Tricia Hutton had always dreamed of packing up and moving abroad for a year.
The teacher was well travelled and had seen many incredible destinations around the world, but found that as she hit mid-life she was ready for a new adventure – and wanted to bring her teenage son, Ronan, along with her.
At 47, she packed up her life here in Ireland in 2022, began a long distance relationship with her partner in Carlow and flew to Japan for what she thought would only be two years.
Tricia tells PasarModern.comabout her life in Japan, why she chose a country that’s over 18 hours away from Ireland and returning home.
While she wanted to live abroad, she had her heart set on Paris, however, during the pandemic her son became obsessed with anime – a Japanese-style of animation.
“You could say that it was a bit of a mid-life crisis,” she admits. “It was a very drastic thing to do because there was me and my 15-year-old teenager, but I lived with my partner and his four sons.
“It was about managing me and my teenager’s relationship and wanting to bring us closer together, wanting to get out of Ireland, needing an adventure and I was hitting middle age.
“There was a sense of, ‘I can’t do this for the rest of my life. I have to find something exciting’.”
People were incredibly surprised when she shared her travel plans, however, her partner fully understood her reason for moving to Japan.
“Surprised is an understatement,” Tricia shares. “People couldn’t get over that it was Japan we were going to.”
However, people really close to her understood, she says.
“I talked to my partner before I got the ball rolling. I asked him how he’d feel if we were over there for an extended period of time.
“Neither of us are teenagers. We’re in a very stable relationship. He was completely understanding and totally fine with it. He understood that I needed my own time with my teenager as well.
“That was the biggest obstacle, because if it was going to cause problems in our relationship I wouldn’t have gone, I don’t think, because I felt so secure in our relationship that I was comfortable leaving.”
When Tricia started planning for the move, she initially thought they would only stay for one year. But when they arrived there, experienced the culture and began to settle, they soon realised 12 months wasn’t going to be enough.
“It was only going to be for Ronan’s transition year and then he’d be back for fifth year,” she explains.
“Logically, you can’t really get a one-year contract. It wouldn’t pay for schools to bring you over for that amount of time. The minimum contracts started at two years. That was the deciding factor.
“At the end of those two years, we were so settled. We really loved it. If we had come back then, Ronan would be joining school in sixth year and he would be in an odd position academically.
“The school I worked at was happy to renew my contract for one more year and so we stayed.”
In the end, it was the perfect amount of time for them, with Tricia sharing that she still would have “hankered” after Japan if she had left 48 months in.
The mother and son settled in Nagoya and their reason for choosing this city was due to Tricia’s job.
“I applied through an online agency. You upload your CV for them if you want to work in a specific region,” she says. “I applied only for Japan and technically you should apply for several countries or regions, like all of south asia, but I just wanted Japan.
“So the only two realistic job offers I got were in Hokkiado and Nagoya. Hokkiado is right at the very north of Japan. It’s famous for hiking and it snows for an incredible portion of the year, but it’s extremely quiet and far away from the rest of Japan – I turned it down.
“The next offer I got was in Nayoga, which was perfect. It’s the fourth biggest city in Japan and it’s in the same region as Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. It’s an ideal location if you want to travel around Japan.”
They would return to Ireland every summer and it was after one of these visits that Tricia’s favourite memory took place.
“We landed in Tokyo. Normally it would take an hour-and-a-half to get to where we lived on the Shinkansen (bullet train), but we landed at 11.30pm at night and the trains stopped at midnight,” she recalls.
“We were standed, jetlegged and hadn’t booked accommodation. But there’s an amazing thing when you land in Japan – there’s an airport stall where you pay €10 per suitcase and they deliver them to your door.”
Tired, but without their luggage, Tricia and Ronan spent the next few hours walking around Tokyo’s party districts at night.
“It was mindblowing to me, because at no stage did we feel nervous as a young teenager and a middle-aged woman,” she says. “It was hardcore party districts as well and they were packed.
“It was so beautiful at night. I bought a beer in a local konbini (convinence store), we went for noodles at 3am at a 24-hour place – it was the most magical night I’ve had in my whole life.
“It was also that feeling of being back in Japan and feeling completely safe. It’s an odd sensation. Until you’ve experienced it, you don’t realise how much of your headspace is taken up by being wary.”
They also spent a week in Nozawaonsen, which is an onsen town that has hot springs on the street free of charge.
“It was winter and there was four feet of the most perfect snow in your life – white and dry – and you would take off all your clothes and get into these little huts that had bubbling extremely hot water. People would boil their eggs outside in the natural water – it was incredible.”
Tricia had initially planned to document her move to Japan on TikTok, but everything was so different to what she expected.
“It was pretty shocking. I would have considered myself and Ronan pretty capable people, but it’s so different and it’s such a change,” she explains.
“You have to get your head around so many things, like work ethics, organising cars, planning your electricity bills.”
After her first year, she decided to return to her initial idea and captured all the different aspects of life in Japan.
“It’s a really fun way to show people what’s happening,” she says.
Her videos began racking up hundreds of thousands of views, with people fascinated over simple parts of Japanese life, like how they eat fresh, high-grade sashimi for such an affordable price.
Since moving back to Ireland in July after three years in Japan, Tricia admits that it’s been a major adjustment getting used to living here again.
“I kind of feel a bit of mayhem here after coming back from Japan,” she explains. “It feels very manic here. That’s going to take a while to get used to.
“I remember coming back on Christmas and we went to the pub as my stepson was performing there.
“I don’t mean this in a condescending way, but I was shocked at how drunk people were and they were so loud. You could have been in the busiest bar in Tokyo and people would be whispering at one another.
“Everybody talks to you here as well, like the person at the till. That’s shocking again, but it will just take time to get used to it.
“I love it in Ireland and I’m delighted we’re back. It’s such a relief to be able to read a road sign. I developed a new level of sympathy for people who made their way through the education system without learning to read or write. It’s so difficult to live your life when you can’t read anything.
“My abiding feeling in Japan was that something amazing was happening on the street parallel to me and I was just missing it. You don’t stumble on things, everything has to be planned, which is difficult when you don’t understand the language.”
Does she plan on packing up and moving to a new country anytime soon?
“I wouldn’t go anywhere without my partner again, but I can 100% see myself travelling again and teaching somewhere else for a year or two,” she admits.
“I probably wouldn’t do Japan again. I’ll go for a visit for a holiday. I want to teach somewhere in Europe. I haven’t lived out my Parisian fantasies yet. I want to smoke a cigarette, drink coffee by the Champs-Élysées on a Saturday morning – that’s my dream.”
You can learn more about Tricia’s life in Japan on TikTok @ranchos_dogfriendly_cafe
