Ecuador Day 5: Almost Out

I don’t know how my dad does it. Honestly.

He;s undergoing treatment, has five kids, and continuously eats dinner as I am getting ready for bed only to see him reading the morning paper when I wake up, ready to take on the day. Today I woke up at 5:30 AM to prepare for what we knew would be an early trip to the hospital - and there he was when I came downstairs. Still in bed yet dressed and awake. I rubbed the remaining sleep out of my eyes and limped to the kitchen to boil some water.

Spent the day at the hospital, eating the cafeteria lunch, playing in the small but enjoyable yard with the kids, talking with nurses and doctors. The hospital rules don’t allow for kids in to the ward where my father's room is held, so I tag teamed with Mathi watching the kids while the other walked upstairs and kept him company. 

I joked recently to a good friend that my dad is the only one who encourages my love for heavy conversation topics early in the morning. I joked, but its absolutely true. He's never dismissed a direction of conversation, nor abruptly ended a line of dialect with a "huh, I guess so." He always has something to add or question.

Gabs, George and mama Celia eventually came to join us. Gabi and I played with the idea of visiting Quito, the capital city for the night in spite of the rain that began to show up against the second floor hospital window. However if you've ever been to Quito, you are shaking your head; you know that it always rains. Still, we decided against it.

Sticking around, I'm glad we did. An old friend of Dad’s Patricia and her daughter Francis came to visit. I haven't seen them in years. Its never been awkward for me to sum up my life story, I've come to live a great one. However, translating the little jokes and irony in the story into Spanish proved something that needs refining. Still, that I live in Japan always throws them off, and we talked a good while about that.

From the nine of us in the house who come and see my father every day he is admitted for treatment, to the friends he has here in town, the nurses tell me my father is a popular man. This is not new news. Come jump back into my childhood memory of walking down the Mission blocks, never making the full stretch from traffic light to traffic light without stopping and spending a few minutes talking with a friend, or colleague, or band mate that we just happened to run into. Sitting down at cafes was just the same, though people would instead come up to us.

Family and friends be what we are, there are no visitors allowed past 8:00 PM. Dad spends tonight in the hospital, all Gabi and I can do is return home only to come back tomorrow morning to bring smiles, stories of the kids and, morning coffee with a splash of milk.

The hospital play yard. Two sets is swings, a field of grass to run around on, and a few structures for the children to climb, chase, and hide within.

There's also a large Palm tree in the play yard, providing shade for everyone in the hot sun. Around noon, if you don't have a sun hat or find yourself under a tree, you're burning up. We are at the equator after all, the closest to the Sun as one can get! 

Emilie, coming to wake me up from a perfectly good mid day twilight. 

Maybe it's just the asian diet that I've come to know intimately for the last two years, but even the cafeteria food here amazes me. I think that, with pictures like these, in a month when I am back in my screen door apartment cooking noodles, I'll look back at all the food photos and start to cry. 

Yeah, welcome to Ecuador where even the hospitals are out in the fields, guarded by mountains. This is the view from the hallway just outside my father's room. A bit rainy, a lot cloudy, and very, very fresh air. 

And so ends another day at the hospital. There shouldn't be much more to this treatment course, so we're talking of taking a short trip out somewhere to explore new towns and new views, and of course new food. 

Much love,

-A

Ecuador Day 4: Never Nothing To Do When Kids Are Present

Ecuador. The national slogan reads: Ama la Vida, Love Life.


I understand why the powers that be landed this slogan. It's hard to argue against when hiking the South American outdoors, cooking with fresh ingredients from your neighbor's yard, or wasting the day away with kids which really is not wasting it at all. Yup, loving life is not hard to do, even when (or especially when) there is nothing to do. 

Today was slow. But only slow by comparison. Slow in the sense that the "pressure" of needing to be "productive" had been lifted. Fast in the sense that I never once looked at the watch I put on in the morning, and before anyone knew it, the summer sun began to set behind the foggy mountains.

After a hearty breakfast of chorizo and cheese omelet with slices of avocado and tomato over toast and a side of coffee, big sister and I took a long walk with our third oldest, Emile to see what we could see. Along the way, we decided to take it upon us to teach fractions to Emily. Have you ever tried explaining an abstract mathematical concept to a child outside of a classroom setting without materials? 

