A Comedy of Errors: Transpacific Travel in Covid-19

 I kept a log. Yes, it really was that good.

Itinerary: Portland- Vancouver- Tokyo- Bangkok.

(Of note: Thailand recently dropped its extended quarantine requirement for travelers from specific countries who are fully vaccinated, present a negative PCR test at the airport, and pass another PCR on arrival with quarantine until test results are received. Qualifying for this quarantine exemption is not difficult, but it's a tad finicky and requires doing specific things in a certain order and applying for an immigration pass in advance. As long as you give yourself plenty of time to get things lined up, follow the directions to the letter, read all the fine print, actually email the consulate for help if need be, double-check your paperwork and carry hard copies of every possible document you could imagine needing, you'll be fine.)

Apparently not everyone read the fine print.

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Portland, OR (check-in counter)

4:00 am: A couple in front of me in the check in line was denied boarding for their flight home to Canada because they don’t have negative PCR test results. They went for a PCR at Walgreens on Friday OF THANKSGIVING WEEKEND and still haven’t gotten it back; they are rather upset the airline won’t let them on the flight.

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Vancouver, BC (behind security, secondary document check at the gate)

11:20 am: Some lady just got told she can’t board the plane to the Philippines because she doesn’t have the right paperwork. There are five Air Canada employees all over there with her going on 15 minutes now; apparently because she isn’t and has never been a national she can’t enter? I have no idea what Philippines regulations are these days

11:30 am: In the meantime another unrelated girl is over at the counter in hysterics literally being led away so she doesn’t collapse

11:40 am: They just escorted the Philippines lady out of the secure area, guess her paperwork didn’t check out after all (also the door alarm will not stop going off)

11:45 am: Oh boy they're about to turn down another guy for not having the correct Covid test paperwork. He has the cover letter but not the lab report

12:00 noon: Some other guy just realized the lab got his date of birth wrong on his Covid test results and the airline informed him his results are invalid

12:10: the panicking girl is back in inconsolable hysterics; two airline officials with her, apparently she’s been told she can’t get on the plane. They’re leading her back over to the bench again because she can’t hold herself up, an agent is stuck there consoling her instead of checking other peoples’ documents

12:20 pm: A guy apparently changed his arrival date to Bangkok without applying for a new Thailand Pass and now his Thailand Pass is invalid. They just told him he has to reapply. It’s a 5-7 day turnaround.

12:30 pm: a little lady is walking down the arrivals causeway above me in a yellow contact precautions suit and lab goggles

12:39 pm: Guy with the invalid immigration pass still seems to think he’s going to get on the plane

12:40 pm: announcement just went out that if your boarding pass hasn’t been signed by a gate agent, you’ll be denied boarding. Guy with the invalid Thailand Pass is slowly wandering away with his head down

12:45: someone else is angrily pushing a cart away from the gate agents and back toward security, looks like something wasn’t in order, I’m also confused why he needed a cart for a day pack but 🤷🏻‍♀️

12:50 pm: My boarding zone just got called; not gonna lie I’m a bit sad to leave this sitcom behind, there are still over 40 people in line to have documents checked

1:21 pm: girl who was in hysterics is on the plane, face is literally black with mascara. We’re supposed to leave in nine minutes; 100% not gonna happen this plane is still mostly empty and the seating chart was just about full. How many people are still in line out there??

1:30 pm: guy in the row in front of me says a lady was denied boarding because she didn’t even know what a PCR test was, let alone have one. Someone please tell me how she got through check-in and security

1:56 pm: Pilot just made an announcement that due to security checks we’re now leaving 35 minutes late; also anyone flying on to Kuala Lumpur needs to deplane because they’ll likely miss their connection (
I guess camping out in Japanese airports isn’t an option these days)

2:05 pm: hot damn we’re pushing back and I’ve got no fewer than five empty seats next to me

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Tokyo International Connections

5:25 pm: the airport is dead. Straight up dead. There are 15 flights on the departures board and a third of them are cancelled. You could roll a bowling ball down the entire concourse and not hit a single person. Everything is closed. They’re escorting us in groups by flight. So much for finding sushi; guess I won’t count on showers being open on my return trip in three weeks

5:50 pm: the guy behind me in line for document check spent $3000 this morning when he got to the Vancouver airport. Apparently he didn’t realize there was an airport change on his ticket (no inter-airport transfers in Japan right now). Then when he bought a second ticket it was on airlines that couldn’t transfer his luggage between flights… so he had to buy a third. He’s staying for six months though because he hates Canadian winters so worth it

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Bangkok International Arrivals

12:00 midnight: There’s a group of four people lounging on the floor above me in full-on white and blue hooded zip-up hazmat suits, N-95s and goggles. Can’t tell if they’re airport employees or what

Preliminary document checks, immigration and customs go as smoothly as I could have hoped for. Also find a moment to grab a sim card and data plan for the next three weeks; the nice man at the counter swaps it out and sets up my phone for me. $17 total for 20 days is so much nicer than $10/day on Verizon; god I forgot how much I miss data plans in SE Asia

12:20 am: the Arrivals Hall is a hot mess. Turns out the guys in hazmat suits are in fact part of a 40-or 50- person tour group, all wearing the same get-up, but they’ve all unzipped their suits and taken off their goggles in the packed arrivals hall so they’ve totally defeated the entire purpose, but walking around looking like a post-apocalyptic TV show with teddy bears hanging out of your powder pink carry-on is cool I guess

