Encounter at a Hostel in Tokyo

This is the story of how I met my husband.

tl;dr: It was my first day at a hostel, and it was his last. We went out for beer, played Mariokart, and he left. All within 12 hours. We got married later.

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Sleep deprived, hungry, and strapped for cash, I stood over the stove of the hostel kitchen burning some potatoes in a pan.

I had missed my connecting flight from Singapore to Japan, so I had been up for over 36 hours figuring out how to get where I wanted to go: Tokyo. Now I was there, semi-delirious and seriously greasy.

I heard some commotion at the front desk; the latest arrival had some questions about his dorm. He was speaking perfect English, which was refreshing, considering I had just spent several days trying to navigate via Google Translate.

A conversation buddy!

He walked in after setting his stuff down. Turns out it was his last night in Japan after a 3 week stint snorkeling, hiking, and visiting his grandparents. We went out for a beer with another traveller to celebrate the beginning of one journey and the end of another, and then returned to the hostel for a few friendly rounds of Mariokart on the N64. I lost all of them. (Turns out this guy drove racing sims religiously for a while.)

The next morning, he was already gone by the time I woke up. Rats. But then he invited me to spend his last free hours in Japan together. Hooray! We ended up going to a VR arcade to play even MORE Mariokart, which I also lost.

Then we had to say our goodbyes.

I continued bothering him over messenger and convinced him to let me visit in a few months, after I tied things up in Australia. Despite knowing him for less than 24 hours I was determined to see him again.

After years of wandering I finally felt at home.

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I like to remind him sometimes that I literally crossed the ocean for him, now that we’ve been married for a while. It’s fun to reminisce on.