So there we were, walking down the unfinished cobbled dirt road, kicking stones as we walked, trying to help Emily understand just exactly what "one third" of a whole is. Eventually we kept to the example of baking and sharing a pie with friends but we tired and discarded many other fractal analogies. Lots of metaphorical stumbling later, we had walked a good few kilometers and by the end of them, Emily could work out word problems using improper fractions. Of course, Simba followed us along for our walk, sniffing at flowers and leaving his mark next to unsuspecting neighborhood dogs who slept under what shade they could find.

We are a pretty artsy family, and I am enjoying my time with the kids here, showing them all the neat stuff I used to do when I was a kid, and some really cool stuff I've learned along the way. Here, the Gabster gives Tony a sewing lesson in art.

I get it. I grew up on City blocks, I get it. I love the hustle and excitement of living in a metropolis. But, there is something special about having a back yard garden to grow fruit, explore, play. You want an early morning orange? Go pick one off the tree. Or better yet, just grab the one that fell last night to the Earth, those are the ripe ones =)

500 meters down the road from where we are living, the top crest of the mountain begins to cut down into the valley and town below. I wonder what little Tony is thinking about at this moment...

Emily climbs new trees to see new sights.

After messing around at the house for a bit and playing with the kids, Gabi and I took dad to the hospital for some short check ups. That we ran out of coffee that morning was unfortunate because as soon as we arrived at the hospital, we all wanted a nice dark cup to enjoy. The thing was that dad was to give blood that night, and caffeine in the blood threw off his readings. So, unfortunately therefore, we could do nothing but wait three hours until his system cleared.

We came home to a quiet house by the time the blood was analyzed and a second long scan was over. Gabi and dad chomped on some ox tail soup that was made ready for us, but I just went straight upstairs to read and write before my eye lids collapsed.

-A 

Ecuador Day 3: To be Six

The celebration of birthdays is a special event that I take issue with. I’m divided over it.

On the one hand, no one with half a heart would deny that birthdays are paramount to the experience of being a young child, that one special day in the whole year that doesn’t feel at all like the rest. A day when you are not overlooked but instead the sweet subject of affectionate attention. That can mean a lot to a kid. Especially to a child for who it is all too easy to be overlooked. Then, with all good intentions, celebrations are definitely in order. I would never deny it. Yet on the other hand, as we get older, pessimism sets in. The big questions of what and why are we celebrating enter the mind as breaths of air blown over lit candles exit the body. That we’ve survived another year?

I still celebrate my birthdays, though I say that there are more, greater things to celebrate; accomplishments in life that took more grit and greater effort than to simply be not a victim of a drug overdose. That is, you probably remember all the time you afforded in the libraries, studying late into the night and writing papers. But do you celebrate the accomplishment resulting directly from the culmination of all that work more than just that once? It’s ironic then that we let the anniversaries of those things pass without reflection, yet stand ready to blow out the candles for the commemoration of the passive birthday.

But, this is a six-year old birthday party, not a thirty six year old one. So don’t think I am so somber today.


The family surely can afford a nice holiday/birthday card, that's not the point. Our minds and our character have always aligned with the more creative side of life, and so we always chose the more heartfelt way of showing it.



Meet little Zoila, six years old today. My little sister loves pink, if you can not tell. She has a strong imagination and a healthy curiosity, loves to be the center of attention and wont hesitate to tell you just how exactly the rules to the games she wants to play are. 

On today, Zoila’s six birthday, there is only one thing to do - go to the main Ecuadorian zoo. And in Ecuador, nation of the Galapagos, going to the zoo is no small event, birthday celebration or not.

Dad came with us and walked in spite of the cane that he used to get about. Amazing in recovery terms since telling me that just a month ago he was unable to get up and walk to the window. Today for three hours and lots of visits to animal exhibits later, he says he is a bit sore but nothing that a little rest won’t heal.

The main sign post. Not much to say here, its forward and simple.

