From Travel Ban Enforced Separation to Reunion with my Soulmate in Japan

Tragic Lovers in Pandemic: How I Managed to Enter Japan Without a Visa

In 2019, I began a life-changing journey to Japan, spurred by the thought “I need a life change.” That’s where I ended up meeting my soul mate, Andrew.

Little did I know how COVID would change our lives.

In the beginning, COVID brought us closer together, but then it threatened to destroy our entire relationship.

This is the story of what happened.

How We Met

I arrived to Japan to be an English teacher, but I had to wait to be assigned to a school.

In the meantime, I lived in a “share house” where multiple renters lived together. I invited a roommate to an Open Mic in Osaka where I’d be performing my original music. He invited Andrew, his American friend from a board game Meetup. Eventually, I moved out of the share house and into the countryside, but the three of us still hung out. We did things as a group in Osaka several times that fall.

Just before New Years, I invited everyone out to a new bar that had Open Mic and karaoke (sweet).

Andrew and I got there first.

Unfortunately, it was closed!

The last week of December is when employees like we were have time off, but also many businesses close for their own holiday.

Since it was a bust, I told the other people coming not to bother if they hadn’t left home yet.

With nothing to do, the two of us wandered around the city.

Along the way we bonded. Turns out we had been reading a similar book, Atomic Habits. Well, I read it, and he was listening to it on audiobook.

Speaking of audiobooks — at work, my supervisor suggested I stop listening to audiobooks at my desk due to feedback from my coworkers.

Andrew said in response, “If they told me to stop, I’d probably quit. It’s basically a requirement to keep going.”

I felt validated. Since I had nothing to do for about 20 hours a week, and was banned from reading and other things, the ability to listen to audiobooks really was a big deal to me.

He got it.

We both love Mexican food (which is more rare in Japan), so we grabbed burritos.

As we chomped them down, I wondered — is this a date? No. We are alone but we are just friends.

At one point, he laughed at his own joke and had a little mischievous glint in his eye.

I felt a little flutter in my stomach.

What would it be like to be more than friends?

There could be something there maybe.

Hmm…

Hmmmmm…

Later, we hugged goodbye before boarding separate trains home.

Back at my place, I thought about it. Considering I already had my tickets out of Japan for three months later, there really wasn’t anything to lose.

Better to say something now than regret time lost.

The next day I sent him a text that I’d had a nice time and if he wanted to ask me to hang out one-on-one with him again, I would say yes.

His response was something like, “Oh, really? What are you doing tomorrow?”

Our first official date was to the same karaoke/open mic bar that had been closed the day before.

That’s when I started dating Andrew.

Things Get Complicated

Andrew is an amazing person, and between us there was basically no drama from the start.

We segued from friends to something more with zero conflict. He knew I had plans to leave Japan and he planned to stay, but he was surprisingly chill about the fact that our relationship was basically doomed.

In fact, the only thing of note (besides how pleasant our time together was) were the events happening in the world around us.

It wasn’t long after we began seeing each other that the first cases of COVID were discovered in January.

Friends, family and others from home strongly advised me to wash my hands — for weeks Americans believed the virus was a problem centered in China, Japan and basically not a problem in the U.S.

After a while, as a result of the virus, I stopped having to go to class. But I still had to go to work, as in, physically walk in and sit at my desk.

Many teachers at my company complained that it was entirely stupid to be forced to sit in the teachers’ lounge with other teachers, doing nothing but breath the same air and potentially give each other the virus.

For me, yes, it seemed a bit silly, but I actually didn’t mind so much.

This is part of a much longer story about the issues with my job as well as Japanese work culture that, for this article, I’ll try to keep short.

In the months before COVID, I had been told off for reading or using a computer to entertain myself quietly between classes.

Technically, my contract bans this, but all of my friends with the same job were doing these things daily. It doesn’t harm performance, it just makes your life better.

This job was classified as 25 hours a week, despite the fact that I was expected to be present Monday-Friday from 8 to 5.

Technically, I was off work after school…but I had to be there from 4:45–5:00.

I didn’t have a car and there was nowhere else to hang out near the school, which meant leaving before five was pointless.

I had a lot of time to kill.

