“Where are you from? What do you do?”
From about five meters away my roommate spoke first. From that single line, before I knew it, five strangers had gathered in the room.
To Fabrika in Tbilisi in Spring
I decided to stay at Fabrika again after a long time.
Spring arrived, and people poured outside like they'd woken from hibernation. I love this energy, this atmosphere. Back in Japan April used to be a stressful time because of the fiscal year change, but since leaving Japan, spring has become the best season.
Lately I've been staying in hostels. The reason is simple: I want to enjoy meeting people. Unlike hotels, there aren't thick walls between you. In your twenties is a time for spreading out and exploring, so I think it's important to meet many people and broaden your network.
I booked a ten-person room and went in. There was one boy there, so I just said, 'Hi.'
Meeting my roommate Nika
A photo from the first day.
I worked in the lobby and wandered around the town before returning to the room. Dinner was some supermarket ready-made food. My roommate had been fiddling with his laptop on the bed the whole time, and to be honest I judged him as lazy.
As I ate alone, relaxing, he was the one who asked first.
“Where are you from? What do you do?”
He was Nika. He works in customer support at Spotify and apparently works from the afternoon until 11 p.m. In between shifts he explores Tbilisi on his skateboard. He lives in the countryside and comes to Tbilisi to enjoy meeting people until his money runs out. He'd lived in Italy for decades and speaks Italian fluently. We became fast friends.
I froze at the sight of five strangers.
Then another person came in. He was Moroccan, living in France. He studies psychology at a university in Lyon and is going to Brazil this summer on the Erasmus program. While we were saying things like 'Isn't that the best time of your life?', another person came in. A kid born in Canada to Bangladeshi parents. He's interning at a military company developing cameras, and both he and the Moroccan were on their first solo trips. When I asked why they'd chosen Georgia, they said flights and accommodation are cheap.
As we got excited, another French guy came in and in no time there were five of us.
From there a group conversation began. I'm so inexperienced that I quiet down immediately in groups. Maybe I'm afraid of being judged on first meeting. Perhaps a flashback to group bullying in high school — he didn't look me in the eye and I reacted extremely sensitively; it turned into fear.
But I knew I couldn't keep dwelling on that, so I proactively started asking questions. Gradually I began to get used to it. At the same time I realized how unfamiliar I was with the kind of group conversations that are normal abroad. If I want to work overseas in the future, exchanging opinions in groups is just expected. I felt keenly that I need practice.
To Moosica to put up my business card.
Nika invited me to go for a beer at 11 p.m.
At the same time, I had also booked Moosica hostel for that night. It's the memorable hostel where I met Greg in 2022, and my purpose was to hang a new business card next to the one I'd left there. So initially I had no intention of staying. But the room was cheap—around 1000 yen—so I thought, why not.
I walked to Moosica. Surprisingly, the interior hadn't changed much. But the people had. Instead of someone warm like Greg, there were Russian staff who followed the manual. Just the person who greets you can change the atmosphere and emotions this much; it made me realize how powerful people's influence is.
The world a retired traveler showed me.
I checked in and received a welcome drink of white wine.
It was oxidized and, to be honest, not very tasty.
As I sat at a table drinking wine, a new traveler checked in and sat near me. He was asking about trains to Armenia, so having experience I gave him advice and joined the conversation.
He was from Poland. Retired, he's now traveling the world. When we exchanged Instagrams he said he'd been to Baikonur in Kazakhstan where Soviet-era rockets are displayed, and had even been to Syria and Iraq. His stories were incredible. I was inspired in an instant.
What the media says is only part of the story, and when you actually go you're surprised by people's kindness. For people in Afghanistan, there's a huge difference between what the media shows and videos made by travelers who actually went. That's why I want to visit with my own feet and experience it myself.
Maybe because of the wine I overcame my usual shyness and genuinely asked for his Instagram and took photos together.
It was a very short time with him, but the 30 minutes we talked were extremely valuable.
Khinkali at 1 a.m.
I hurried back to Fabrika. In the end the Canadian kid, Nika, and I went to eat khinkali together.
We had lots of interesting conversations about rent and living costs in each other's countries.
Before I knew it, I'd polished it off in no time.
Meeting the smiling William
The next day, when I happened to return to the hostel, another French guy and Nika were talking.
We shook hands saying 'Nice to meet you,' and it was another new encounter. He was William from Toulouse. He'd come to Georgia to shoot a film, and his smile was truly wonderful. The moment I met him I smiled too. When I studied abroad in Russia, many people liked me because I always smiled like William. Now, being greeted with a smile, I was instantly captivated. A smile really does have endless power.
William was shooting his film with a vintage video camera as part of a university project. He studies film at a public university in Toulouse, and he became interested in Georgia after befriending a Georgian who came on exchange; he came to meet that friend. Then the idea came up, 'Let's shoot a documentary together.'
We walked while joking that, being from Toulouse, he'd be called a 'chocolatin'.
A night of baklava and ice cream
The three of us decided to go get a light bite. We talked about editing software, favorite films, and everything else. Maybe because it was late, Nika and William seemed sleepy. William appeared busy, filming from early morning until late at night. He wore a tie and looked very fashionable.
In the end we ordered the Turkish dessert baklava and ice cream.
We talked about looking forward to seeing William's film in theaters someday.
After about 30 minutes of talking we returned to the hostel. This time it was on me. When I'd been with older people they'd always treated me, so this time it was my turn. I was the oldest, so I paid for everything. I felt my age, but at the same time I felt a lot of happiness in doing something for others.
The heart reflected in a person's eyes.
I had William write a message in my notebook, and I wrote a message on a business card and gave it to him.
People naturally gather around someone with a positive, smiling, wonderful vibe like his. People want to be near those with positive energy. Conversely, they don't want to be near someone whose eyes are dead, negative or quiet. I thought that's an indisputable fact.
Even looking at the four people I met this time, you can tell immediately by their eyes: eyes used to looking down on others, delicate yet gentle and strong eyes, eyes so exhausted they'd given up on life. Eyes terrifyingly reveal what's inside a person's heart. I want to keep my eyes shining too — to polish and align my heart, remove as much distrust and fear inside me as possible, and reclaim a pure, unfiltered heart.
Looking back now, these encounters can only be seen as perfectly timed.
If I hadn't booked Moosica and Fabrika at the same time. If check-in times had been even slightly different. If I hadn't gone back to the hostel to eat. If any one of those things hadn't lined up, these encounters probably wouldn't have happened or would have been different. And if my heart hadn't been open.
Familiarity is scary — just staying in the same hostel for a few days can make you ignore new people because you think 'the same old repeat,' or your interest vanishes. But because it was my first day at Fabrika, my heart was as open as possible.
This, too, was a kind of luck.
