When I was preparing for my departure to JCMU in August 2023, amongst all my excitement and anxiety there was one big question on my mind: how did I want to spend my free time?

Of course travel, food, and going out with friends were at the top of my list, but traveling costs money and making new friends wasn’t a guarantee. Sure, I would have my Nintendo Switch, but the idea of spending all my time in Japan playing the same games I could play back home didn’t exactly sound ideal. I wanted something that would help me better remember my time in Japan, but also wouldn’t drain my wallet. It was around this time that I found my mother’s old DSLR camera, which hadn’t been used in years. The camera itself was less advanced than the one in my phone, and the couple test photos I took looked terrible since I couldn’t figure out the buttons, but after watching a few YouTube videos, my skills improved and I decided to pack it along for the ride. Little did I know that this camera would define much of the next eight months I spent as a student in Japan.

During the first few weeks while I was in Japan, I was getting into a routine, and the camera fell to the wayside. Once I started to get settled and had more free time on my hands, I started to explore Hikone through my lens. As I slowly became more familiar with my camera, I also became more familiar with the town I was living in. I started going down paths I never would have thought to travel, finding patches of flowers I would have normally glanced over, and seeing parts of Japan that I would have never seen had I not been looking for them.

One evening, I decided to walk down to the nearby docks on Lake Biwa to take some photos of the sunset. It was the first time I was experimenting with low light, so I had similarly low expectations for the night, but as I was trying to fine tune my settings I was approached by Felix, another student at JCMU. He asked me if I could take some pictures of him to send back to his family. I was happy that he had asked me, but up to that point I had only taken landscape photos. I had absolutely no experience with actual people, and by the time I figured out where I wanted him to be and how to have him pose, the sun was gone and there was no light to work with. At the moment I was actually a little annoyed since I thought I missed the sunset, but just as I started packing up, the sky lit back up and turned into a beautiful mix of pink and crimson. We both just kind of looked at each other thinking “what is going on right now?” I pulled my camera back out and started taking pictures, while trying to take in the moment as much as possible.

To this day I’ve yet to see a sunset as vibrant as that night, and had Felix not stopped me to take his picture I probably wouldn’t have seen it. In fact whenever I look at the photos I took, I realize just how much photography got me out and about that year. From after-class hikes through the mountains, to weekend long hunts for a sakura tree still in bloom, many of the trips I took were motivated by having a hobby and wanting to improve at it.

When you’re abroad for a long period of time, you’re gonna have days where life’s a struggle. Whether from homesickness, culture shock, or just overall feeling isolated, some days are going to feel listless and draining. That’s why I can’t recommend enough to students looking to study abroad finding a hobby that lets you explore and interact with the world. For me that was photography, but it could be anything! Do you like coffee? Maybe you want to plan excursions around finding little coffee shops. Maybe you like writing, and want to put all your trips into a journal. There are so many ways to give yourself a little extra purpose/motivation to get out and explore the country you’re living and studying in.

• Name: Nico Rolfe
• Program: Semester Japanese Language and Culture
• Term: Academic Year 2023-24, Peer Advisor 2025-26
• Home Institution: Michigan State University