To explain how this site came about, I should probably start with a quick introduction. I'm twenty-two, born and raised in Sheffield, England. My personality… let's see… I'm sensitive, and I love nature and beautiful things. On one hand I'm hard on myself, and on the other I try to be kind to the people around me. That kind of person, I think. And if I can brag a little, I'm pretty good at actually getting things done.

As a kid I liked logical stuff like maths and engineering. I got into sport from about twelve, and by eighteen I'd tried pretty much every sport there is. What I loved most was cycling and running out in the countryside. Honestly, I might have spent eighty percent of my teenage years out there.

After I finished school, I moved straight to a city called Bristol to study engineering at university. At the time it felt like the obvious choice. I was decent at maths and it looked fun, so engineering it was.

At the end of my first year, COVID hit, and it felt like my life changed. I went back home for six months, and that's where I happened to come across Japanese.

People always ask me, “Why did you decide to study Japanese?”, and to be honest I give a different answer depending on the occasion. Looking back, there were lots of reasons, but first of all it just felt so good to listen to. It's hard to explain, but the first time I heard Japanese I thought: how can a language feel this good?

And kanji are gorgeous, right? Drawing was one of my hobbies when I was younger, so once I found out there was a language made of thousands of pictures, I knew I had no choice but to learn it. I remember thinking, quite simply, that I'd be happy if I could understand this language. I was hooked on it as a language from the start.

On top of that, I liked Japanese media. I wasn't exactly an anime otaku, but I liked it more than Western animation, and from a British point of view Japan has its own particular kind of cool.

Even so, it wasn't until about a year after I started that I decided to study Japanese seriously. Discovering a method called AJATT completely changed how I approached the language. The moment I saw a video of Khatzumoto, the person who created AJATT, speaking Japanese, I thought: I might actually be able to do this. He was American, yet using a method he'd built himself he became almost fluent within two years. On top of that, he'd written the whole method up as a guide on his website. From that moment it was “leave it to me”, and I started studying like mad.

Studying Japanese got me interested in all sorts of things, and I'm always being reminded of what's good about Japan as a country. As my Japanese improved, I could understand new kinds of media. It felt like I'd been brought back to life in a new language. For example, even though I barely read books as a kid, I started reading Japanese novels so I could learn to read. That got me interested in Japanese literature, and through Japanese I found a whole new hobby. I also got really into Japanese history and music, and dug deep into all kinds of other areas.

About two years after I started, I thought: why not go to Japan? Between classes in my fourth year of university, I went to the Japanese Embassy in London and applied for a working holiday visa. If I was going to Japan, I really wanted to experience all of it and achieve something big. I felt the only way to taste Japan as rawly as possible was to cross it by bike. So I wanted to cycle the length of Japan, and to work using the Japanese I'd learned. But carrying those two big goals, I honestly had no idea what would happen.

I kept a diary as I rode the length of Japan. At the time it was only to sort out my head, but when I read it back I was struck by what I'd been through, and decided to rewrite it as a book. More than anything, I want everyone to experience my story too, so I hope you enjoy it.