Of all the animals in the world, I am connected to bears more than any other. Even dogs - and you know how much I love dogs. If I were to never marry, I could still live out the rest of my days wondering the spaces in between spaces with a trusty canine companion and be happy. Bears however, is more respect than love. They are the perfect example of how I try and live my life. Strong but not forceful, capable of killing but only do so to eat, big as a house, yet comfy as a couch. An animal of contradiction, independent and mystic.  

If you know me, seen me in person, you might know that I have tattooed on my left shoulder a traditional depiction of Tezcatlipoca in his human form. Brother to the cultural Aztec hero Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca  is closely associated with the night sky, obsidian, the howling wind, and is known for the story of cutting off his own foot to use as bate to catch the giant mother turtle on who's back we now all live. Anyways, when he is not in his human form, he appears as this animal, the jaguar. All across the South Americas, jaguars are considered sacred animals and honored with the highest levels of respect. Known for their veracity, worries of days past would wear the jaguar's dead skin as an emblem into war.   

Right, so we can't talk about the Galapagos without mentioning two of its most famous, or at least the most closely associated, animals: the island finch, and the giant tortoises. Although the size of a large beach volley ball, these zoo tortoise are quite small in comparison to the largest on record. At maximum, they can grow to the size of small cars. And like all the animals in this zoo, which I find remarkably amazing, these animals are rescues too.   

If you didn’t know already, my father is Ecuadorian and his wife Mathi is French. Not an everyday pair as you can assume with me. Its rare then that we ran into another couple that day at the zoo, albeit in opposite. The husband is a French man and his wife Ecuadorian; she carried their three year old daughter in her arms and we talked at great length throughout the day, commenting on the changes happening in each country, and world politics.   

In Japan they eat bento boxes of onigiri and tea, in America we like to eat hotdogs at baseball games, and in Ecuador we eat choclo (corn) with tomato salad, fresco (cheese) with hot white sauce. 

Many people take issue with zoos. They say that animals ought to not be locked away for our enjoyment. And I can understand that argument, as I can any vegetarian’s argument for why we should not eat other animals. But as I said above, these are themes counter to the bright celebration of a young girl’s six year old birthday party; so I kept them to myself.

Zoila feeding a curious goat like an adult.


Me riding a giant saber-tooth tiger like a child.

We came home after the zoo and made plenty of preparation. Balloons were inflated and taped to doorways, streamers thrown over and between the wooden support beans angled in the corners of rooms, cake and cupcake batter were whipped, poured and baked, bows were fluffed and presents hidden, guitar’s and violins where tuned in preparation to play the happy birthday song and all its variations.

The party begins! From the left its Tio George, mama Celia, my dad on the guitar, Emily on the violin, Tony looking up in wonder, Zoila with the crown surprised at everything. Out of the picture is Mathi, Gabi, and I, as well as the family of five living just next door.

Remember those strawberries we bought just the other day at the market? Being put to good use here and since. Chocolate strawberry cake? Yes!

 So what do you gift a young six year old girl? I think this question is harder than anything I was ever asked in college. Luckily for me, the Gabster was on the case and already cased an awesome teddy bear pajama set - and it came in pink. Perfect.

Presents where opened, more music, more cake, more laughing. The kids, hyped on sugar and the excitement of new toys fought for no reason, cried, cheered up, and fought again. Eventually, after cake and juice and toys, the kids, one by one, in order of age, got tired and moved upstairs to brush their teeth. We adults stayed awake a bit while longer than the kids, as seems to be the case, to finish our coffee and enjoy the uninterrupted time taken to talk and reflect on the days. 

-A

Ecuador Day 2: Grounding

Waking up shouldn’t be an unfamiliar event.

Assuming you do eventually fall asleep, most people naturally and without effort wake up in the morning, even if some of us don’t make it out of bed. And even if we wake up in a strange place, we still wake up. Walking up in a foreign bed, in an unknown room, is nothing new. But, for the first time in since longer than I can even remember, today I woke up to the calamity and rustle of three youngsters. Three children who live, as we all know, more to the tick-tock of their own internal impulses of hunger and curiosity than to the shared clock on the wall. Traitors.

The window I wake up to in the morning. It faces East with the early sun, a view I am used to and comfortable with. What throws me off balance are all the feral animals that live below my second story abode. Dogs, cats, chickens, roosters and birds all call out early in the morning, Nature's morning alarm. The barking, chirping noise is not disturbing, just new compared to the quiet early mornings of the Japanese countryside.

