Before the Coffee Gets Cold

There’s a popular Japanese movie, Before the Coffee Gets Cold. In a certain coffee shop, one particular table lets you travel back in time to meet people from the past. There’s a catch: nothing you do can change the future. But I’ve always thought you could still do a lot without changing it.

So if I could sit at that table, I already know where I’d go. A 10×10 room in Higashi-Osaka, May 2024. Not to change anything. Just to live it all one more time.

Thirty days

It was a small Japanese house for a single occupant. One room, an attached bathroom and a cooking platform. I think it will be my happiest place ever.

After years of yearning, I finally got to spend real time with her. I was like a kid who had been handed everything. We talked, cuddled, cooked for each other, shared meals, travelled together, fought, made peace, and walked along the canal, high on everything the future might hold. For a person who loves going to new places and trying new experiences, I spent the whole month doing the opposite. Admiring and adoring her. Nothing else mattered.

On the last day we said goodbye with happy hearts, knowing there would be a lot more of this to come. Only for my flight to get cancelled over a technical problem and pushed to the next day. It’s as poetic as the universe saying, this is the last time this is happening, so here’s one more day to cherish it. We went out for dinner, then took a long, slow walk down our road, chatting about what life holds for us.

A canal at sunset seen from a bridge in Osaka — Our evening walks, along the canal.

A thatched hall under an old pine — Quiet corners, bright afternoons.

A temple lit by lanterns at dusk — Temple at dusk.

A stone torii gate with lanterns, the city glowing below — Walking up to the gate as the lights came on.

City lights seen through a window screen at night — The view from the window.

A grill, chopsticks and an Osaka skyline at sunset — Dinner with a view.

Glowing purple orbs in a dark illuminated forest — An evening in the lights.

A gorge with a wooden walkway and a red maple — Into the gorge.

Swirling green and orange light projected onto tilted screens at night — Colour, after dark.

Osaka Castle glowing in the evening light — Osaka Castle at golden hour.

Terraced mineral pools inside a cave — Inside the cave.

A train yard at dusk with a hill beyond — Waiting for a train at dusk.

A path through a bamboo grove — The bamboo grove.

A small shrine under dark green trees — A small shrine, a grey day.

Railway tracks curving into green hills — Tracks into the hills.

A calm green river reflecting the hills — Still water.

The worst first impression

It hadn’t started like that at all.

Heavy traffic. Heavy rain. All her students got drenched waiting for a bus that showed up late for the pickup. Then the bus leaked the whole journey, and in the morning the driver backed into a car and made a huge scene. Just one of my many gifts of poor planning and arrangement from the Hygge Journeys days.

Meanwhile I was a random guy who takes people on treks, in an oversized T-shirt, with no slippers or shoes in the wild. Very reassuring.

I remember her crying during the night, and I didn’t give it much thought. I also had a theory that teachers are not interesting, because their lives must be monotonous. Turns out I was wrong on both counts. Eventually Calvin and Hobbes pushed her to text me a week after the trip, and we started talking.

She got a job as an English language trainer in Osaka, on a six-month contract. Then covid happened and the world came to a halt, and six months quietly turned into two years. We met when she came back for a short vacation, by which time we were officially in a relationship. Then she went back to Japan.

Meanwhile, life happened. I quit Hygge Journeys, did my dive instructor course, and moved to the Andamans, Maharashtra, Jordan and later the Maldives. And after years of beating me up, life finally felt a little guilty. So it gave me thirty days in Osaka.

Every “if”

The choices we make, the paths we take, often lead us to meet some amazing people. Mine came with a very long chain of “ifs”. Let me run it backwards, with the stories behind each link.

If that trek hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have met her.

If I hadn’t started my company, Arul would never have called me back to take their SRM kids for a trek.

If I hadn’t joined Keyterns as a trek guide, where I met Arul, I wouldn’t have dared to start a company without knowing anything about running one.

If I hadn’t taken that mountaineering course in Kashmir, I wouldn’t have been handed that trek guide job at all.

If I hadn’t gone to Meghalaya, all on my own, I wouldn’t have trusted myself enough to sign up for the course.

If I hadn’t left for Ooty that night, I wouldn’t have had the courage to go to Meghalaya.

One night, one decision. That’s all it took. I’d take it again.

— Yoki