A tourist, traveler, and pilgrim walk into a bar in Asia

A couple months ago, I heard Rick Steves, of PBS travel journalist fame, on a podcast where he mentioned three different mindsets of traveling: the tourist, the traveler, and the pilgrim. Without fully realizing it, I had been classifying our destinations, contextualizing our whole journey through this lens. The difference between the three are: a tourist travels to retreat, they do not ask much of a place and they do not leave it differently. A tourist travels on the outside, never caring to fully understand the destination. A traveler wants to know a place and understand it. And a pilgrim leaves changed by a place. I, like Rick Steves, believe you can have elements of all three in some trips and that the best trips do.

In Spain, we tried desperately to be travelers but felt like tourists, kept at arm's length by the protective, and often jaded, locals. In Singapore, we felt like travelers, veering on the edge of locals, seeking out activities that would best pull back the curtain on daily life for residents and help us understand the city. We swam where the locals swam, ate where the locals ate, and took the metro alongside them to the places in between. Some places are easier than others to be travelers in if you only have the interest in learning more. But, after all these months and all these places, I’ve yet to be a pilgrim.

But some destinations have more to offer than others, and none have yet offered me as much as Japan.

I got a bad fortune at this temple. In keeping with local custom, I tied the fortune to a string at the temple and left it there to be watched over by the gods.

From a traveler, tourist, and pilgrim perspective, Kyoto has it all. For the tourist, pick any viral social media video about Japan and add it to your list of “must go”-while all these spots are viral for a good reason, you can quickly find yourself in a situation where the end goal is the photo to share, not the experience. But, if your goal is stunning, social media perfect pictures, look no further. For the traveler, there’s no shortage of ways to learn more about the country’s culture and history: take a workshop on kintsugi and learn the ancient practice of repairing shattered ceramics with gold; visit any one of the two thousand temples or shrines and pray to the local deity for success in their very specific speciality, visit an onsen for a centuries old tradition of a hot, nude soak with the locals to unwind, do a sake or whiskey tasting, go to one of the many historical sites of the former Capital, eat any and everything (I think Japan has been my favorite for food of anywhere in the world!). And for the pilgrim, there’s no better place I’ve found to get lost in something bigger than myself than Kyoto, a stunning destination with a people and a society so untouched by blatant westernization and so different from anything I’ve been able to experience. The peaceful bamboo forests, quiet temples, and stunning landscapes made it easy to reflect on the city and our tripfar.

a train crossing in the middle of the bamboo forest

We had ys to explore Kyoto-which, we found out, wasn’t enough time. Receiving 72 million visitors a year, Kyoto, the once capital of Japan, is rich with culture and known as the spiritual center of the country with more than 2000 temples and shrines.

Bone chillingly cold and blindingly bright winter light greeted us on the platform of Kyoto station as we arrived in the city. Kyoto oozes a familiar nostalgia but isn’t an echo of anything else I’ve ever known. Trying to capture the city’s essence was like having a word on the tip of your tongue that you can never place. Maybe it's a callback to a fictitious 80’s, one with earth tones instead of jewel tones and a subtle, but striking, approach to the everyday designs of everyday things. Maybe it's the aged-cream color or the velvet plaid upholstery on the subway trains painting the city in a familiar, movie set-ready retro-ness. Like the design elements of the city, the architecture isn’t evocative of anything outside of Japan that I’ve seen; focusing on earthy materials, like wood, brick and subtle, neutral tiles, the city visually came together like something from a dream, the brilliant sun only adding to the ethereal sensation. The only familiar thing was the rolling, green hills that surrounded the city on three sides; easily visible below the low skyline, the Kitayama mountains could be the Blue Ridge Mountains’ sister.

a home in Kyoto

I’ve been searching for somewhere different. A place with no reminders of back home, no shared history, no shared culture or, most commonly, shared consumption. Of course, places around the world are different but the same influences we have back home proliferate around the world and coat it in a sanitized familiarity that gets very old, very quickly. Everywhere we’ve gone the dual tendrils of our media and consumption have chased us down; we’re far from the greatest country on earth but damn if we’re not the loudest. The surface level aesthetic hegemony in many places wasn’t something I was expecting; a cafe in Singapore could have easily been one in Prague, in Asheville. A taxi ride down the Main Street reveals much of the same: Margot Robbie for Chanel No 5 on a three-story-tall banner, a Starbucks, a store that sells rubber ducks, a store that sells stale candy in buckets, another Starbucks. The Portuguese invented globalization when Magellan made his maiden voyage around the globe and it’s been homogenizing the world ever since. But not in Japan.

One explanation for the completely alien surroundings we found ourselves in is that Japan has never been colonized and has remained, intentionally, isolated from western influence for the majority of their history. In the late 1500’s, Portugal merchants and missionaries landed in Japan with the intention to spread trade and the word of God. In 1603, the Island of Japan closed its doors to outsiders and disallowed it’s citizens to leave. Known as the Edo period, this isolated stretch of Japan’s history lasted until the US forced the nation to open its borders to trade in 1868. As they closed their borders, Japan instituted circular economies and created a sustainable society where little went to waste. The impacts of this isolated society are still present today; everywhere we looked, from the small things to the big, Japan was completely different from any other places we’d been. Aside from foreign aesthetics, Japan’s ancient culture felt woven into daily, modern life, in a harmonious and natural way.