The morning time came early for me as I was excited to start a new day in a new town. At breakfast already sat the jefe Galo and wife Mathilde, my grandmother Celia, and the youngest of the crew, little Antonio. He sat at the end of the table eating a breakfast of well minced vegetable sauce using a plastic tipped spoon. He is a bit shy and prefers to speak with his body more than use his words, I smiled at him as I walked in and he stopped for a moment to give me a thumbs-up.

Mathi is French, so naturally its Frenched pressed coffee in the morning. 

Eventually, one by one, we all awoke and took turns serving a breakfast that fit out mood. Coming straight out of Japan, I would normally skip the morning meal since I was already half way out the door and getting ready to teach classes. Just enough time for a cup of coffee until lunch. And you know, I never missed eating in the morning after that. A light lunch and dinner is more than enough. So, I poured some coffee and thought about a piece of fruit.

Fortunate for us, the massive outside yields plenty of bananas, oranges, tangerines, mandarins, and avocados to pick and enjoy. Avocados. We have a long history. In California I took them for granted. More protein than a steak dinner, and needless to say much healthier, despite the accompanying fat. And memories of Indonesian street corners ripe with juice vendors willing at a moment’s glance to whip up an avocado and chocolate milkshake for pennies on the dollar. But in Japan…in Japan it would stare up at me and I down at it under the cool sprinklers of the supermarket produce isle. Hours would pass, taunting me with its shriveled miniature body and high price. It was all gone.  

The first angle of the yard, the walkway is lined with manderine trees. Just around the bend we find four massive avacado trees and there's always something to harvest.

Here, just a few meters away from the breakfast table, I walkover and reach just over the height of my head and pull down a softball size, healthy, green, not too soft and not too hard avocado perfectly ready to eat with salt, hot sauce, or sliced into pieces and eaten with cheese and/or tomatoes.

Some time passed and eventually the house was alive again with music, the smell of meat on the grill, seconds of coffee, children running and the soft laughs that interrupted morning exchanges. Getting settles on some semblance of a plan for the day, we took the bus to the nearest town, Quinche, to explore the market.

From left to right, it's Zoila, you'res truely, and Emily; all taking the bus to the market, goofing off all the way.

Although it was Monday, and just after the weekend rush, Zoila, Emily, Gabi, Tio Gorge and I still found plenty of everything. Veggies, fruit, some earrings for the girls, snacks of corn and chorizo, fresh juice, and some surprise candles and presents for Zoila, who’s birthday is tomorrow. The town is indeed small, the roads are cobbled an unpaved. There are no McDonalds, no convenience stores, and no one has ever heard of a no-foam soy chai latte. 

Hungry? Always for chorizo, choclo, salsa, and ahi. Eat up, Ecuadorian street food is at the top of the game. 

In Japan, strawberries are very popular, the harvest season for the berries is even celebrated. Around that time you'll see all kinds of cakes, pastries, and desserts with the popular berry added. One thing though, they aint cheep. A basket of regular, normal strawberries of ten or so will run you five dollars. Do the math. Then, if you want to buy the good, large berries, expect to pay a lot more. Luckily for me in Ecuador these delicious red berries with their seeds on the outside cost close to nothing, we cleared half this man's inventory for just a dollar. 

The undisputed center of town. It's early in the week, but believe you won't find a place to sit or barely stand during the weekend market 

Getting back at a reasonable time, I wanted to eat a small lunch with the family and maybe go outside to take a small nap under the shade of one of the giant trees, and play with the dog Simba. I got to the first part, but the nap never came. The sun was out but it was not too hot, the wind was blowing, and all the chores were  

checked off; there was no reason why the neighboring three children wouldn’t come out to play in the yard with us.

