with my eyes wide open

When I was younger I lived in Malaysia.

Just like any other average family; you have your regular restaurant, your regular malls, your regular doctor visits.
You familiarize yourself with your surroundings, but in reality, you don't have to.
Because when you are born, you don't know anything better than what is put in front of you.
And that; is your definition of what is familiar.

Then; it was New Zealand.

I didn't understand why everyone said the word "cool", so much, and I also didn't understand why kids didn't wear shoes on the grass.
I would wonder why their use of adjectives were so odd, because I never understood how the word "wicked" could mean "good", in any way whatsoever.
It took me a while; to learn English.
I didn't give up though- and now I even think in English.
(although at the moment I think in a weird mix of Chinese and Japanese)
I had to change the way I talked; because I would pronounce common words such as 'three', as 'tree', and 'six', as 'sex', and it was hard because I was teased for it.
I was teased for not being able to speak English; and when I tried, it was clear that I shouldn't have.

I discovered what it meant to have your own opinion and express it too.
I also experienced what it was like to have people not agree with your opinion; and what it meant to stand strong in it.
Yes; the grass was greener (literally), in New Zealand, and I've found my new home.
Malaysia will always be where my family live but where my heart is?
It's amongst the sheep and the cows and all of those stereotypical opinions about what New Zealand is. 

Now, I'm in Japan.

I don't think it clicked before.
No- I take that back.
It DIDN'T click before.
"Gee, April, a bit slow there huh?"
But- I truly think it didn't...click.
It's like I was looking at this place all the time but
I didn't really see it for what it was.

My eyes are finally open, wide open.

I am realizing how much I have yet to experience.
There are so many things that my old host family did not allow me to do,
that my passion for Japan also froze accordingly. 

I guess when I first came to Japan; it was foreign, but I approached it rather...numbly.
It was just "oh, I guess I have to take the train to this place", and "oh, didn't know that, thanks for sharing"
I was so numb, that I bet if an earthquake hit Tokyo, I would still have the same dead face on.

But I'm finding that this mentality is slowly fading away.
I am discovering Japan for the second time;
and with much more passion and love for the culture than before.
Considering past circumstances, I feel like I had a valid reason for not really giving a damn,
but I have none now; and I wouldn't need an excuse anyway because I am so happy to be here.
Here, in Tokyo, studying Japanese, and having a summer vacation in the middle of the year, instead of at the end of the year.
I'll have a cold, -hopefully snowy- Christmas, instead of a hot one, and these are all new experiences I wanted to have. I am starting to recall being the initial reasons to my coming here.

I used to have so much difficulty just catching the bus back in Auckland,
but now I can transfer between the yellow(総武線), green(山手線), and blue(京浜東北線) lines with ease; when back in April- I probably would have just broke down crying because let's face it, I'm quite a baby when it comes to doing normal human things.

I have my regular places I go to now, which is comforting and surprising all at the same time.
I also realize that I never learn from my past, for I would go shopping for things I do not need but want; then proceed to cringe and moan over my lack of money yet again,

I would buy the same coffee from Starbucks, and get a Taiyaki in Shibuya if I go there.
If I go to Shinjuku; you wouldn't catch me dead in any other place but Kinokuniya,
loitering around the booktands, and squinting hopelessly at the foreign characters that I should be able to read by now.

Also squealing in happiness at the ones that I can read, and eventually buying the book to celebrate my success.
When I'm on the train; I would be seen fighting for that little corner, or fighting for time. 
When I'm on the bus, I would be seen sleeping. Just because it's so damn slow, and it's always annoyingly monotonous.

I think it all started when I lived in Abiko, and my friend's mom brought me to my first ever festival.
It was familiar because it just seemed like a huge pasar malam (night market) back in Malaysia.
However- it was different to my kind of familiar.
It was comforting yet again, surprising yet again- but it was not familiar.
It was so great to see everyone just gathering together to celebrate the summer.
To be proud of your own culture, it's refreshing to see.
It's refreshing to finally be able to extract the positives from this culture into that of my own.
I've been wanting to do that ever since I got here, and finally, finally I can do so.

Not to mention my newfound freedom.
I don't have to feel obligated to show up at home to have dinner with my family- I want to.
I want to have dinner with them, I want to spend time with them.
Before it was more like I had to, and now it's just because I want to.
They care about what I think, as opposed to always thinking its wrong anyway.
The host family I have now? It just keeps getting better and better.

...this positivity thing is sickening. =p

Yes- that is a hat shaped like an onigiri (rice ball apparently is the right name for it but its really a rice triangle)
It costs 1500 yen per piece, and I am tempted to get all of them.
Someone convince me not to or else I would find myself screaming at the poor ATM machine in 7/11. =]
It's crazy to know that I'm finally happy.
I just hope that I can learn how to live in the moment and not always think about the 'what-ifs' of the future.
To be honest- when you do that?
You just lose out on all the opportunities that happen now.

All my love always,

April