12:25 am: Hundreds of people milling around looking for a sign with their hotel’s name on it so they can catch their transfer. There is no sign for my hotel. I find a lady who tells me to hang tight, retrieves a list from who knows where. It’s my hotel; my name is not on the list. She takes photos of my confirmation and passport, writes my name in, juggles three other people with the same problem, eventually takes us outside and puts us in vans and I end up with a private minibus transfer. He sprays down my luggage before loading it; customer area is 100% separated from driver area by plastic partition

1:15 am: The van turns off the street to a mega testing station. A lady confirms the hotel with the driver, then comes around and hands me a vial to check my name. 100% definitely not my name. She takes a photo of my passport and returns five minutes later with a correctly-labeled vial. We drive around to the end of like 50 testing stalls, another lady comes to the van, hands me a rapid test to save for a week from today, sticks a swab up my nose to tickle my brain, and we’re on our way again

1:45 am: Quarantine hotel arrival and check-in. Get to my room, take off my mask for the first time in 32 hours. Shower and sweet, blessed sleep.

8:45 am: PCR test results are in, I’m a free bird.

Gray on Gray with Shades of Dark Green

For two golden hours on a mid-May evening, I chase the Canadian sunset northward. I leave behind clouds spread beneath me like fractured glass and enter a land of glowing snow-dusted ridges, jagged peaks, frozen lakes, ice fields, fjords and mist.

The town of Sitka nestles into Baranof Island’s eastern edge, where the Indian River twists out from dense, rugged mountains to meet the Pacific. Sitka itself consists of a main street, a Russian orthodox church, thousands of fishing boats and two seedy bars with smoke so thick you can barely see across the room, walls lined with decades of local history held in uniform faded photos. It’s a place where you walk into a gallery filed with thousands of chintzy souvenirs made in China, but when you turn to leave you nearly trip over the flimsy chest-high barrier set around a monster mammoth skull.

Sitka also happens to have one of the best-run raptor rehabilitation centers I’ve ever seen, product of a symbiotic relationship with tourism in the town. The center sits ten minutes’ walk beyond Totem Park, a wooded peninsula where totem poles from across the state stand tall amongst surrounding trees’ strong silhouettes. Amongst the park’s trails, soft brown trunks and roots create wild tangles across the forest floor, bordered by blankets of false lily of the valley’s broad, shining green leaves. Every so often, spruce and hemlock clear along the coast line, revealing views of Mt. Edgecombe’s near-perfect cone, snow-streaked slopes glinting under the midday sun as the tide recedes.

The boat, the National Geographic Sea Bird, is smaller than I expected. It resembles a toy next to the dock, dwarfed by the cable bridge linking Baranoff and Japonski islands. It barely clears the bright white clearance markers on the bridge’s columns, used by fishermen as reference in Alaska’s widely-fluctuating tides.

We leave under the eye of an eagle perched on the bridge’s tallest supports, head forward into the sound and spend the next four days exploring wild places. We follow Peril Straight northward from Sitka and swing west through smaller islands and inlets bordering open ocean before passing Glacier Bay en route to Haines, turning southward to Endicott arm and finally arriving into Juneau. Classic Southeast Alaskan rain casts the world in a soft light for the better part of our journey. Low clouds sink into valleys, wrapping ridges and blotting out mountain tops as they disappear above snow-streaked slopes. Bald eagles wing overhead and watch the world from treetop perches, almost as common here as crows in the city. 

In Pavlov Harbor, brown bears glistening silver on the shoulder and rump prowl the shoreline, turning stones and scraping barnacles as they feed after emerging from hibernation. Skunk cabbage sprouts from soft ground, bright yellow blossoms nibbled to stubby spirals by bears taking advantage of the natural laxative. The plant, although completely unrelated, attracts nocturnal pollinators by producing heat in the same method as Malaysia’s rafflesia flower in a beautiful example of convergent species. Tiny frogs, known as messengers between worlds as they move amongst land and water, hide in small rivulets amongst the harbor’s reedy bogs.

In Idaho Inlet, we step onto shore through slippery, matted seaweed and hike through marine meadow into rainforest, following bear trails so often trafficked they resemble human paths. We find places where bears has stepped in the same spot year after year, wearing depressions known as perennial footprints into the ground five inches deep. An eagle’s tail feather nestles into the sodden ground beneath a dead, forked tree. Tucked into the forest’s green underbelly, a narrow stream cascades down the hillside, singing across spongy ground. A short scramble brings us to a narrow lookout where we find old, half-buried bones, and a half hour later, hands and knees caked in soil, we’ve uncovered a brown bear’s jawbone and shattered skull, remnants of a final charge ended by a clip of bullets emptied straight between its eyes.

The Inian Islands rise as sentinels bordering open ocean. Gentle rain softens their jagged edges, transforming imposing stone towers to layered gray as they fade into the distance beyond deep turquoise water filled with twisting green kelp. We wind around the coast in zodiacs, stopping to watch a humpback whale surface 30 meters ahead of us, revealing its fluke as it turns downward to feed. We pass sea lion bachelor pads on our way to narrower channels where the currents rush with the incoming tide. We pause in the midst of a feeding frenzy while sea lions patrol the waters, surfacing with skates and halibut in their mouths, thrashing to break them into edible chunks. Gulls float in the wind by the thousands, diving to scavenge scraps while otters tuck themselves out of the way, wrapped snug in bull kelp.

