I was 17 and it was before smartphones and I somehow imagined people in Tokyo and Kyoto would know English but they didn’t. And then I tried to explain what I wanted or where I wanted to go with gestures and they tried to explain back with gestures but it was a catastrophe. None of us understood each other.
I am so sorry because at some point a cook in a soba restaurant kept asking me “Soba?” and I didn’t know what soba was and it was day 10 out of 14 and I was at my nerve’s end so I yelled back in German “I don’t know what you want I don’t know what your soba is just give me that soup that I am pointing at!”
It’s been 15 years and this still keeps me up at night 😭 I’'m so sorry soba guy. Yelling at you legit is in the top 5 things I would do differently if I could relive my life.
(I was also still processing my first break up and it was hot af and my boobs had grown humongous which earned me a lot of stares abroad and all of this added to me feeling lost and frustrated.)