It was in its religion that Japan fascinated me, a staunch agnostic- my beliefs rooted in scientific training and humility-, the most. More than 70% of the population practice Shintoism, a thousands-years-old indigenous, nature religion (and 67% practice Buddhism). Shintoism centers around the belief in Kamis, what we would refer to as gods but may be better described as local, obscure, deities or spirits. In Shintoism, there is no central divine authority, no doctrines, and no founder; the religion revolves around respecting nature, and appeasing and placating the kamis so they will have good fortune in the Kami’s speciality.

the torii gates at Fushimi Inari Shrine thin the barrier between the gods and people

Shintoism is deeply tied to Japan and, in my opinion, it seems impossible to separate the two. And I wonder, how does a modern population, practicing a nature oriented, indigenous religion, make Japanese people different from the rest of the world? That’s not a question I can answer after 8 days but I’m hopeful that in the future I can have more time to understand. Despite being so foreign to me, practicing Shintoism felt more accessible than any other religion we’ve encountered. Without doctrine, central figure, or founder to dictate practice, Shintoism is stripped down to a more simplistic spirituality than any other religion I’ve learned about. And worshipping nature just makes sense. After following the ritual of bowing once and clapping twice while standing at the altar of the shrine, the divine moment is nothing more than you and that specific Kami. All that’s left is to ask for what you want. Religion has always felt clunky to me; like an oversized coat that never fit right and had too many complicated buttons. But Shintoism felt easier-like an only slightly off jacket.

As we slipped into the Buddhist influence of Asian cultures, we began to collect good luck charms around the continent. Japan widely practices both Buddhism and Shintoism; the two religions compliment each other by addressing the here and now and the hereafter. In Osaka, we asked the kami deities at a shrine for good fortune in our career and job search (we will also take any leads you may have); in Kyoto we prayed for good health and success in the new year. We collected good luck charms from the temple workers and had them pray over our Daruma doll- a talisman of a monk that was so committed to meditation, his limbs fell off; an inspiration for dedication to our own goals-, a good luck persimmon keychain from Singapore dangles from my purse. Collecting good luck, like squirrels collecting acorns for the approaching winter, felt important. And also, a little superstitious. We were heading to Thailand next, a place that had long triggered a knot of anxiety in my stomach after watching the live coverage of the devastating 2004 Tsunami. I would take any and all Higher Power Help.

There are more than 1200 stone carved statues at Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple. Over the course of ten years, followers came to this temple to learn how to carve these iterations of themselves from a monk master. This was one of the emptiest temples we visited but felt full with the stone followers

We spent one day in Osaka, which I liked, but didn’t find as interesting as Kyoto. I did love the over the top, kitschy restaurants.

If we were travelers in Japan, we were tourists in Thailand. Two drastically different trips, we bounced from praying at temples and feeding the sacred deer to zooming past mega-malls in tuk tuks, lounging on white sand beaches and wading in crystal clear water. Thailand was the restful respite we needed with the backdrop of one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been-and, best of all, shared with friends.

In the Bangkok airport, we met my college roommate, Carol, and her girlfriend, Ashly. Carol is the only friend I’ve ever traveled internationally with, gracing three continents with our more than decade long friendship- no small feat! After months without a familiar face, it was a little piece of home in Thailand to share the experience with them.

I loved the temples in Thailand! So extravagant! Such a stark contrast to the earthy ones in Japan

Bangkok turned out to be far less hectic than movies would have us believe. Less overstimulating than Vietnam-owing in large part to having less motorbikes on the road- and cooler than Singapore, we bounced from mom and pop pad Thai places to gold and gleaming Thai Buddhist temples to surprisingly trendy restaurants, often flying down the road at the tuk tuk’s top speed. The night we arrived, we wandered down the infamous Khaosan road at 2 am. I looked at the mobs of 22 year olds, giddy from the shots and grinding on one another to the ear splitting, competing pop songs and felt a small morsel of grief for not having a bone in my body that wanted to join them. This feeling was immediately followed by acceptance and a deep desire to be asleep in bed. I swear, if we would have waited one more year for this trip I probably wouldn’t have made it

flying through Bangkok, crammed into the cab of a tuk tuk

Thailand is beautiful. It’s hard to write about because it is pure leisure. While I’m positive Thailand has a rich history and culture, most tourists don’t go there for that and it’s not so easy to access. What is easy is: long strolls on beautiful beaches with cotton candy sunsets over the horizon; incredible food at incredibly cheap prices; white sand beaches and snorkeling in crystal blue water on limestone islands; cheeky monkeys swinging from the trees, curious about what you have in your 7/11 bag of snacks; soaking in a rooftop infinity pool looking out to sea, reading a trashy book, and sipping a Piña Colada.

After such a wonderful week, it’s hard to imagine at my most fearful moments I wanted to cancel this whole leg of the trip. I remember watching the footage of the devastation from the 2004 Tsunami and the pain and horror has lingered in my mind for years. Only the promise to meet our friends and the plane tickets they purchased kept me from running at full force away from Thailand. But, despite my gnawing anxiety, so strong it felt closer to a manifestation, nothing bad happened. At all. Not even a case of food poisoning. As Michael Scott would say, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” and I would have missed so much if I gave in to my worst case scenarios.

Surrendering to a place is often what this trip is about. I can control so much, but also so little and, of course, every place we visit is what we make of it, but in equally many ways it makes something of us. Japan and Thailand were perfect lessons in ways to travel and what we need from places and when we need it. We left Japan knowing we’ll be back. For the first time on the trip, I could see one of the next adventures after the dust from this one settles and it’s in Japan.

And now, I’m hopeful for a pilgrimage. We’re in our penultimate country: Australia. A place that completely changed my life and myself ten years ago when I came here on my first ever trip outside the country. I’m hoping for a repeat performance.

-Amelia

hoo-roo! (according to the internet, this is a form of goodbye in Australia, but, personally, I am not convinced)

Miles walked in Japan and Thailand: 125.3

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