In Glacier Bay National Park, light breaks and glances off the water in a blinding wash as orcas hunt in front of our ship, dorsal fins slicing forward. Coastal brown bears prowl grassy shorelines behind muddy tidal flats, and the breeze catches light green lichen hung thick from trees. We plunge headlong into a geological time warp as we make our way northward, slipping up sheer, glossy fjords. Polished gray walls cut by smooth, steep valleys tower thousands of feet overhead, and water streams down thousand-meter cliffs in slender, silvery ribbons.

We dock in Haines for a day. I make good use of the morning dodging moose poop as I climb three miles of trail and roots sheathed in water up Mt. Riley’s flank. A bog crossed by means of a narrow, tippy boardwalk sits just under the mountain’s summit, which happens to be completely, classically socked in. The hike reminds me distinctly and fondly of Tasmania… minus all the stuff that wants to kill you.

That afternoon I climb into a tiny plane, which floats into the sky, following the fjord’s clean line forward before twisting over snaking glaciers cut by dark moraines, deep fissures cresting and yawning blue beneath us. A hanging glacier shears abruptly above a deep, cavernous bowl, water spouting from beneath the ice, plunging over the edge to converge a thousand feet below before continuing its journey downward. Mountain goats perch on black walls high above the ice, munching mouthfuls of grass as clouds skim their heads. As we turn back to wing over another ice field, the pilot points out bands of bare rock separating the ice and tree line: telltale sign the local glaciers are receding in thickness as well as length.

Below us, the fjord’s waters spread in a kaleidoscope of icy blue, cool turquoise and deep brown, denoting individual waters’ sources as glacial outpourings find their way into the sea and converge, carrying silt so fine it remains at the water’s surface miles into its journey.

We spend our last day in Endicott Arm, nudging up to small ice bergs by kayak in the morning before continuing up to where the long, broad, twisting fjord ends in Dawes’ Glacier’s 250-foot wall of teetering, fractured ice. The boat picks its way through a frozen labyrinth as we approach the glacier, passing the occasional harbor seal sprawled on a flat ice berg. Rare translucent icebergs the color of blue curacao, indicative of hundreds of years of pressure squeezing the last traces of air from the ice, shimmer like glass as they glow in the afternoon light.

The glacier itself is so expansive it distorts perception: ice appearing to be within arm’s reach turns out to be miles from the boat. We load zodiacs and leave the ship behind to approach, finding ourselves surrounded by a film of floating ice amidst the deafening hiss and crackle of long-compressed air releasing from its icy prison. Sharp cracks split the air as blocks of ice hundreds of feet tall calve from the glacier, plunging into the ocean in what the locals refer to as “white thunder.” Churning water crashes outward against the fjord’s walls and waves push forward, sending ice bergs into lazy rolls.

We begin returning northward toward Juneau that evening, and I duck into the bridge after dinner to watch the world pass. The bridge is quiet at night. It provides a refuge of sorts from cold, wind, and rain, and from the closeness of a boat full of people, as twilight lingers. Dimmed lights turn the evening to a world of red, monitors and sensors’ readouts in constant flux above the paper maps spread across the counter.

Sometime later a pod of Dahls porpoises makes an appearance as we cross Stephens Passage, darting in and out from beneath the bow as they ride the vessel’s forward pressure, white flank patches flashing and tails throwing up sharp oval circles of foam as they break the surface. The porpoises remain with the boat until after I’ve found my way back into my cabin for one last night, and when I wake, we’ve arrived in Juneau.

City of Living History

Kyoto sprawls outward from the central train station in a stark contrast of modernity layered onto ancient foundations of architecture, culture and art. Dense webs of powerlines sprawl over narrow streets where shopfronts overflow with traditional craft in a dangerous sort of heaven. In one storefront near our hotel, women sew finishing touches into bamboo blinds, twisted ever so slightly to work delicate zig zag patterns into the screens. In another shop, column upon column of drawers filled with rice paper line the walls. Some bear designs based on wood-block prints, some are simple origami, some patterned for tea canisters, some screen-printed and others high-quality calligraphy paper.

We wander down a busy main street lit by little lanterns and find 400-year-old shops selling ferushkis­­– traditional carry cloths, with designs ranging from old, to modern meditative, to cats. Lots and lots of cats. We find a small shop selling hand-carved hair ornaments, lacquered and layered in wood and abalone. Further down the street, a man carries forward his father’s traditional craft of creating lamps and lighting fixtures from bent bamboo and paper.

One block north of Shijo Dori, a narrow covered lane brims with busy energy under a red and green and yellow-stained ceiling. Nishiki Dori, the city's market for pretty much anything in the world food-related, bursts with stalls selling specialty items. Green tea bracken rice cakes pile high on plates next to stores dedicated to chopstick rests. A little boy pulls his mom toward candied octopus on a stick. Packaged tins of sweets line walls, pickled cucumbers smothered in sake blanket bamboo display counters and oysters are fried over coals in their own shells. Shining glass cases display cuts of fish, sliced into sashimi only after a patron has discussed in length and paid for each specific piece.

We turn into the Gion after dusk, finding our way down dark, twisting alleys. Round, red lanterns and totems crafted from rice paper and twisted straw guard doors shielded by norin­– vertically split fabric drapes. Long, slender shades obscure upper windows. Small women in bright kimono, faces painted white and hair arranged just so, scurry amongst the alleys before disappearing into houses. Sleek, dark cars and dark-suited businessmen own the streets. From a corner building the sound of raucous laughter leaks into the night as hostesses fawn over patrons in the district’s more modern version of a gentleman’s club.

