In 1985, during the late Shōwa era (1926–1989)—a long period in Japan that encompassed war, postwar reconstruction and rapid economic growth—I was 17 years old and in my second year of high school.
During the summer holiday, I travelled overseas for the first time.
Our destinations were Bangkok, Thailand, and Singapore. Five of us, all classmates, spent about one week travelling together.
That journey remains one of the happiest and most beautiful memories of my life. It was also my first real experience of discovering a world beyond the one I knew.
▼ Kansai International Airport did not yet exist, so we departed from Osaka International Airport, commonly called Itami Airport
Kansai International Airport opened on 4 September 1994. In 1985, Osaka International Airport was still the main international gateway for travellers leaving the Kansai region.
(This was not a religious site. It was an object in a public park.)
▼ A wonderful summer memory filled with nothing but fun
Exactly forty years later, another summer arrived.
Once again, I found myself preparing for a journey with the same excitement—and perhaps even more nervousness—than I had felt at seventeen.
This time, my destination was Nepal.
Yes—the land of the Himalayas and the home country of Bija, a member of the Hitotsuya（ひとつ屋） team.
Bija was introduced previously in “Fundraising for Nepal” (Japanese page).
There was an important purpose behind this journey, which Bija would be joining.
I wanted to see Nepal’s traditional textiles and crafts, meet the people who make them, and study the equipment used in their production.
At Hitotsuya, we deliberately use the Japanese word written as 器械 for equipment that works together with human hands rather than completely replacing them. This idea is explained in “Meiji-Era Equipment and AI in the Reiwa Era” (Japanese page).
Above all, I wanted to see a power loom.
Forty years ago, the journey began with excitement and anticipation about entering an unknown world. This time, my heart was once again filled with equal measures of expectation and anxiety.
Back then, I recorded my favourite songs onto cassette tapes and listened to them on a Walkman. On this journey, I decided to listen to those same songs again—this time on a smartphone.
I was now more than three times the age I had been then, and about one and a half times the weight. Even so, this older man was preparing to step into another new world.
The story that began with “An Older Man’s Great Adventure—The Day Called Today” (Japanese page) was finally continuing to Nepal.
All right—off I go!
The journey continues in “Nepal Travel Journal (1): Arrival in Kathmandu” (Japanese page).