[tenmins]

I can really relate to that feeling. When I arrived in Japan for the first time I remember feeling special. I was lucky to be stationed in a small city in which you would only see 3 or 4 foreigners a day walking the streets. I lived about 45 mins out of town by train and out there I never saw any at all.

It really gave me a sense of identity, of feeling unique. Almost everyone Japanese person would glance at me and sometimes even stare with a curious look, no anger or fear. I remember feeling depressed when I went into bigger cities and saw more foreigners that this feeling of being special would wane and I would start to feel like boring old me again. It was hard to adjust to this and it took a few years but in the end I realised that sharing Japan and my experiences of it with other foreigners who were there did sometimes give my that special feeling too. Instead of feeling like "My Japan" it started to feel like "Our Japan".