We step off the train the next morning across the street from Fushimi Inari, where twisting flights of light gray stone stairs lead ever upward through thousands upon thousands of iconic orange tori gates. The gates, marked by size and inscription to signify monetary donations given to the shrine, create tunnels of orange as they wind to the top of the mountain after passing an initial monster of a shrine. As the path rises, tori gates give way to smaller family shrines tucked into the woodland to the side, each guarded by stone or porcelain foxes. As the sun breaks, morning light begins streaming between the gates. Light catches mist as it rises from the mountain’s surface, and we find our way back to the train through the day’s arriving crowds.

We continue on to Osaka, where I break off with my uncle to search out the tiniest of specialty ceramic brush shops tucked into the side of a small back street. Between a stroll over a bridge that reminds me a bit of Chicago, and Edo translating the gentle man’s explanations and demonstrations of his wares, we manage to fit in some conversation to catch up over the last ten years. The slightly stilted awkwardness we encountered during my arrival to Tokyo vanishes by the time we rejoin the rest of my family. For me, that in itself makes the trip back across the ocean worth it.

We find our way into the Bunraku. The age-old art, for which apprenticeship begins no later than 15 years of age, gives an otherworldly essence to puppetry through subtle movement and synchronized breathing amongst multiple puppetmasters, achieved through decades upon decades of training. Black-robed puppetmasters breathe life into the characters they control, dancing and bowing and spinning and fighting into fantastical scenes borne of legend and lore, emotion made electric with the aid of singing narrators and three-stringed guitars stretched tight with cat skin. Over the course of an afternoon we find ourselves party to tragedies, dances, and mortal fights, souls drawn into the sagas of demons and warriors; princesses and housewives; maidens and bumbling priests.

We eat that evening at a little restaurant where hundreds upon hundreds of dishes stack high against the wall behind a sushi-style bar. The round-faced hostess talks us through the evening’s options, piled high in deep round bowls atop the long, slender counter. “Octopus?” she asks. “Duck in dumpling?” Make us a meal, we tell her, once she figures out what we can (and can’t) eat. Under the cheerful chefs’ watchful gazes– and emphatic corrections when we begin to eat the food wrong– we feast.

We find our way into the maze of Kiomizudera’s preserved hillside neighborhood the next morning, joined by half the world’s people plus another dozen as we amble up a twisting street toward the temple’s towering orange pagoda. We find a small indigo shop tucked to the side, where a soft-spoken gentleman talks us through his craft: this was made with paper cut-out resist, this was dyed with persimmon, this was dipped time and time again into the indigo vats to create subtle gradients from deep, soul-snaring midnight blue to blinding white. Further up the road, layered beneath chintzy tourist fans and sandals and beach towels, we find traditional Japanese purses and kitchen craft next to shops full of designer umbrellas.

From the pagoda’s panoramic view of Kyoto city, situated beneath hills now blazing red in full autumn foliage, we descend into a neighborhood where golden cranes take flight from pagoda towers, rising above dark-tiled roofs tight-packed in an ancient jigsaw puzzle. The street spits us out into a wide courtyard containing a shrine where row upon row of oversized white paper lanterns creak as they sway in tandem under the day’s crisp breeze. Booths lining the exit hawk crispy, scorching taiyaki—grilled fish-shaped doughnuts filled with sweet bean paste.

That evening we manage to track down a shop called Zohiko, a kind of marriage between showroom and museum for the most beautiful of laquerware. I lose myself for a time in a world of black and red ink, gold leaf and dust, abalone and wood inlay. I find plates and trays, calligraphy boxes and tea jars and hair combs. I step into scenes of cherry trees and mountain journeys, free-flying birds, blooming irises, gentle seas and wandering warriors.

We spend our last morning in Kyoto at the the Buddhist temple of Kinkaku-ji, where a gleaming, three-story golden pavilion rises over a broad pond’s still, glossy water. Even under opaque cloud, the pavilion glows. Bright violet irises emerge tall from the pond and thousands upon thousands of crisp, miniature crimson maple leaves contrast against pine trees’ deep gentle green as we make our way through the temple’s surrounding gardens. 

Before leaving the city for Tokyo, we stop at an indigo shop tucked into an unobtrusive street in a quiet neighborhood. Inside, a quiet man dressed in deep blue robes oversees the dying process while his wife, clothed in a sleek black dress and showy pearls, designs clothing from his fabric that often ends up in national museums. Their shopfront brims with silk and cotton scarves, handbags and shirts, meticulously woven from dyed threads and lined with antique cloth.

The man leads us to the back of his workshop, where chest-high vats hold a mixture of deep blue dye with added limestone to aid the curing process. “Sometimes we dip fabric 100 times for the deep color,” he tells us. Later, sat on broad tatami mats inside his “museum,” he holds a flame to a small patch of dark cloth. The cloth slowly curls into itself and disappears under the flame’s touch, leaving indigo behind in the clay dish. “Indigo never burns,” he notes. His dye-stained hands hold out a heavy antique firefighter’s robe, made of hand-stitched cotton and dyed so deep a blue as to be almost black. This one, he says, took over a year to complete.

And so we say good bye to Kyoto and return northward. We spend two last days perusing streets jammed with and fabric stores and eating noodle soup at corner shops where white-capped chefs toss dough into long, slender strings by the meter behind broad windows. I find an entire wall of vegetable-shaped vibrators in a discount electronics store. We do some shopping and cram our faces with scorching fish pastries and green tea slushies. I find a couple of Daruma Dolls (the meditating man who sat so long in one place his arms fell off; used in modern days as a reminder of perseverance) and tuck them into my bags.

That evening, for the last time in three years, I step onto a plane to cross the Pacific.