And I basically felt screwed every which way by this job and was just waiting for it to end.

To kill time at my desk, I did culturally accepted ‘work-appropriate things’ like stare un-reading at a screen for long periods of time — and yes, in Japan, this is an encouraged activity over reading a book.

As is sleeping on top of your desk, but that I am physically unable to do.

The difficult environment was why I’d already put in my notice to leave in mid-March, the end of the school year.

So when COVID struck and classes ended, all things considered, I finally felt brave enough to dare to read during the school day for the first time in months.

My reaction to warming a desk with no classes was:

yay!!

As long as I was free to read novels, I was content.

I tried not to worry about all the things I couldn’t control and just enjoy my book.

Things got pretty crazy by the end of February. By then, Americans had found plenty of COVID cases within their own borders.

I wasn’t there but I read the NY Times daily online and watched as everyone lost their living shit on Facebook.

This time period was a major data point for me about how upset people make situations worse by writing and posting before they calm down. They can spread negative emotions very quickly to other people from the way they write.

And I was feeling the emotional run-off.

As someone outside of the country, doom scrolling felt essential to keep up on what was going on; and, yet, what I read made me more and more stressed until I was crying on the couch in the teachers’ lounge, wishing I were home.

It’s weird to wish I were in America…since everyone seemed so miserable and I hadn’t been excited to return in the first place. There seemed to be more COVID cases in the USA than Japan.

But I felt a moral obligation to be on the same ship, sinking with them, to be in it all together, to know what was going on with my own eyes, to be there giving love as the ship went down…

I knew it was irrational, but still I felt the pull.

And it wasn’t just the USA going through this.

Cases were exploding in Italy, where my mother’s family lives.

And my tickets out of Japan were to Italy.

I had been intending to fly straight there to visit family for several weeks.

But everything to Italy was canceled due to COVID.

Italy barred travel.

I….I was without a plan.

Freaking out

In fact, travel bans became a new trend — Don’t come here, says everyone.

In March 2020, the government of Guatemala banned travel due to COVID-19 and closed its borders. As a result, many U.S. citizens who were in Guatemala at the time were stranded and unable to leave the country.

The U.S. government had to send planes to bring American citizens in Guatemala back to the United States.

And now, a week before my job was to end, I began fielding calls and messages from people who love me.

What if Japan became the next Guatemala?

“What if there is a ban that prevents you from returning to the USA?”

“There isn’t one now, but what if one happens?”

“You should get out of Japan now.”

It was a Friday or Saturday. I texted my teacher friends to ask if, considering everything going on, they were planning to fly home any earlier.

They hadn’t been, but after I mentioned it they started talking to their parents. (I was an oddity being past thirty, but most ALT teachers in Japan are just out of college.)

A few hours later, I checked in again.

They’d all bought new tickets home and were packing so they could leave asap, before the last day of school even ended.

Freaked out, I began getting ready.

On Sunday, Andrew came over to help me clean the apartment and get rid of everything that was too big to fit into a suitcase.

But I’d already done most of it.

He came in and was like, “Woah. There’s like nothing in here.”

I’d found someone with a truck to take anything I couldn’t take on a plane.

Desk? Gone.

Crappy mattress? Gone.

$300 high-tech foam mattress pad? Gone. (Man, I would regret that one…)

Deciding What to Do

My plan at the time was to clean out my apartment and then move to Andrew’s apartment for the meantime. I’d be ready to hop on a flight at a moment’s notice.

I still hadn’t bought another ticket out of Japan yet.

To be honest, I wasn’t even committed to leaving.

I was going through the motions.

Giving away my stuff.

Sending work an email like, “I’m not coming in ever again, gotta run. Bye!”

It was good to talk to Andrew as it made me realize I’d completely freaked out.

I’d started executing a plan, throwing things away from an emotionally dysregulated place.

It was what other people were doing or what they advised me to do.

And it makes sense.

It seemed like a sort of wise middle ground so that if a travel ban were announced, I’d be ready to leave the country before it took effect.

This would all turn out to be totally unnecessary, however, as Japan never did ban people leaving the country…

but, at the time, no one had any idea what was going to happen so how were we to know for sure?

