“I don't know what was the bigger culture shock: getting used to life in Japan, where trains are never late, touching your nose in public is rude but reading pornographic comics is not, or returning home to a land where, well, none of this applies.

“I went to Japan on a university scholarship to study Japanese for a year in Fukuoka, the largest city on Japan's southern-most island, Kyushu. Learning Japanese was incredibly difficult (there are three alphabets) and gave new meaning to the phrase, 'lost in translation'.

In a country where people know only basic English and foreigners are regarded as a rather peculiar minority, not being able to express yourself can be frighteningly disorienting. If you are planning to visit Japan, learn the basics before you go, or else polish up your mime skills.

“Culture shock aside, Japan is massive fun. Outrageous fashion, the kitsch cults of Hello Kitty and manga and the weird love hotel phenomenon all cater to a hyper-modern youth culture that makes the average Japanese city an incredibly vibrant destination for adventurous gap-year goers and backpackers. Working part-time as an English teacher also meant that I could afford to do some travelling beyond the neon frenzy of urban Japan, and I was surprised at how beautiful the land beyond the bullet train tracks was.

“Getting used to Japan was hard. When you are so obviously different from everyone around you, you become extremely aware of your own cultural associations. I have never felt so conspicuous, so British, in my life. Stereotypes trail you, and you begin to wonder how accurate they really are.

But investing so much effort in getting over the initial culture shock only made my time in Japan all the more special. And sometimes it's nice just to wander along feeling a bit lost anyway.”

Elaine Hake is an English graduate from Oxford University and spent last year in Japan.

“Wherever your destination may be, getting there is half the fun.”

“Gap years are full of rich experience and you learn more from some than others. One evening a friend and I were in Hoi An, a town in Vietnam when we decided we wanted to watch the sunrise at the ancient Cham ruins some miles from the town.

It was already early morning when we struck upon this idea and we didn’t have a clue how to get there. That was until we accepted the services of a couple of locals, the Vietnamese equivalent of Del Boy and Rodney, except they had motorbikes instead of a Reliant Robin.

“Their promise to get us to the ruins in time for sunrise seemed unlikely and as the sun rose behind us hurtling towards our destination on the back of two old motorbikes, this proved true. However, when we did arrive we were privileged to be able to walk around the ruins, remnants of Cham civilisation, without another soul in sight; it was quite possibly one of the most peaceful moments of my life.

“Our return journey, though, was to prove even more exciting than the purpose of our trip. We stopped by a roadside sugar cane stall, where our new found friends treated us to energy-in-a-glass. As we sat and attempted to learn how to count to ten in Vietnamese, a lottery ticket seller approached. Our motorbike chauffeurs’ faces instantly lit up and a minute later the table was littered with ticket stubs.

“We were on a losing streak until the very last ticket. The collective cheer when we realised we had won attracted slightly too much attention from passers-by, as did the ensuing laughter when we found we had bankrupted the ticket seller.

“If I learnt anything from this experience, it is that if you cannot bond with the locals over alcohol, there is always gambling. More importantly, wherever your destination may be, half the fun is getting there and back.”

Barnaby Jones travelled to the Far East and South America and will be reading English at Cambridge this autumn

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