Sidesteps Through Centuries

JAPAN: where people are so polite, department stores "advise care" on the escalator if pushing a stroller or in a wheel chair, and a jaunty version of “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad” plays as trains approach the station. Where humans line up in single-file lines and chefs leave the kitchen to see you off from their restaurant after you eat.

Speaking of which. I eat more whacked out food during my first week in Japan than any other place I ventured the last three years… save maybe Vietnam. (because, you know, fresh beer-fried squid, snails smothered in hot sauce, dog stew, honey bee rice wine and horse carpaccio). We eat little pearly striped fried fishies whole. Since fall is the season of gingko nuts and mushrooms, we chow on dainty tempura (apparently less batter means better food, because it doesn’t fill you up as fast). Somehow, fermented beans that look (and act) like they’re held together with slug slime make it onto my plate. Also: tempura baby sardine balls. Also: beans and yams and mushrooms and rice balls for days and days. Mall food happens to consist of seared tuna so tender it almost falls apart like butter as it makes the journey from plate to mouth.

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The Shinkansen whips forth beneath the mountains north of Hiroshima so fast I barely glimpse the countryside between tunnels as we head toward Hagi, nestled beneath a peninsular hill from which a castle once watched over the passage from the Korean Peninsula. Neat streets lined with old, traditional houses fill the town. Quiet, vibrant gardens wrap light and airy mansions constructed of rice paper and bamboo. Family-run pottery shops line the town’s main streets, brimming with wares coated in thick, clinging white glaze created for centuries by adding the ash of rice husks.

Somewhere along the way we find our way into a soba noodle restaurant run by a reserved, cheerful old woman in a traditional country house. Old wooden walls display antique framed newspaper clippings about the artists whose work she utilizes to serve our meals. The unassuming woman becomes effusive and animated as she lays food in front of us and explains the history of each soup and noodle and sauce dish on our trays: this was made by the twelfth generation; that man was designated a national treasure but died before he could accept the award.

We leave behind orderly mayhem strewn across the table. Seriously, doing dishes in Japan is a nightmare and a half that I never, ever want to experience.

We leave behind Hagi’s quiet for Okayama’s metropolis: centered amongst a myriad of smaller outlying towns, the city serves as home base for the next few days. Okayama itself, filled with orange trains and trams from which cheery cats wave to the crowds, cradles a sprawling garden where herons preen amongst miniature pavilions and koi fish cruise broad ponds beneath arcing wood bridges, begging for pellets from young children in pink fleeces and black leggings plastered in bright red hearts. Small, dense bamboo forests shade lily-covered ponds and narrow wooden planks cross creeks in geometric, zigzagging footbridges. Five minutes’ walk from the garden’s sheltered serenity, a black castle blazes in the sun, protected by heavy iron gates and smooth stone walls rising above the river’s curve.

An hour’s train ride from Okayama, deep green mountains cradle the small town of Imbe, marked by winding roads and a single, old-style telephone booth. The town carries forth the area’s own ancient form of pottery, for which families mine clay from beneath rice paddies and store it for future generations. Pots are formed without glaze: color blossoms over a once-yearly, 13-day firing period as flames and heat interact with ash and rice straw in the expanse of a mud and brick kiln.

On our way home that evening we make a side trip to Osafune, where smiths carry forward the ancient art of swordsmithing with old-style forges and tools, creating weapons over several months’ span. A soft spoken gentleman shows us around a room filled with old swords, pointing out how styles and workmanship changed through centuries. He points out a 14^th-century sword paid with 2,000 kg of silver, then leads us through a myriad of rooms filled with the means to craft blade and hilt and guard and sheath. While most craftsmen are home for the holiday, a lone artisan in blue robes crouches in a window workshop, sharpening a blade in the afternoon sun’s rays.

Himeji castle, an hour’s ride in the other direction, soars in seven stories of blazing white serenity above the “castle town’s” chaotic hustle, framed perfectly amongst high rises from the local train station’s exit. Twisting paths lead from a broad lawn past tiered, tapering stone walls, through heavy gates and heavier dark metal doors. We climb steep wooden staircases with oversized rails polished by hundreds of years of use. We wind upward through seven sturdy, airy stories supported centrally by twin cedar pillars, carried down from the mountains and erected centuries past. From our top-floor lookout, we peer down over the city and surrounding mountains.

We pass our last day in the Okayama region in the town of Kurashiki, where ornate black-tiled roofs top delicate wood shophouses and handicraft shops and old ryokans and whitewashed storage buildings. Inside the preserved historical district, narrow, winding streets twist along the base of a small verdant hill topped with a shrine. Swans cruise a narrow canal under gold and orange fall foliage, glinting under crisp morning sun along the main street. Confectionaries sell fresh sesame doughnuts and crepe-wrapped chestnut jelly. Persimmons hang from strings to dry in the sun. Ivy blankets old brick buildings situated next to archaic telephone booths and post boxes. And there just happens to be a town-wide fetish of denim. Absolutely. Everywhere.

The quiet fishing island of Naoshima has in recent years become an oasis for modern art, reinstilling vitality into a once-failing economy. The window of my room in a small, traditional guesthouse near the sea looks over a jigsaw puzzle of roof upon roof sheltered by dark, swooping tile. We wander the village for an afternoon, stepping into select houses transformed into art installations. We find LED lights blinking from the bottom of a shallow indoor reflecting pond and delicate roses carved and painted from wood. We walk into a house to be surrounded by waterfalls cascading from ceiling to floor, meeting their reflection in the polished dark wood beneath our feet. We venture into narrow tunnels beneath a delicate shrine constructed of glass and light wood, surrounded by smooth, pale stones. And we feel our way into a room void of light and wait as dancing lights appear like flame over a white screen as it materializes from the abyss in the distance. Eventually we stand and walk forward, reaching out to touch the screen only to have our hands pass through soft white mist.

