You Can't Step in the Same River Twice

Travel, change, and finding home — on Heraclitus, a retirement post from someone I met in Hokkaido in 2019, and the version of yourself you bring back from the places that matter.

Not long ago, I came across a Facebook post from someone I met on a business trip to Hokkaido in 2019. Mr. Hiyakawa was retiring, and his post stirred something in me — a flood of memories from that autumn road trip through Eastern Hokkaido. I reached out, and his kind reply reminded me why I fell in love with that region: the people, the landscapes, the quiet moments that stayed with me long after I returned home.

And it made me think about Heraclitus.

Looking at old photographs from that trip — Lake Mashu, the dairy farms of Obihiro, the morning mist over Lake Akan — I realised how much has changed since then. And yet the longing to return, to share those stories, had not faded at all. Which made me think: what does it mean to want to return to a place when Heraclitus is right? When both the place and I have already been replaced, piece by piece, with something new?

The River of 2019

When I boarded that AirDo flight to Obihiro in 2019, I was a young travel consultant eager to prove herself. I didn't know anyone in the group. I was shy, uncertain, but determined to make the most of the opportunity my manager had given me. The trip was a blur of new faces, business meetings, and landscapes I'd only seen in brochures before.

I remember standing at Lake Mashu, the water so clear it seemed to float above the crater. The wind was cold, but I felt something warm inside — a certainty that this was where I was meant to be, at that moment. I didn't know yet that I would return to Kuala Lumpur changed. That I would start sharing about Hokkaido through Facebook Lives, help customise a two-week itinerary for a client, and eventually step into a role interpreting for Gifu Prefecture and Hoshino Resorts. That trip was a beginning. I just didn't know it while I was standing in it.

The Self That Returned

Returning to Malaysia, I was no longer the same Jin. The trip had given me a taste of what I could become: a storyteller, a bridge between cultures. I threw myself into work, sharing Eastern Hokkaido with colleagues and clients. When the pandemic hit and travel stopped, I mourned not just the lost trips but the version of myself that had been on the cusp of something new.

But the river kept flowing. In 2022, after my father passed away, I found myself interpreting for Hoshino Resorts at travel fairs, then for Gifu Prefecture. I was speaking about Japan again — not as a sales pitch, but as something closer to a love letter. The girl who had once been too shy to introduce herself at Haneda Airport was now standing in front of crowds, translating stories of onsen and mountains. I had stepped into a new current.

The Same River, the Different River

Heraclitus believed that change is the only constant. The trip to Hokkaido changed me; the pandemic changed the world; the loss of my father changed my heart. And yet, when I look at those old photographs, I feel a continuity. The same places still call to me — Lake Akan, Obihiro, the Shiretoko coast. But I know that if I returned, the experience would be different. I would be different.

Perhaps that is the beauty of travel. We go not to find the same river, but to see how we have changed since we last stepped into it. The river of 2019 gave me courage. The river of today would receive someone more seasoned, more reflective, more ready to listen. Both are valid. Both are me. The Heraclitean river does not erase the earlier crossing — it holds both of them, the water moving, the memory staying.

The River Within

Travel taught me that home is not just a place. It is a feeling you carry. The warmth of a yatai owner who shaves cheese onto your corn. The kindness of a guide who speaks of wolves with reverence. The quiet of a ryokan room where you watch the sunrise over a lake and find, unexpectedly, that you are all right. These moments become part of you — a river you can revisit any time, not by going back to the place but by returning to the memory with enough attention to feel it again.

I may not be able to return to Hokkaido very soon. But I have these photographs, these stories, and the certainty that the river will be there when I am ready. And when I finally step into it again, I will bring with me all the changes of these years — the losses, the growth, the new questions I hadn't thought to ask in 2019 — and let them flow.

Mr. Hiyakawa is retired now. I hope his river is gentle.