Through all of this uncertainty, Andrew was just so great.

He was understanding if I had to go home early, but he was also supportive if I wanted to stay.

He said that, if I wanted to, I could stay with him for the foreseeable future. (My lease ended with the end of my job.)

There was no pressure.

There was no guilt or other emotional manipulation.

He was just fucking awesome.

My next moves were 100% my decision and he would support whatever I chose to do.

He also did point out the obvious — there were actually less COVID cases in Japan so if the main issue was safety… then why leave to go to the USA?

We talked and I was still undecided. I just wasn’t sure what to do.

It should be mentioned that Andrew and I weren’t feeling like we would die without each other.

From the start, we’d expected things between us to end, so although everything was fine in our relationship, that wasn’t the main factor I had to consider.

I had to think about my life and what I wanted.

But it was all good between Andrew and I.

It’s just just that we were only a few months in, and the relationship was healthy.

Due to the healthy nature of things, I didn’t get instant I-will-die-without-you vibes. (That would come later, LOL)

I didn’t know everything that was going to happen but I knew that I’d come to Japan to change my life, and what was I going back to?

The same life?

That seemed rather anti-climatic.

I didn’t like the feel of that.

Shortly after my home state would undergo a lockdown, restricting anyone from leaving the house.

So if I had returned then, I’d be capping off my year of exploring with a nice bout of…being stuck at home again?

What?

The Moment I Knew

That Monday, I was out alone at a train station, bringing a load of assorted items back to Andrew’s place in Osaka.

He was at work.

I was still thinking things over.

From the deck of the train stop, I was looking up at the mountains directly before me. It was a clear day.

I was breathing deeply, listening to a guided meditation my friend made, listening to my heart.

And I got this insight, “Japan isn’t done with you, yet. There’s still more for you to learn.”

The message was clear:

STAY.

And so I did, with the understanding that if something changed in the USA or Japan, I could be stuck there indefinitely.

For months or more.

Who freaking knows.

But Andrew gave the thumbs up.

There was some risk but not much.

I felt clear that I was supposed to stay.

I did come to really regret giving away that foam mattress as now Andrew and I had to share a twin bed, sleeping head to foot every night like a middle school sleepover.

But it was okay.

I was alive. I was in good company with someone nice. We had food, shelter, and health. Everything was okay.

As March turned to April, Andrew got a new job and we ended up moving to another location out of Osaka.

It was to a small town called Minoh. Its mascot is a “Yuzu warrior,” or a citrus fruit dressed like a samari.

It sits at the base of a mountain with big park full of waterfalls and snow monkeys.

Andrew bought me a bike and we biked around town, past the rice paddies growing and green, under the warm sun. During the day, I was working on a series of romance novels and other projects I enjoyed.

We had stress around the future, but most of the time we were incredibly happy. It was one of the best times in my life.

July 7th

There was one problem.

As June hit, we became more and more aware of the limited-ness of the situation.

My visa was tied to my old job, but since I had left, it was set to expire July 7, 2020.

I could have tried to bend the rules and stayed past the visa, but we just assumed I should follow the rules.

Japanese culture is very big on following rules.

Getting another job for a visa was complicated. There didn’t seem to be anything else for me to do but go back to America and figure things out from there.

The question was…was our relationship going to continue? Or would it end?

Another time, I’ll have to get into the machinations of that decision —

but basically, it came to a head when I found a pikachu with a witch hat.

Should I buy a witch-hat pikachu which wouldn’t fit into my suitcase, and have Andrew hold onto it until our next meeting?

Or no? Because we didn’t intend to see each other again?

Once again it was my decision…

I bought the pikachu.

All of this was going way too well to walk away from.

(Also just look how cute this is.)

Andrew came to the airport to drop me off, and we said our goodbyes.

Or “see you when I see you”s.

It was hard to pull away and enter security by myself.

After I scanned everything, I got really sad. I assumed he’d left, but I looked back anyway.

But I caught a glimpse — and there he was, still on the other side of security, waving to me, so sweetly.

When I finally wheeled my suitcases away, Andrew’s presence leant me a calm resolve for what I had to do, but despite that tears poured under my mask.