We catch a ferry to the neighboring island of Teshima the next day, stopping into a quiet coffee shop lined with books and homemade scones and cozy arm chairs before exploring the town (because for a Westerner in “rural” Japan, coffee is a commodity to be sought and cherished). We find our way to an old house and silo filled with illusions and color manipulation, where deep red glass hides a courtyard where koi cruise a small creek surrounded by vibrant stones. Inside the silo we find infinity mirrors overhead and below our feet, reflecting walls pasted with thousands of vintage post cards.

That afternoon, we catch a bus upwards to a hill overlooking the sea above golden rice paddies, arriving at quite possibly the only abstract art installation I’ve ever truly connected with. We walk into a broad, low, whitewashed oblong disc half-buried in the ground above a natural spring. Water creeps and seeps up through miniscule fractures in the concrete beneath me to bead on the floor, eventually gaining enough mass to snake its way forward over the hydrophobic surface and drain with the cheerful echoing ring of a softly flowing brook. I hear people whisper in my ear as acoustics amplify soft conversation across the “hall.” Broad, circular cut outs from the roof reveal forested ridgelines below gray skies. Closer in, I catch glimpses of trees where rustling branches betray wildlife. Delicate white ribbons anchored to the ceiling in upturned crescents sway in the gentle breeze.

Eventually we find our way back to Naoshima’s onsen, soaking under the watchful gaze of a full-size elephant and stained-glass windows and mosaic sea creatures. The next morning we catch a ferry back to the mainland, find a blessing of a coffee shop near the train station, and turn our journey northward.

Back to the Big City

Street names don’t exist in the Tokyo neighborhood where my uncle lives, so I spend my first five minutes on the ground in Japan listening as he gives my taxi driver directions over speaker phone. Apparently local addresses consist of three numbers, designating district, block and building by chronology of construction rather than geography. Before google maps, each district’s police house was a visitor’s best friend.

In any case. I’ve sat my butt on a trans-pacific flight exactly one month after returning to the states because for all that talk about going home through Japan I never actually managed to make it, and a long-overdue family visit is in order. And so I find myself wandering Tokyo for the first time in twenty years, surrounded by 13 million of the politest people I’ve ever met. Somehow, amongst the narrow twisting side streets and messy spider webs of power lines and hoards of old-style multicolored taxis and the CBD’s glass high rises, Tokyo still feels more open than the majority of large cities I’ve experienced.

The subway proves altogether a different matter. Not including inter-city and Shinkansen (bullet) trains, Tokyo’s train system consists of hundreds of subway stops spanning dozens of lines. Quite frankly, it makes Hong Kong’s mass transit resemble a kindergarten playground.

Tokyo station proves a literal underground metropolis, teeming and bustling with so many people I lose hallway walls through a sea of black suits and roller bags and designer coats and heels. Even so, the station somehow maintains a sense of organization through all the crazy; probably something to do with the fact that people line up in tidy queues– inside the lines, one person directly behind the next– and No one. Ever. Runs.

On our first day in Japan we duck beneath dark gates hung with gargantuan red lanterns into the Asakusa district, finding our way amongst narrow shop rows and brightly painted garage doors to the country’s oldest Shinto shrine. We bypass chintzy, mass-produced stuff adorning shop windows to where back walls hide bolts of hand embroidered and painted and dyed silk, laying out sprays of flowers and floating maple leaves and bustling village life in $2000 bolts of kimono cloth.

On our second day, we crash a wedding.

Thousands upon thousands of umbrellas cram the sidewalks of Tokyo’s glitziest, most expensive neighborhood as teeming crowds go about daily business in front of futuristic window displays, mirroring a movie scene come to life. Literally across the street, a monster of a torii gate constructed of dark wood leads into a 150-year old, untouched native forest, trees’ sprawling branches spreading serenity over the Meji Shrine’s approach. As we navigate the shrine’s broad path, we pass family upon family celebrating well-being and growth, escorting small children wearing full kimono for the first time in their lives.

We manage to reach the shrine itself just as a wedding procession exits one of the side buildings, a wide crimson umbrella sheltering the hooded bride in a pure white kimono. As the ceremony wraps, the shrine’s courtyard fills with women in ceremonial finest, hiding from the day’s drizzle under plastic umbrellas with shiny rolley bags in tow.

The next morning, low, powerful rain pounds the city as the edge of a late-season typhoon makes itself known, clouds wrapping high rises to obscure their upper levels. The sun breaks as we head south to Hiroshima via Shinkansen, illuminating dense bamboo forests that give the hills a soft, springy appearance.

We find our way that evening past the city’s streetcars into a little restaurant where a chef wields double metal spatulas over a broad steel grill, working soba noodles, fish flakes, cabbage, eggs and all manner of sauces and spices into a multilayer pancake. To one end of the counter we meet an absolute legend of a gentleman who helps us to order dinner before utilizing his beer and ash tray to map out the Hiroshima Peace Park.

These days, Hiroshima proves a modern, lively metropolis. We spend a day exploring the city, finding our way through a reconstructed castle and gardens centered around a pond filled with monster koi who beg for food. Apparently it’s prime wedding season, because a photo shoot is in full swing as a bride is dressed beneath a pavilion at the water’s edge and photographers wearing full makeup belts attend couples scattered through the gardens, adjusting every fold of the kimono and angle of the arm before each frame is taken.

