Lost in a Foreign City at Midnight

The neon signs of Tokyo blurred together as panic started to set in. It was 1:30 AM, my phone battery had died 20 minutes ago, and the labyrinthine streets of Shinjuku suddenly felt incredibly overwhelming.

Then, an older man with a small dog stopped in front of me. He asked something in Japanese. I shook my head, helplessly holding up my dead phone. He gestured for me to follow him. Every instinct screamed at me not to follow a stranger into the night, but my exhaustion won out.

Getting lost in a foreign city taught me the most valuable travel lesson: the world is far kinder than we are led to believe.