I knew it then, without a doubt:

This was definitely something special.

I had to leave, but we were still together.

And so the real adventure began.

Long distance suuucks

Everyone knows this, but for us, during these strange COVID times, it didn’t suck like a normal long distance relationship.

We literally didn’t know how or when we would EVER see each other again.

Japan had banned foreigners from travel into the country.

I was outside the country.

Andrew had a job and an apartment in Japan.

If he left, he’d lose everything.

So how the hell were we going to do this?

Go Back to Japan

After six months of the long distance and the not-knowing, I decided I needed to go back to Japan.

In my gut, I knew it was my best shot to see Andrew anytime soon.

Through my life I’ve learned to listen to my intuition. I’ve been committed to following it for a long time, even when it leads me to do something nuts.

But this was a new level of wild.

• I had my walls painted.
• I didn’t have a visa.
• I liked my roomies.
• It was a pandemic.
• I had furniture.
• I was comfy….well mostly.

By this point, Andrew and I had got engaged over zoom–I hadn’t seen my fiance in six months and the distance was killing me.

Remember those I-will-die-without-you vibes?

I was feeling them a lot more now.

The time change was killer — 13–14 hours apart meant we had to talk early morning or late at night. Someone was always tried or grumpy.

Not only that, but for months Japan’s borders were 100% closed to tourists and no one knew when it would change.

But then there was a ray of hope:

in November 2020, some of Japan’s policies changed.

It looked like an opportunity.

Now Japan said they wouldn’t let anyone visit if they’d been in the USA in the last two weeks…

but if I did two weeks of quarantine first in South Korea and then went to Japan, it appeared to be a loophole.

Other than the fact that Americans couldn’t travel directly to Japan, our citizens were still listed as able to do a three month tourist visa.

Andrew and I called all the embassies to confirm and they gave the green light that I could cross Japan’s border after a quarantine in South Korea.

But the thing is these policies were ever changing.

If I didn’t go ASAP, before travel rules shifted — as they kept doing with COVID — there was no knowing when Andrew and I would see each other again.

The stakes were high in that case.

Basically, I either had to do it immediately or not at all.

It was still a huge risk, because what if they didn’t let me in the country?

I’m simplifying things for this article, but basically the exact language of Japan’s policies could be read to allow me or bar me, depending on the perspective you took reading them.

No one was reporting this in the news as a loophole for Americans. No one online was talking much about this, or none that I could find after much googling.

At best, my plan was a loophole, maybe, but Japan might also just refuse to let me enter.

They said they could bar travel to whomever they want.

If I was going to go, I basically had to upend my life in America and assume I wouldn’t be coming back any time soon —

I wanted to end the long distance for good, not just visit for a while and then come back to do more long distance without an end date.

Having heard about other forbidden lovers separated by travel bans, and the numerous breakups that had caused, I feared that without this change my whole relationship would become COVID’s next casualty.

And at this point, after months living together followed by so many months into not seeing each other, I had every bit of evidence I needed that this relationship was very important to me.

Important enough to move my life around.

So I did it.

I took the plunge early November, starting with putting in my notice on my apartment.

Breaking my lease was not ideal for anyone and, in doing so, I risked having to continue to pay rent even after I had left the country.

Bear in mind, I didn’t have a job at this time and my business online had slowed to a trickle.

But I had to do it and do it fast — I gave myself 6 weeks to move out and get to South Korea so I could be in Japan by Christmas.

Once again, I was giving things away or throwing them out and I didn’t know if Japan would just kick me out again.

Still, I felt I must go on. If the worst happened, I’d figure it out.

Down to the Wire

A few days before leaving, I called the embassies again, this time the news wasn’t so rosy.

A Japanese official said technically it looked like I could enter Japan, “but to be honest, we haven’t heard that anyone has done it successfully.”

Well, fuck.

I don’t really know what to do so I just keep getting ready.

I am set to leave at 5 am. On the eve of leaving, Andrew calls me panicked.

He called immigration officials in Japan and they’d told him I wasn’t allowed in the country.

“No exceptions,” they said, despite the multiple officials who told me the weeks ago this was fine, before when we bought my plane ticket.