Now let me say that I’ve graduate university and have my wits about me, and that I’ve don’t some dumb things I don’t regret, but today I made the monumental mistake. Somehow it didn’t seem like a bad idea that I was the only adult outside with six kids running around in the yard. Faster than a three-year-old begins to cry, I was somehow playing basketball, doing math and Spanish homework, playing referee, investigating into bushes, overseeing a drawing competition, breaking up fights, insinuating fights, climbing fences, walls, and play structures, filling up water balloons, and picking fruit for the sake of picking fruit, swinging kids around in turn, and somehow giving them all a turn on my shoulders. Time again sped up, as I was forgetting how to measure time by the clock on the wall.

I remember going upstairs after dinner to fetch my book with intentions of bringing it downstairs and putting a few chapters between conversations with the family. Intentions it seems, didn’t care so much about hospitality. Tiredness gripped me tight and I didn’t wake up until the next morning.

-A

Ecuador Day 1: Arrival

The trip itself was all a blur of moments over procedures.

A flight to South Korea, bouts with spicy kimchi plates, cat naps interrupted by emergency landing procedure reminders, day dreaming scenarios of what people would actually do in an emergency, sips of hot European coffee at a standing room bar punctuated by week old email responses and smiles from the Northlander barista, traveling “back” through relative time they say is easier.

I didn’t sleep. But to be fair, I had been working on that talent for the two days leading up to this trip, what with friends wishing me good bye and the combination of work and a school party, I felt fully prepared to take on the thirty-six hour commute to South America. I thought that if I wore myself out that I would sleep right through the discomfort of sitting down for ten hours at a time. But I didn’t sleep.

As it is, our plane arrived ahead of schedule. Seinfeld used to have a joke about arriving early by plane, that if the pilot has the power to push the jet and make it before schedule time, then why doesn’t it happen all the time – after all, it’s not like there are police handing out speeding tickets up there.

The security guards must have mistaken me somehow since when we landed and I collected my luggage off the carousel, they waved me through security. No big line, no reason why I should have been waived through, yet off I was waved to cut around the other slightly more obvious tourist and straight to the awaiting families and limo drivers, both holding up signs with names on them.

Little Emily was the first to see me, she ran forward with sign in hand across the airport hallway to where I had only just sat down to check my messages. She is my oldest youngest sister at nine-years old. Walking behind her came my only older sister, the Gabster.

We took quick taxi ride through the Ecuadorian countryside, humongous Ecuadorian flags of the nation and its capital directed the path out from the airport and into the tamed jungle for the small string of cars and aligning trees. The countryside itself is beautiful. Ritch green trees, flocks of wild birds, curvy mountains that make up the horizon, unfamiliar flora, it all looks so designed in arrangement. The country side is diverse as the greenest Japanese forest and yet not as littered with half drunken beer bottles and the ashes of burnt trash as Cambodia is.


Here sit Emily, Gabi, and I making our way through the country side and up the mountains. They tell me our cabin is high above a valley and from the top, we can look down like kings. I am happy to stay local and in the country side, I've seen what "modernization" does to capital cities and I fear that the Quito of yesteryear is littered with Forever 21's and Nike Pro shops about. But as we climb, I don't worry, I can smell the air and it doesn't smell of chicken nuggets.

Home is a cabin within a small residential area of about thirty or so homes, about a ten minute bus ride from the nearest town. We have a dog named Simba (can you guess that the kids named him?) and huge yard, enough room in the gust house to host another family and their three kids. Physically, the hand-made walls which are white with plaster and the exposed dark brown wooden beams that vertically support the house from room to room, and horizontally above our heads to support the second floor and roof, imbue the home immediately with signposts screaming pueblo design.

Home for now. Ahhh, it will have to do. 


Master of the house, Simba. It's so warming to see my family and break bread with them, so tell and listen to stories and pass jokes. Its something different though, something incomparable, to spending time with dogs. I know Simba picked up on my fidelity with canines because he is still following me around more than my little siblings, and we have communicate through barks and groans in the yard under the avocado tree.

And so by the time all the welcomes, how are you’s, and stories passed over the living room coffee table, the food that was prepared for the dinner meal since before my arrival was cold, and moon light beamed thought the wooden framed windows. There are 9 of us total, I slept that night better than I had all winter.

Love,
-A

The first sunset for me overlooking the cement fence in our yard, overlooking the valley and the mountains in the dark. 

Day 0: Osaka, Seoul, Amsterdam, Quito

Date and Time relatively unknown                                

I’m back.

