The Friends We Made Along the Way
By Alex Billingsley ‘24, JFOU Fellow 2024-2026
Living – actually living – in a place is a funny thing. It shifts your perspective, bringing about personal changes that you could have never expected. Becoming a Shansi Fellow was, for me, motivated by a desire to learn as much as I could about Japan. From Japanese language, to Japanese art, media, history, architecture, and beyond, my curiosity to learn drove my decision to come to Tokyo and I assumed that my most treasured memories from this fellowship would all focus around those learning opportunities. I assumed that the new experiences I gained in new spaces – small temples and shrines, manga art exhibitions, and concerts in traditional performing arts – would be the highlight of my fellowship.
While I love and still very much avail myself of the chance to learn about and engage with Japanese culture, these exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities have become deemphasized in my memories. Instead, the most treasured part of my life in Japan have been the people who were by my side throughout these experiences. These are all people who are my family – most live in Japan, but some visited from abroad – and they make up a community that is my home away from home. Community can mean different things to different people, and so I want to introduce you to my version of community using photos, in chronological order from this past year, that are snapshots of the memories I have with these people who mean a lot to me.
March 14th, 2025: Returning to the site of my internship (Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms) with my mother who came to visit me in Japan. Here we can be seen on a tour of the tea fields posing as we hold the ideal picking standard for first-flush Japanese green tea: the bud and first two leaves of the tea bush.
March 14th, 2025: Shelf-style shading equipment as seen above a tea bush at sunset in Wazuka-cho Kyoto Prefecture.
April 9, 2025: Hanami (flower viewing) on the banks of the Tama River with Tokyo Embassy Choir (henceforth referred to as TEC) friends Hannah Martin (middle), Sophia Jung (right), and Stella (Hannah’s wonderful golden doodle).
April 11, 2025: Mt. Fuji as seen at 8 am from the shores of Lake Kawaguchi during the annual TEC retreat. This retreat was a chance to rehearse, but was also crucially a place where I got to connect with the members of the choir – singing in small ensembles during the talent show, relaxing with them in nature, and stopping at scenic locations and hot springs on the way there and back.
June 8th, 2025: Shansi alum Ris Beddie and I celebrate at Tokyo Pride with two phenomenal drag queens at a photo spot.
June 22nd, 2025: My high school roommate and best friend Aryn Rivers and I wear hats made out of kanji that I have yet to learn how to read at the Kanji Museum and Library in Kyoto.
August 2nd, 2025: Ris and I take a celebratory photo after hiking to the ridge of Mt. Tengu, Yatsugatake, in Nagano Prefecture.
August 2nd, 2025: This was the true objective of our outdoorsy trip to Nagano – the highest open-air bath in Japan.
September 8th, 2025: A friend from Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms Sarah McDaniel and I have Cuban sandwiches for lunch in Umeda, Osaka, before heading to the Osaka Expo for the evening.
September 9th: The iconic Tsutenkaku in Osaka and the colorful surrounding shopping street, Shinsekai.
October 5th, 2025: Possibly the most famous street in Tokoname City, Aichi Prefecture. Tokoname is one of the six ancient pottery kilns of Japan, and the whole town is centered around ceramic production. It is a gorgeous town made up of old buildings, cobbled streets, and the chimneys of the pottery kilns. The adorable streets are also decorated with excellent pottery shops, and it is always a joy to stop in and chat with the kind potters who run them.
October 3rd, 2025: Tokoname is known for its collection of ceramic manekineko – lucky cats. This little guy is my favorite cat on Tokoname’s manekineko street.
October 24th, 2025: Alex Dubovoy – a friend of mine from our shared experience as interns at Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms – and I crack up while handrolling sencha at the World Ocha festival held in Shizuoka City.
October 30st, 2025: At the end of October/early November, I performed in the Busan Choral Festival and Competition with the ensemble Sizzlin’ Mix, led by Kaoru Tani and Kota Yanagishima. It was a life changing experience that combined my love of traveling in East Asia with choral singing. Here, Sizzlin’ Mix, ready to perform in the classical category, takes a selfie in an elevator.
October 31st 2025: Outside of rehearsals, we took the opportunity to explore and learn about Busan. This is a view of the main hall of Haeunjeongsa, a Buddhist temple in the neighborhood of Haeundae.
October 31st, 2025: Of course, we didn’t let any holidays pass us by. In this shot, Ris celebrates Halloween in style.
