Japan (2018)

As the lightning-fast Sinkansen - that day, it happened to be a perfect Hello Kitty edition with pink and white cars and purple plush seats - pulled into Okajama train station, I pulled out the sketch my Airbnb host, Mr Takaaki, had sent me of the road to the house. A few minutes later, I was standing in front of a drawn shutter covering a sweet shop that was closed that day. If it hadn't been for the instructions, which were clearly written in a translation program, that the entrance only looked shuttered, I might have been alarmed, but I took off the padlock, pulled up the shutter and walked up the staircase next to the shop to the second floor. There I used the code from the letter to open the key safe and was inside Mr Takaaki's apartment. I didn't find out where he had been staying during those few days, as we had never met, but there was tea, coffee, some sweets on the dining table and an exhaustive English-language instruction manual next to the household appliances. Read more