Exactly, it’s been 15 weeks 6 days almost 10 hours since my last entry in to this digital conduit, this space which I say is for me to share with all of you. Excuse my delay, I've been hibernating. literally. 

Having just completed my full one year in Japan, I must say that the country is an unusually cold place for this coastal Californian. The weather there is tempered, not raising too fast or falling to quickly in a relative week. How unforgiving is Japan to some! Hot and humid in the summer months make kimono’s for the women standard, and baggy pants (if they are not themselves in kimono’s as well) for the men a must. At the other end of the year, the very dry, cold months harden this Golden State man's optimism. I can take the heat...the winter chill however, that's something else.

I believe it takes a true Californian to say, at a mere twenty-nine years of age, that this past winter was the first one experienced entirely and in all the would be splendor brought on by its initial cheer and welcome, to its ugly triumph over my trampled will weighing heavy under a heap of ugly snow. It was my first complete winter and I’ll never forget it. In the past, I’ve done the two weeks in Tahoe back in the States and visited my sister in Colorado during a snow storm; I’ve snowboarded down white mountain tops and rolled up snow men for snow ball target practice; I even joined in the young Thai kids who wore sweaters and beanies for their 15-degree “winter” month - but this was a my first complete winter and I'll never forget it.

I shouldn’t have to tell you that this winter was of a different sort. And not in a neat metaphorical or illustrative way. No. This winter was different plain and simple; it was f***ing cold. The whole season was a gradual decline and never “jumped” too far down the mercury reader in an instant. You know the old story of the frog and the boiling pot. So from shorts and shirts, we slowly moved to wearing grey wool socks and sweaters under jackets; the river water we swam in for a mid-afternoon diversions slowly began to be the primary reason to abandon it entirely. Cold beer gave way to drinking hot sake under indoor heaters and eventually it was possible to see your breath while inside. It was frosty windows and pure white snow cold - and it was wonderful.

Wonderful if you can agree that the grass is always going to be greener on the other side. But that grass is only greener because we have ignored our own yard. During the summer months, people love to complain how hot it is and how they wish it was cooler. Guess what they wish for during the winter? So rather than siding with what is never an option, I really enjoyed this winter despite the chapped lips and red nose. It felt that much better to open my home to wondering travelers in the cold, knowing that bite the wind brought with it at night. But don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see the trees and flowers bloom once again.

And they did, yesterday. The first day of the world famous Japanese cherry blossoms. I am indeed fortunate, as the first region to have blossoming sakura trees is my very own Kochi. I am fortunate because I had a day to spend under the trees drinking sake and eating bento boxes before committing myself to a thirty hour travel arrangement to Ecuador and the Galapagos islands. Osaka, Korea, Amsterdam, and now I thirty thousand feet in the air somewhere over the Atlantic west of Lisbon at 842 kilometers an hour.

The case is that I do truly intend to keep this blog up again for daily updates on all the adventures to come. And that’s not to say, at all, that from the ending of 2014 until now has been uneventful – heck no. There were parties to be had, birthdays, graduations, public holidays, Tosa city events, just plain old Tuesday nights, and I hesitate to even bring up the good times had in Cambodia commemorating the entry of the New Year without shaking my head.

Anyways, photos are soon to come, so keep an eye out even at this blog entry once I find a healthy wifi stream; I'm sure I'll come back over it again and post all the cool things that make me smile. Until then, grab a plate of BBQ quinine pig and I'll see you on the equatorial beach. 

Much love,

-A


UPDATE: Ok, as promised, here we are - some photos that made 2014 memorable.

Way back when, when I was just a kid on a bike moving from city to city, I played guest to this young man, Abdika. Then just a scrawny little kid from Bandung, 'dika spent his days hacking, writing computer code and reading tarot cards futures. Today he's a married man.   

Tosa city had its very own marathon, I found out one day while taking my weekend ride. That's one thing I don't understand about Japan still. This is a decent sized run with lots of participants and costumes even, yet there was hardly any advertising for it, and little promotion. As far as I can figure, events occur annually and we are just expected to know that they do. New events seldom form. 

