit anytime! Of all my friends, you’re the one I know will actually do it”

This is the text I got from my friend Morgan after she told me she was moving to Hong Kong for two years. We had lived together in DC and had both left and moved to NYC around the same time too. Now we were both quitting our jobs and moving on, again within a few weeks of each other. I had never been to Asia and I knew, too, that I would go now that I had a reason and a deadline. However, unlike the spring break road trip to New York City, the planning for the trip to Hong Kong and eventually Japan took more than a few hours.

With Morgan living in Hong Kong I knew I’d have a place to stay. I floated some dates by her that I thought were possible with my work schedule and ruled out the ones she wouldn’t be available. I wanted to visit Hong Kong but I also wanted to see her. Much like going to Orlando and skipping Disney World because we would rather spend the time with the people who live there. Don’t get me wrong Disney World can be a fantastic experience. But hot and crowded and kitchy just isn’t my style. Turns out, Hong Kong was much the same. But I’ve digressed.

I figured I could take two weeks off work and saw no point in flying across the Pacific Ocean for the first time to only going to one city. Asia was never high on my travel list and I was torn about  where else to go. Taiwan was intriguing for its numerous hikes and outdoor adventures, but I knew nothing else about it and knew no one who had gone. Two coworkers had gone to Japan the year before and loved it, but I never really had any interest in going to Japan. I didn’t understand the appeal of Tokyo and I wasn’t prepared to climb Fuji. Southeast Asia was an inexpensive option, but I had a group of friends going there in the spring and I was planning to join them. 

Knowing Morgan would have to work while I was in HK I figured I’d be spending most of that week alone. I love traveling solo, but I also enjoy having someone to share experiences with, someone who can verify that this thing you did or saw was in real life and not a disconnected dream. I floated the dates to some friends who might be able to get away from work for a week and explore some part of Asia with me. I  even wrote a facebook post for the first time in three years asking if anyone wanted to go to Asia around Thanksgiving. I hoped whoever jumped on board would have a stronger opinion than mine and I could just ride the coattails of their desire. 

Enter Patrick*, a former housemate with “unlimited” vacation - an enticing though blatantly misleading benefit tech companies use to lure young people to their ranks. He had never traveled internationally before and had always wanted to go to Tokyo. He listed a few things he wanted to do there and I sent some of my must-see list for the city as well, though I still was not sold. I pushed South Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, and Cambodia. But he knew he wanted to go to Tokyo and said he doubted he would join in a trip elsewhere. He said he 100% wanted to go and was 90% sure he could. I liked those odds and tentatively blocked out some dates in my calendar that were good for everyone. Now it was time to exercise patients.

Luckily, I didn’t need much. The next Scott’s Cheap Flights email I got was for Hong Kong round trip from SFO for $430. The dates were in the time slot I had blocked out and I figured I could do a round trip from Hong Kong to Tokyo on the cheap. Oddly,  the prices really weren’t that great between the two asian cities with round trip tickets at $300, nearly as much as I would pay to get there and back from America, not to mention all the extra hassle of lines and security and time spent at the airport. The next day, lo and behold, round trip tickets from SFO to Tokyo went on sale! The dates were a little different, but the price was right. Multi-city flights are usually not the way to go, but I thought with cheap flights in and out of both the major cities I might as well look into it. I called Patrick and booked flights within the hour. SFO-HK non-stop, HK - Tokyo non-stop, and Tokyo-SFO non-stop for a grand total of . . . $560! There were cheaper flights, but I didn’t want to spend more of my time in airplanes and airports than I had to and three non-stop flights, two across the pacific ocean, for less than $600 is a steal!

I got to San Francisco the next day to begin my work assignment and drove to the house I had lived in the last time I was working there to pass my first night. I had a lovely evening with many of my (ex)housemates and met a new one who had moved in just a month or so after I left, Ethan. Knowing I was a constant traveler, my housemates asked where I was off to next and upon saying Honk Kong Ethan joined in the conversation. He had studied abroad in China during his college days and had visited and loved Hong Kong. “You should come with me!” I said automatically, not more than 15 minutes after meeting him. “Yeah, I should!” He said. I went over the details with him briefly and he talked a little about what he’d done in Hong Kong last time and the other places in China he had been. The next day I left. Two months later I got a text from Ethan asking for the dates and details about the trip and a few days after that he sent screenshots of the flights he’d booked. By some strange turn of events, I would have two friends in Hong Kong and travel Tokyo solo. 

The week before Thanksgiving we set off for Asia, two essential strangers, Ethan with a mesh fly-repelling face mask and me with my trusty Jansport backpack.