But things are ever changing…

“So what do you want to do?” He asked me.

Once when I was 22, I jumped on a plane after officials told me not to.

I’d felt it in my gut I should do it and that time it worked out for me.

And I felt that urge to leap once again now, so many years later.

I was moved out, had found a replacement renter, I was ready.

Yes, if this didn’t work, I would be wasting a lot of time and money.

However, I’d closed out my life in America and I had worked hard to get ready for the next chapter.

There was nothing left for me to do but go.

So I made my attempt to enter Japan, even if it might not work.

Quarantine

When I got to South Korea, there was a problem.

As I had read online, foreigners can use the South Korean quarantine as a pitstop to other countries, but first they have to give the name of a South Korean citizen.

Even though an official at the South Korean embassy said this was total false and unnecessary, it turns out it was. Luckily, I’d come prepared with the name of a friend of a friend, just in case.

But when they dialed the name I gave, the person said he had no idea who I was!

A mutual friend was supposed to have told him the whole situation.

Luckily, they passed the phone over to me and I mentioned her name, and when I passed it back, he vouched for me.

Our mutual friend was very apologetic for forgetting to tell him! She said he was pissed.

Later, when he got all the details, I think he felt assured that I wouldn’t be causing him any trouble and was only there in the name of love.

But thank goodness he vouched for me!!!! Thank you, man.

Besides that, everything was smooth. I was guided into the South Korean quarantine process, which seemed to run like clockwork.

It was everything that I had expected from watching Youtube, where others had documented their experience. (To those people, I must say, I’m grateful to you guys for sharing as it gave me confidence that I could do this, too!)

For two weeks, I spent my days in a South Korean hotel eating the food they delivered at my door, reporting my temperature, and watching K dramas I didn’t understand but loved anyway.

Cameras on my door would’ve caught me if I had tried to leave early but I was fully there for the quarantine!

It cost a bit over $100 a day, which isn’t bad considering I got a nice hotel room and three solid meals, which were almost all gluten-free and therefore something I could eat.

The Big Day

Two weeks later, and a couple thousand dollars poorer, I finished my quarantine in Korea.

I stayed in Seoul for one more night and then woke early for my departing flight.

It was Christmas Eve, 2020.

Andrew and I had debated if I needed to come to Japan straight after the quarantine versus hang out in Seoul for a while. I do love it there.

But, no, I basically headed to Japan within 24 hours of my release. I was only here to see Andrew.

This decision would turn out to be very important.

Thankfully, I’d gotten it into my head that I really wanted to be in Japan for Christmas.

I’m not really religious, but it’s almost like a couples’ holiday in Japan, like Valentines day is in America. One thing people do is eat Christmas cake with their boyfriend.

I could already taste that cake.

I doodled a picture of cake on my calendar and looked at it daily for those two weeks of isolation!!

I had been marking each day without Andrew for six months, but quarantine hadn’t been so bad since I could finally count the days until our attempted reunion.

Excited to finally see him —but also very, very scared I wasn’t going to be able to —

I showed up at the airport ready to go to Japan and they almost didn’t let me on the plane.

This was because I had no visa.

But I wasn’t totally dead in the water yet, because as the South Korean officials found reading Japan’s policies, “are very confusing.”

Yes. For sure. Yes.

And I was crossing my fingers that I was in a grey area that wasn’t totally and completely banned, just decidedly frowned upon.

Anxiously, I waited for the final deliberation as the minutes until my flight ticked away.

NAIL BITTING.

With only a little bit of time to spare, finally, a woman approached to tell me that they’d gotten word that I was allowed on the plane–

but I couldn’t get too comfy because as she said, “they’ll decide in Japan” if I could stay there.

The Japanese Airport

When I arrived in the Osaka airport in Japan, I was nervous but my intuition whispered that it would all be okay.

Still, one can’t help but fret.

I began to wait in the airport for what would be a long time.

First, I waited on the plane for an hour in my seat.

Then they let everyone on the plane inside a hallway of the airport. We played a variation of musical chairs, where hundreds of us inched forward a few spots at a time like a centipede.

This wasn’t very enjoyable, especially with my stomach in knots about the uncertainty of my love story’s ultimate conclusion.