Right, so, I live on the island of Shikoku which is famous for many a things. Perhaps one of its most alluring attractions are the 88 temples scattered throughout the island, which with its governing monk and each with different history. Traditionally, every Japanese, man and woman, ought to walk the 88 temples, praying at each one as they do. Walking the pilgrimage takes about two months and there is no rule that says you must complete the journey in one go. Some people ride bikes to all 88, some charter a bus. Yet however you go, its rare to find people making the trip in the winder. Mostly, only gaijin are seen walking through the snow. 

That's were Rodger comes in. And if you couldn't tell from our matching goatees, he's Spanish. I don't even remember the last time that I spoke Spanish for a whole day, so it was a real treat to host Rodger in my house. He's young, about 22 and is doing the pilgrimage (recently completed) because he wanted to doing something spiritual before, guess what, getting married. 

I also hosted a woman, from the Bay Area no less!, named Das. Unfortunately, I scrolled through my pictures and didn't find a picture of us at all. That's a shame because she was really awesome too, and we I laughed when I heard the word "hella" since its been ages since I've heard the term. Authentic. Now, Das was simply on a layover one day on Shikoku on her way to Korea where she lived and worked for five years. She heard about the pilgrimage and kept the idea in her back pocket until now, a last adventure to complete before heading back to the States.  

The reason I can come to Ecuador and visit my family for a whole month and a half is because school is out of session! Now, this is undeniably the biggest perk of being a teacher, paid summers off. Before I left however, there were many end of year ceremonies to be had. I didn't know what to expect, and I didn't feel deserving of it. It sounds corny, I know, but I was just doing my job. One school even said that they've never rehearsed a ceremony for an English teacher before. 

Gifts were exchanged, lots of bowing and arigoto-gozaimasu's ping-ponged back and forth, and lots and lots of photos where had. I wanted to post some here, but thought they asked me to keep the photos off the web, and I agree with that. In lieu of twenty-seven little Japanese kindergartners holding up the peace sing and shoving their way to the center of the frame next to me, I'll show you this: a thank you card decorated with portraits of yours truly through the eyes of five year olds.    

You know his name. Just under a year since we last saw each other, Go and I finally were able to reconnect. This time, I was to play host and I made sure that he would not forget one night in Tosa. 

When I picked him up form Kochi station, I was taken back from his route here. Most people, normal people, take the coastal route. But Go, being the adventuring spirit that he is, decided to take the mountain route. High elevation and probably very cold still, the path he choose was not the most comfortable. Often times however, it's the paths that are more challenging the yield the stronger memories and impressive stories. As is the case here. 

A quick dash home in a sprinkle of rain, a few brews and laughs later, and it was already way into the night.

Knowing that Go was on his way to my house for about a week and half, I decided to have a small party for his arrival. Really, any reason would be enough to call in friends to drink and eat at my house, but for Go I wanted to make sure we were stalked. This picture is actually from his phone, as he is not seen in the picture, so I am sure he has the memories to look back on one day. We did go out to a bar after this and stayed out late, but that's all I'll say about that here =)

Japan just wouldn't be the same without cycling. I am continually amazed by the beauty of the clouds and mountains and forests that I find wondering the countrysides. A year in and my jaw still hits the floor at times when I least expect it, wondering through a new town or over a river, its all just so fresh and calm. 

Besides its nature and wonder, however, Japan is still uniquely modern. Restaurants, libraries, cafes, museums, tech stores, and all sorts of conveniences make up the other half of Japan. its a special balance to keep between nature and industry, between tradition and modernity.  

I'll leave you with this, another night painting the town red. By comparison, you might think that my bar habits are a little much, but believe me when I say its all relative. The people in Tosa love, love, to drink. Men and women, old and young. I am not joking when I say I've seen grandmothers shut down bars. Its part of the charm here.

On my left is Brandon, a new teacher from Oklahoma and LSU fan. Only a mere two months in, he's settling in with the language and the culture. On my right is a married couple we met at the bar who we talked with all night. Its a tried and true method for leaning a language outside of the text book, what the Japanese call nomo-nication; a split of the English word "communication" and the Japanese nomo which of course means to drink. I love it here.


Ok, OK, that's it for now folks, I'll see you again soon.

Love,
-A