Eventually in the afternoon we arrive at the skeleton of the A Bomb Dome, preserved on the river’s edge. Once the lone building left standing over obliteration at the epicenter, the dome now nestles amongst the high rises of a prospering city. As I stand to the side, a small, frail old man in a suit approaches a simple, imposing stone erected in front of the building, shaded by broad maples. He sets his hat down to the side, hobbles carefully up the low steps, lays down his light brown cane, claps and bows. Then he retrieves his belongings and continues on his way.

The next day we arrive by tram, train, and ferry to Miyajima. A towering vermillion torii gate stands strong amongst the high tide’s waters, historically serving as a gateway from the inland sea to the island of the gods. Legend has it the gate, unsupported except by its own twisted camphor legs, has never fallen. By low tide waters retreat from the gate and shrine to which it provides passage, exposing shellfish to be harvested as a softly flowing creek emerges from a natural spring amongst the shrine’s walkways. The shrine itself rises above the water on hundreds of wooden pillars, fit together through simple, precise geometry to avoid the rust that would otherwise accompany nails.

Crimson maple leaves scatter amongst deep green as we catch a tram into the island’s heights in the early afternoon. A short hike brings us to a lookout from the Miyajima’s highest peak, from which we look down over forested granite cliffs and across the narrow inland sea to Hiroshima Prefecture’s winding, mountainous coastline, accompanied dozens of tinier scattered islands. We return to the island’s edge as water rushes into the inlet, in time to watch the torii gate glow crimson-gold under the afternoon’s last light.

We find Halloween in full chaos as we return to the city: I’m fairly sure trick or treating doesn’t exist here, but probably half the population under the age of 30 has shown up to the central arcade in disguise. It’s the most interesting gathering of costumed human beings I’ve ever encountered: like people long to show individuality and express themselves, but at the same time they desperately need the comfort of belonging… so they show up in packs. I’m surrounded by zombies. Zombie brides, zombie convicts, zombie goth girls… if the apocalypse happens, Imma sit my butt on the exact opposite side of the world from Japan. The rest of the hall teems with convicts and SWAT officers and Disney princesses, while a posse of male strippers and a dozen Dalmatians also make appearances.

We leave behind the arcade’s commotion for a tiny sushi restaurant that puts anything I’ve ever eaten in the states to shame, and then we find our way home.

The Art of Bullshitting With Confidence

In October of 2014 my friend Ransom posted a link to a rather obscure and exotic job opening on my Facebook, which I promptly ignored. He sent it my way again, and on New Year's Eve of that year I stepped onto a plane. 

I emerged in Vietnam on January 2nd. I was a bit nervous. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I expected to be home a year and change later. Instead I found myself on a fluid, somewhat haphazard, three-year journey spanning eleven countries, three jobs, and more crazy adventures than I ever could have imagined. I've met some of the kindest, most inspirational, compassionate people I could have hoped for and experienced places I never knew existed. 

In the last three years I've ventured solo into blizzards and marshes and mountains. I’ve explored coral castles and driven alongside cassowaries, bathed in desert waterholes and picked my way along ancient, spiny ridges. I've dived with sea snakes and mantas and seals and dragons. I’ve guided rock climbing on tropical beaches and kayaking in secret tunnels and lagoons. I’ve mentored teenagers through their first backpacking experience, taught kids how to chop vegetables and treated stupid scary snakebites. I’ve wandered architectural time warps, slept in remote hilltop villages, wandered endless rice paddies and nestled into the outback’s rusty expanse under the full moon’s silver sheen. I’ve gotten lost in ancient temples and futuristic gardens, and stared into active volcanoes as the ground shook beneath my feet. I've picked my way through endless spiny desert spinifex and found vibrant pitcher plants at high altitude. I’ve sat on the beach as penguins returned home from the seas, watched langurs feed from kayaks, passed orangutans and sun bears from sky walks, and listened to wombats masticating grass as they circled my tent.

I’ve traveled by plane, train, bus, motorbike, ferry, cruise, car, truck, tuk tuk, canoe, kayak, raft, speedboat, junk boat, van, basket boat, tender boat and taxi. I’ve hiked rivers, lakes, coastlines, water holes, straights and dams. I’ve wandered mountains, gorges and ridgelines; camped in the jungle, the desert and the alpine.

I’ve been embraced by the most kind and welcoming of souls, guided and mentored in finding my way through new countries and cultures with words of quiet strength and intelligence. I’ve been given lessons in grace from Australian cliffside caves and been looked after by Indonesian families with whom I could barely communicate. I’ve learned massage from blind men, been coached by colleagues in the art of driving a manual transmission and been trusted by roommates to teach them how to swim. I’ve learned customs and traditions and beliefs from aboriginal elders, gotten smashed off shots of rice wine with Vietnamese boat crews and binged on fried noodles and iced tea at Thai climber’s hostels. I’ve traded stories with strangers as we held each others’ ropes and lives in our hands, time and country and time and country again.

I've met and put blind trust into more people than I can count. Sometimes it's blown up in my face. More often than not, it's given me steadfast friendships with incredible people.

