A couple of times I took the same route or went to te same location some weeks apart. It remains amazing to me how different the perception of just one thing can be and it mostly depends on your own state of mind. There is for example the obvious case, where you first visit a place or discover how to go somewhere by public transport and everything is new and exotic and exciting. When you come there again you know your way around, proud of yourself, secure and with the time to notice details. But this goes much further where you can love a place, find yourself detached from reality and in some paradise and then almost hate it the second time around. The place really doesnt change so much but you do. You might be nervous, happy, stressed, full of energy, tired and those emotional states can get very detailed like when you are grumpy because a loud tourist proclaimed their ignorance in an otherwise historically rich part of town that you think deserves more respect. I have seen the same trainline with stomach ache, when going to my first couple of destinations fresh and energetic and towards the end of my trip and have three completely different memories of it. I now tend to like some repetition when traveling. Some favorite location, a coffee shop, a friend or a public transportline, I want to see them as often as possible because not only you get more familiar with a person or situation which allows you to discover some details about the different part of the world you are in, it allows you to appreciate how you change yourself and how this affects how you see the world and how you like it. I realize this is also why you have to be careful with whom you share your travels, be it vacation or the longest voyage we all undertake but once, life. People can make a mediocre situation fantastic and render the most beautiful experience a nightmare. The difficulty comes from the fact that people can have all kinds of positive influences on your life and still be bad partners for experiences and this does depend on their personality and on how it interacts with yours. There is some art to be learned here, the art of companionship. This word is particularly interesting in japan, because it is the only country I know where people are quite open about consuming companionship as a service, which seems far more mainstream and accepted than the mere sex industry that exists elsewhere. I'm sure Japan is not so much of an exception and this sector is quite seedy, but there are people just providing a good time and people who appreciate that. Also I would say Japan goes a long way in all aspects of private life to ensure the enjoyment of others. Politeness is often talked about but everything from signalisation to packaging to cleaning and taking care of your own trash makes it so that the public space in Japan is friendly. Buildings are accessible, parks are clean, charming areas to hang out exist almost everywhere, architecture is accomodating. Companionship is more than a person with a pretty face entertaining you for an evening. It is giving the sense of belonging and I feel Japan does this really well, especially compared to Europe. It is often talked about how this is not honest and just trained politeness but who cares? I actually found a couple encounters too friendly, yes. But if I think about the alternative, somebody growling at you openly for no reason you can easily understand or somebody making the effort to keep the shared atmosphere positive, I chose the latter. Interestingly, I think people encounter the same big difficulty in both situations: other people don't help you activily to manage your emotional state, in one case because they cannot share it, in the other because by default we dont want to help somebody who gives us negtive feelings. Companionship... my biggest takeaway from this trip is how much weight a good partner has on your wellbeing. I have been the lucky passive recipient of innumerable enjoyable encounters and talks and feel like I made solid friendships some of which with the potential to be lifelong. I have also been the active part of transmitting this positivity to others who could use it. We all perceive positivity and negativity to different degrees. I tend to the positive side with short bursts of sadness, generally for a reason. But I have actually suffered in the past from an environment where I was the only positive force. It took years, but my sunny disposition almost crumbled and I felt like I had lost the very essence of my being. You have to be careful how much time you spend with people of different dispositions and what you share with them, what you expect from them. Your best friend or partner might be otherwise the most trustworthy loyal friend you have, but if they never uplift you, if it is always work on your part to keep things from drowning in tears, you have to start making compromises. I felt like introducing more and more diverse personalities into your life is the best solution and just like the art of companionship, this is not necessarily sexual but emotional. Introducing people in a durable way into one's life means opening up to them, accepting them as whole personalities with ups and downs and balancing everything so that your overall ups outweigh the downs. This is difficult and despite its importance, not taught. There is this staple of chinese poetry to mourn ending or ruptured friendship. I have loved this for a very long time, the subject is connected to music I admire but I only really understood the reality of this feeling last year. Opening up to a friend puts you at risk of getting hurt. Not just by making a bad judgement call and trusting a bad person, by literally every possible random thing, that can make it so that two people cannot spend time together, understand that they should or even care. I feel you don't understand right away what makes you happy and who makes you happy, I feel there is no standard form a friendship can take from then own, you have to tailor it to each pair of people and multiple times, whenever big changes occur in either life. You have to overcome many fears, many imposed by society, potentially, to get to know someone well, before you know that it's worth it. My friend tells me she feels the strongest thing in the world is a hug. But a hug carries all the history and all the dreams of two people.s