November 1st, 2025: New friendships were formed through the adventure of international travel, and I relished in time spent with like-minded singers both on and off the stage. Here, Ryotaro Kosuge (right), Ris (left), and I are seen taking a hike in between rehearsals.
November 2nd, 2025: A city on the ocean, Busan has splendid beaches and excellent seafood. This is a view of the Jagalchi fish market moments before I sat down for a seafood feast.
November 2nd, 2025: (From front to back) Hiroshi Tanaka, Yuka Kobayashi, Momoe Shigemitsu, and I take in golden hour on the Busan coast at the Huinnyeoul Culture Village. Eager to see as much of Busan as we could, we traveled across the city during a day out on the town.
November 2nd, 2025: A view of Gukje market.
November 2nd, 2025: Sizzlin Mix celebrates with our accolades, having gotten 3rd place in the classical category and 2nd in pops and acapella thanks in no small part to a fiery solo by Ris and expert beatboxing by Shogo Seto. Truly an impressive achievement in this major choral competition.
November 14th, 2025: Current Lady Doak fellow Caris Gross visiting the Japan fellows! This is a picture taken at Honnoji temple in Kyoto.
November 16th, 2025: Buddhist icons sport stylish hats at the Daishoin, a Shingon Buddhist temple on the island of Miyajima.
December 12th, 2025: Kori Kelley (right), a friend of mine from my time studying abroad with Associated Kyoto Program, met up with me and co-fellow Yuhki Ueda (left) to go to the Tokyo Christmas Market. Here we are admiring the wreaths.
December 14th, 2025: JFO Shansi alumna Cassie Guevara (left) and I celebrate the holiday season with the annual TEC Christmas concert at the Tokyo Union Church. Ris (middle) came to see the show!
December 31st, 2025: One of many ceramic-cobbled streets in Tokoname, where I had returned with Alex for the New Year’s holiday.
January 1st, 2025: Takayuki Yagi and Alex (right to left) sleepily enjoying the first sunrise of the year from the local shrine in Tokoname. Yagi-san is a Tokoname potter, dear friend of mine, and an incredibly generous person who invited me and Alex to be a part of his New Year’s festivities– a holiday that is usually reserved for spending time with family.
January 1st, 2026: Alex and I pose for a photo with another one of Tokoname’s manekineko.
January 2nd, 2026: Fresh snowfall in Gujo-Hachiman in Gifu Prefecture. Can you spot the castle in this photo?
January 3rd, 2026: A view of Shin-machi, the commercial center of Gujo-Hachiman. On the streetlight and the sign are figures of people dancing a bon-odori (summer festival dance) because the town of Gujo is known for having the longest running bon-odori in the country (running for a total of 30 nights).
January 6th, 2026: An action shot from the raucous Hakusan Muika Matsuri (the Hakusan Festival of the 6th Day) at the Nagataki Hakusan Shrine. In this festival, there are flower garlands suspended from the meters-high ceiling of the shrine which are pulled down from the rafters by festival attendees. If you are able to grab a flower, it will give you good luck for the rest of the year, so as you may imagine, these flowers are a hot commodity.
January 10, 2026: TEC friend and fellow choral singer Mao Nakano and I “soak” in a public bath from the Showa Period at the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. Behind us is a mural of Mt. Fuji that is curiously similar to the view we had at the TEC choir retreat.
January 19th, 2026: The Northern Japanese Alps as seen from the uppermost slopes of Happo-One in Hakuba.
January 21st, 2026: Ready to shreddie on the Oakley Terrace at Happo-One, Hakuba.
January 21st, 2026: A reunion dinner with choir friends from Sizzlin’ Mix – Masae Yoshimura, me, and Seiya Hayakawa, left to right – in Oimachi, Nagano.
These extraordinary people who I call my friends have taught me so much more than just a museum or a placard ever could. Through them, I have come to learn that being curious will always bring you into contact with the places and – most importantly – the people around you, and that these are never opportunities to be missed. Community is something that can be built everywhere.
I see a big change ahead of me, whether I leave Japan or whether I stay, and so I want to take this moment to express my gratitude to the people that matter most to me. Thank you everyone, you mean the world to me, and I will carry you with me wherever in the world I end up.
P.S.: This is a photo that was taken of me as I was taking the photo of Jagalchi market, so now perhaps you can get a sense of how I move about the world as a shutterbug and what’s happening on the other side of the camera.