#200 Posts Later

A small thank-you to the readers of Japan A to Z.

When I started Japan A to Z four years ago, I did not have a grand plan.

Until then, I had used ordinary social media from time to time, but writing something every week, in English, and sending it out as a newsletter felt like a much bigger challenge.

The small push came from a casual suggestion by my daughter, who now lives overseas. It was around the time when the long pandemic was beginning to loosen its grip, and I was slowly starting to work as a guide.

Even the Mount Fuji logo I still use was made almost on impulse.

That probably says enough about my mindset at the time. I had no clear idea what this newsletter would become.

Somehow, this is post number 200.

Because Japan A to Z began without much of a plan, the number feels less like a goal I reached and more like a place I arrived at without fully noticing.

My aim was simple: to keep writing one piece a week that might be useful enough for readers who care about traveling in Japan, or who simply want to look at Japan a little more closely.

I did not set out to build a large project. I simply kept returning to the page, one post at a time.

I know this rhythm would not have continued without readers.

Some of you have been here for a long time. Some joined only recently. Some read almost every week, and some return when a topic happens to meet your plans, your questions, or your memories of Japan.

I am grateful for all of that.

I am also grateful to my daughter for giving me the small push that started this newsletter. A casual suggestion became something much larger than I expected.

That quiet presence is the reason Japan A to Z has reached this 200th post.

At first, I was not sure whether I could keep writing regularly.

I am not someone who naturally keeps a strict rhythm unless there is a reason to do so. But over time, thinking about a topic during the week, choosing photographs, writing on the weekend, and sending out a post on Sunday night became part of my own routine.

My daily schedule is now beginning to change after many years of company work. I do not yet know exactly how that will affect Japan A to Z, but I hope it will give me more time to look, to walk, to read, and to think before sending something out.

I hope it will make the newsletter deeper, not heavier.

Even after 200 posts, I do not feel a need to change the basic purpose of Japan A to Z.

I still want it to be useful.

But I do not want it to be only useful.

Travel information changes quickly. Rules, routes, tickets, prices, crowds, and habits all shift. A practical article may need to be updated sooner than we expect.

What I hope to keep doing is to write not only about those subjects themselves, but also about the atmosphere around them — the feeling of a season, a station, a street, a local shop, or a city at a particular moment.

Not just what to know, but what it felt like to notice it.

Looking back, many of the posts I still remember are not necessarily the ones about the biggest places.

They are about small details: a sign at a station, a quiet change in the season, a meal after a long walk, a rule that suddenly matters more than before, or a city rearranging itself while daily life continues.

These are the things I want to keep noticing.

Japan will keep changing. Travel in Japan will keep changing. My own way of looking at both will probably change too.

I think that is a good thing.

To change is not only to lose something. It can also mean learning to see more clearly, or with a little more care.

I do not know what the next stage of Japan A to Z will look like. But I hope to keep writing with the same basic intention: to make Japan a little easier to understand, and a little easier to notice.

Thank you, as always, for reading Japan A to Z.

Thank you for being here.