Finally after another hour or two, I reached a desk with people to talk to.

They seemed somewhat confused by my presence, and ushered me after the other South Koreans. I had papers explaining I had come from South Korea so this does make sense.

This was also awesome for me, because at the time South Koreans had a lot of freedom traveling to Japan in comparison to people of other nations.

For a brief but exhilarating span, I was flying through the aisles.

On a high, I sped-walked through the lanes sectioned off by ropes, making huge gains towards my freedom.

Yes, I thought rounding a bend.

Yes! I screamed internally, rounding another.

Officials waved me through probably because no one could really understand me or where I fit. My old visa may also have been misread.

But hey, I did what I was told and kept moving.

Yes!!! I’m doing this!

At the final door, the last one that separated me from Andrew —

that’s when an official read through everything I presented and didn’t like what she saw.

She told me I needed to get out of line.

And then I couldn’t go forward anymore.

Deciding my fate

For a few more hours, I just sat there, with it all out of my control.

Andrew sat waiting in one part of the airport, I sat in another.

I don’t speak Japanese much at all, and a man who came to talk to me didn’t seem to like that at all.

The was a certain shame-on-you tone when he repeated, “Ah, you don’t speak Japanese.”

“No! But my fiance does. Here is his number!”

They interviewed Andrew in Japanese to see if I should be allowed to stay.

He was grilled.

The interviewer asked, “Why didn’t you think of this before she left? You should have gotten married then.”

[We weren’t at that stage of our relationship yet.]

“Why don’t you just wait for the policy to change? What’s all the hurry?”

[Because it’s been 6 months!! Wait for how long? Japan has given no end date to the travel ban! ]

This guy. Either these were the questions he had to ask, or I guess he’d never been in love before.

At times, I was anxious.

The guy who grilled Andrew gave me a paper with a flow chart of my process, the process of people who are supposed to have paperwork and who don’t.

All the little boxes and arrows showed me 10 ways they could tell me to get the eff out of Japan.

No one wants to be wrong–if I didn’t get into the country I’d look pretty stupid.

But mostly I just wanted to see Andrew.

It was comforting that during this wait we could text and call each other–as much as I could while trying to conserve my phone battery.

At least we were in the same timezone. I felt close to him that way.

He didn’t tell me how negative his interviewer seemed to be about my prospects.

Later Andrew told me that although he was being positive for me, he was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get in.

But I knew what the stakes were. If it didn’t work out, I had a backup plan.

Slowly, something inside of me shifted as the authorities decided my fate.

I was thirsty, I had a lot on the line–but even then, I got into a deeply grateful and loving space.

I felt so grateful to be in Japan at all.

I felt so happy to be physically close to Andrew; even if this was all we would have, it was still a gift.

I felt moved to be on the land of Japan at all–what a blessing.

It felt so powerful to be there resting my feet on that land.

I felt like there was spiritual energy that wanted me to be here, even if it ended up being for just a short time.

Something was alchemizing: me, Japan, love… the feeling was extraordinary and I can’t fully explain it.

Maybe I was adding something to this world by being in love and being in Japan, maybe I was there for a reason.

And I trusted that feeling.

About half an hour went by while I felt blissed out and peaceful.

Just waiting, not worried about the depleting battery on my phone and lack of a plug, or what they would decide.

Then they called me up and handed me my passport back–with a 3 month visa stuck inside.

They’d ended up letting me in.

Someone above the person who had grilled Andrew had decided I could enter on humanitarian grounds.

To whoever you are: thank you.

Wahoo!!!!

Andrew and I finally reunited on the other side of the immigration gate and we got to hug!

Together on Christmas Eve, 2020.

Yay!! Despite all the odds, all the places where it could have gone wrong, it all turned out okay for us!

Thank you, Japan for letting me stay with a tourist visa!

The End

A few days later, Japan announced new travel restrictions. Due to Omicron Japan would once again ban all foreign tourists.

That’s when the ‘grey area’ or possible loop hole I’d used was very clearly banned.

I made it just in time.

After this, Japan’s policies did not allow any foreign tourists to visit until late 2022.

Since then, Andrew and I have built a future side by side. We are still together and in love.