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This was from my honeymoon to Japan back in the summer of 2024'. This trip absolutely FUCKED me up. I'm considering this to have been the peak of my life at this point. The last day before we flew back to the states, my wife had a medical emergency and needed emergency surgery in a hospital in Kyoto. She pulled through, but it was a bowel resection and we had to stay for another 2 1/2 weeks. It was then 2 1/2 weeks on my own in Kyoto, in the Ryokan we were staying at, and it was both the scariest yet most beautiful time of my life. By myself for that long, drinking at Izakayas, walking the streets of the city. If you put me there now, I could guide you on foot to most places, I guarantee it.
Shortly after this trip, my dad got a stage 4 gallbladder cancer diagnosis. He's still around, but he just recently got a year to live diagnosis. So many other things have gotten worse in my life since then, this trip feels like the last time things felt good and positive in general. I know this mindset isn't healthy, but it's hard to not think like this. My one goal is to eventually become fluent in Japanese so that in the future, I can go back, look up the surgeon again that treated my wife, and do a whole "You may not remember me..." bit and treat him to dinner.
Anyway, this was one of the pictures that sticks out in my mind from the trip. Hope others enjoy it.