About Jin

More Than a First Glance

Malaysian. Multilingual. Industry-rooted in Japan travel since 2017. Your interpreter who will reciprocate whatever energy you bring — but I am always more than what you would expect.

I arrived at everything I do sideways. I learned Japanese from a PS3 game with no English subtitles. I became a travel consultant after an e-commerce restructuring. I started interpreting professionally one month after losing my father, in response to a job posting I applied to while feeling considerably less than confident. None of it was the plan. All of it became the thing.

I write about Japan because I know it — not only as a traveller but from inside the industry. I have sold it, researched it after office hours, stood on stages at MATTA and NATAS speaking for the people and places I represent, and planned my own trips with the kind of precision that occasionally results in missing the last bus out of Ise. I travel for stories and resonance, not just sightseeing. If that sounds like your kind of travel, you are in the right place.

A Few Things That Are True

• JLPT N1 certified · started learning Japanese from video games at 16
• BSc (Hons) Software Engineering — a practical decision I don't regret
• Travel consultant at a major Japanese travel agency (KL office), 2017–2020
• Interpreter for Gifu Prefecture & Hoshino Resorts Tomamu at MATTA and NATAS fairs
• Game beta tester: Yume100, Tears of Themis, Love and Deepspace
• Virgo sun, Aries moon — perfectionist who does not tolerate disrespect
• Visits temples out of curiosity, collects omamori hopefully
• Will cry over art if the story is right
• Will hike past the ropeway to reach the shrine at the top
• Knows enough Hokkien and Indonesian to order food and understand gossip
• Has lost the same IC card twice, in two different ways, on two different trips
• 171cm tall · cannot swim · completely at ease in a Japanese bathtub

Languages

The Story, in Layers

It started with a game. Years ago, my father bought me a PS3 as a reward for straight As at school — bundled with Final Fantasy XIII. We switched it on together and discovered there was no English option, no subtitles, no exchange policy. I was sixteen. I wanted to play badly enough to learn. Hiragana and katakana in two days. Three months on the first playthrough, comparing the Japanese interface against English-localisation walkthroughs on YouTube. From there: anime, fan translation projects, otome games, beta testing for game companies, and a quiet, accumulating fluency that would eventually become a career.

Then came the industry. I joined H.I.S. Travel Kuala Lumpur in late 2017 and spent close to three years learning Japan travel not as a blogger but as someone whose job was to have the answer ready when someone walked through the door. I stayed after hours studying brochures. I researched niche destinations so I could field questions confidently. The knowledge I built there is the foundation everything else stands on — the reason this blog is not just a collection of photographs from someone who visited a few times, but a record of someone who has been working in this industry for years.

Then grief opened an unexpected door. I lost my father in February 2023. In March, I saw a job posting for a replacement interpreter and applied — less confident than I looked, more determined than I felt. I passed. I have worked with Gifu Prefecture and Hoshino Resorts Tomamu at travel fairs in Malaysia and Singapore ever since, and more recently in business meetings and other contexts beyond the fair floor. Those gigs have been more than professional opportunities. I am genuinely grateful for them, and writing about Japan felt, after all of this, not like content creation but like the only right thing to do.

And I travel for resonance. The sleeping lilies in Suzhou, the haystacks in Shanghai, timed around two separate time-limited exhibitions. The hike past the ropeway to reach Lingshun Temple (灵顺寺) in Hangzhou because I wanted the climb. Ten scenic spots of West Lake in ten days of slow travel. The stories of the Ainu in Hokkaido, which taught me to pay attention to what lives in the places I visit. The thirteen bookstores in Fukuoka for one specific book. The nine-day garden in Saga that I restructured an entire itinerary around. I am not looking for the landmark. I am looking for the thing inside the landmark that makes it worth the trip.

For Readers & Itinerary Clients

I post every Monday, and on Thursdays when work and life permits. I've planned, and am working on multiple series of different places, with Gifu, Tokyo, then Kyoto in mind. I've written about Kyushu, but perhaps when the time feels right, I'd explore different writing styles, so I can show you a fair introduction to how I think about travel: methodically planned, with room left for the unexpected. I hope to improve my writing over time, and I welcome you to witness my growth.

The Gifu Master Itinerary Sheet is available now on Ko-fi — a 32-page deep-dive with everything I'd tell you if we sat down for a planning session, minus the calendar-wrangling. If you'd rather have something fully custom, I take on a limited number of 1:1 itinerary consultations built around your interests, pace, and budget — reach out and I'll let you know if I have room.

For Collaborators

Because this blog is a personal project, my priority is staying honest with my readers. I only share places and experiences I actually stand behind — and where a link on this blog earns a small commission (Klook, Agoda, Trip.com, Japan Experience), that never changes what I'd recommend regardless. If you represent a brand, destination, or event that fits that approach, feel free to drop an introduction — I'd love to hear what you're working on.

Go Deeper — Jin's Musings

Jin's Musings will be a series of essays on philosophy, travel, language, and the things that linger after you leave a place. If you want to understand how I think, you'll soon (hopefully) find a series of essays I'm writing with a lot of thoughts placed into them under this section, but until then, please feel free to browse through my current posts.

© Jin Travels Japan · Writing since secondary school, but about Japan since 2017.