Hello all!
If you have been following this blog for awhile, you may know that I love anime and manga but my love for Japanese culture also means the country of Japan itself.
Ever since I was a teenage I’ve always wanted to go to Japan and in 2019 I finally went with one of my best friends.
Me and my friend weren’t getting any younger and it’s a country we wanted to visit for years, this followed alongside my decision to start transitioning as Megan when I came back off holiday so made the whole visit to this wonderful country a lot more special to me.
I like to plan things out ahead of time if I can and I did sooo much research before we went to make sure our holiday there was special even though we only had a week.
We stayed a beautiful town of Takayama, which was about 5 hours out of Tokyo, which involves two different trains to get there
Of course we went into Tokyo for a few things, of course as a huge One Piece fan I had to get my friend to come with me to One Piece Tower, only thing I don’t like about the pics is that my hair is a mess!
So I don’t show every picture I took in November 2019, here is my onedrive album of all of them.
Overall the trip to Japan was absolutey amazing, it was a great send off to me as Matthew aka a very important decision in my life.
It’s been 4 years since I have been there and I have progressed so much in my transition and with the goal of having surgery in the distance that I want to return to Japan to use it to mark off another decision in my life, this one being a lot more bigger than changing my name.
This time around I am planning on going by myself and for two weeks in November 2024.
Of course I am a bit nervous about going by myself, but I am 33 and I want to show people I can do this without them worrying about me too much.
My change has brought it’s challenges on how I do thing, as Matthew I was ok doing most things but this time going around as Megan, aka someone who is transgender I have to do things a bitt differently.
The visit in 2019, me and my friend stayed in a hostel split by gender which hot springs and capsule hotels fall under so i was ok then.
This time around I have to work around this by staying in a hotel and as I never went to a hot spring as Matthew and I really want to experience one I am looking into a private hot spring with a few of Mt Fuji in view (as you can tell, this is going to be pricey) as while I am still biology male, I idenitify as female and got breasts so hard to go either a mans or womans hot spring so private is the only option for me (I joke that i’m like a tattoed Yakuza as they would have do private to).
Because there is so much to think about from how I can go to Japan as a (trans) woman, safety and what it’s like going solo, I have done a huge amount of research for this trip already eg the red folder that is in the thumbnail for this post and I can’t book it til December 2023!
I am planning on going to Kyoto, Osaka, Fukoaka and Tokyo within two weeks while meeting two people that I have been chatting on twitter to for awhile now so it be good to chat to someone who lives there, as the saying goes “When you are in rome..”
This trip next year will mark yet another important decision in my life (gender surgery) and with that I am determined to make it the best trip I have ever had so of course I am excited about this while nervous at the same time but I will talk more about this when i book the trip at the end of this year so I know it’s going to happen!
Megan
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Megan Leyman 
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