For all the joys and triumphs, there have been lows and tears and frustrations. Computers crashed, gear destroyed, cars broken down, driver's licenses lost, culture shock, getting news of family engaged and friends dying from the other side of the world. Missing graduations and weddings. Getting sick with no close friends or family nearby. Watching from afar as childhood playgrounds went up in flames. Being left abandoned on the street side, unable to communicate. Men who overstepped their bounds. Men whose culture simply didn't give them bounds. Men who were just plain creepy. (Seriously, a fake wedding ring is the best armor I could ever ask for.) Lack of steady friendships and companions.

I've been judged and dismissed and told that I'm ruining the world based solely on my nationality. I've been shown Nazi salutes. I've received anti-Semitic remarks from friends– people who simply didn’t recognize the implication or impact of their words.

I’ve worried under the uncertainty and loneliness that come with moving to a completely new place and setting my feet on the ground to start from dead scratch. I’ve cried over the stress and insecurity accompanying fickle jobs, despite how much fun they bring.

Travelling solo has been a blessing and a curse, as it were. All too often I encountered the explicit experience of feeling totally alone in the world, even when surrounded by coworkers and and friends and truly good people: a feeling drawn from the absence of shared innate culture and understanding amongst the people with whom I grew up. I also grew familiar with a profound sense of loneliness following the phenomenon of crossing paths with someone in whom I found some spark of a connection—of camaraderie or shared curiosity— before work or obligation or opportunity pulled a person forward, ripping us apart all too soon, leaving that looming “what if” hanging forever in the air behind us.

At the same time, travelling solo allowed me to find my own way: to follow opportunities that came my direction, change plans on a whim and seek places that truly beckoned and fascinated me. I met people I would have passed in the street, started conversations on chilly pre-sunrise mountainsides, shared meals in backcountry huts and gained new climbing partners.

I’ve been looking after myself abroad for three years now. Somewhere along the way, I transitioned from bullshitting with outward confidence to successfully navigating the world of solo travel and foreign work visas. I've maintained relevant resumes. I've worked with, interacted with, and negotiated with people whose language I don’t speak and whose culture I don’t understand. I’ve led groups, developed curriculum, and implemented safety protocols as a foreigner amongst local students and teachers. I've looked after myself and held my own when miscommunication resulted in circumstances I did not expect. I’ve come to know my strengths and weaknesses and understand how they fit together as a whole. I’ve built and strengthened and mended relationships and watched others implode. I've learned so much about standing up for myself, conflict resolution, clear and open communication, the meaning of commitment, asking the right questions, and knowing when walking away may be the best choice.

After one absolutely outrageous week in May (involving no less than exploding backpacks, stolen food and tents, bat shit crazy teachers, allergic reactions, puking, injured shoulders and symptoms of appendicitis), my supervisor offered one of the greatest pieces of advice I’ve ever been gifted: 

As in most areas of life, we are judged rightly or wrongly by perception as much as by reality.

This odd adventure did not end how I expected it to; I flew home on short notice. In my first moment of familiarity I woke just as my plane crossed northward into Oregon, in time to count snow-covered volcanos and gaze down on Portland through scattered clouds on the most beautiful of late summer days.

Aptly enough I arrived home in the middle of High Holidays, in time to dig out a cold-weather dress or two and attend Yom Kippur services amongst the congregation with whom I grew up. These are the days in which we most deeply reflect on our relationships, our actions and reactions. Yom Kippur, in its simplest sense, signals a re-set and a place from which to move forward and start anew.  

Despite my journey's bittersweet and unexpected conclusion, I couldn’t be happier to be back amongst the comfort of familiar people and food and smells. It's time to be home for a while: to drive on the right side of the road, eat real fish tacos and climb at Smith Rock and grab handfuls of Andes mints off the bar at Roadside Attraction and cuddle with my dog and breathe the sweet scent of temperate forest after light rain.

To everyone who's touched my journey and offered friendship, or advice, or support, or a random ride, or taught me things, or pointed me in one way or another: You probably know who you are. (Maybe you don’t.) There are too many of you to name. I'm so happy and grateful to have had you in my life, even for a fleeting moment. Give a shout when you come my direction, and let's cross paths again.

And Ransom: for serious... thanks for being the catalyst.

Rock Bottom

It all started with an outrageously manipulative Dutch boy in Borneo. In less than three weeks, respiratory infections, delayed flights, miscommunications, forest fires, objectification, swasticas, loneliness, shit air quality, personal space, twisted accusations and the monsoon got involved.

At 12:15 AM on Sunday, September 17^th, following such a plethora of factors coming from so many directions I couldn’t keep track if I tried, I hit rock bottom for the first time in over two years. Hard. The last straw involved my exhausted self, riding a wave of triumph after a long, successful afternoon mission in the city, catching the ferry home from Central at the right time from the right pier, waking after midnight to arrive on the wrong island with a pointed lack of onward transport until morning.

The tattoo on my right arm reads: “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” Moments like this are exactly why that text wraps my arm. Sometimes the entire situation just feels utterly futile.

I passed the night protecting my gear from my new friendly pet rat, getting cozy with cockroaches and mosquitoes as I snoozed on the world’s classiest metal park bench under a blessedly unrainy sky. My newly reunited slackline pillowed my head until the temperature dropped just enough that sleep ceased to be an option in my sweaty, sticky t-shirt, board shorts and utter lack of insulation. Safe to say, climbing the next day on my first opportunity in five months was cancelled.

I caught the morning interisland ferry from Peng Chau back to Mui Wo, walked my ass home, slept until the afternoon and ate some hippy chia seeds in almond milk.

Then I discovered my sunglasses were missing.

Occasionally I just have to pick my head up, remember how goddam lucky I am and punch forward into the sludge. Somehow, it always gets better.