Japan: new stage

For those of you who know me, you already know that this is not the first time I have come to live in Japan, and I would like to explain what this new stage means. For newcomers, allow me to give you a summary. Also keep in mind that many details are personal and every day we have to be more careful about what we do with our private information and that we share with the public domain that is the internet.

The first time I came to Japan was in 2012 with a student visa, to study at a Japanese school and delve deeper into this country that is so strange and at the same time attractive to “Westerners”. This first stage was perhaps the most complicated, both financially and in terms of learning, where everything was new every day and I was not very clear about what my goal was or where my professional career was headed. This is where my project “Hype in Tokyo” was born, a website about life in Japan and my beginnings towards being a “travel blogger” (now we call it influencer). I consider this stage to be “rauxa”

During the second stage, with a more focused vision of where I wanted to direct my career, I studied Journalism and later reconnected with photography (this vocation comes from my family lineage) and pursued a career in photography in Japan. With a new student visa, and upon finishing photography school, I obtained a work visa to work as a photography assistant at one of the best photography-advertising studios in Tokyo. The stage that begins the process of professional maturity, interrupted by a global pandemic that made me return home, Catalonia.

New stage starts with full bloom

And in this new stage? I return to Japan as a married man, and the pros and cons that this new visa brings for me. I write these lines from a café, while I wait for the remaining days of March to pass and we can move into our new home. Reconnecting professionally with photography, since now I mainly dedicate myself to tourism, again, and I am very grateful to have found good companies to work with, but my soul asks me to put my efforts back into working in photography (and video). And I say this, the stage of “seny”

Catalans have that thing of “seny i la rauxa”, there are moments of fun and there are moments of seriousness, we can live in harmony with both states.

This new stage also coincides with what the Japanese say about cherry blossoms in spring. The cold winter gives way to the explosion of color of spring and with the new cherry blossom petals a new stage begins. A cycle closes and we start again, with all the experience and wisdom accumulated from the previous ones.

Last walk before moving in to our new place