We have, like many travelers to Japan before us, fallen in love with our toilet. It keeps us warm. It washes us. It greets us when we enter the room by raising its seat. It even has a nightlight that goes on automatically when you stumble in through the dark at 2am. The Japanese think of everything. They should rule the world. I hope they invade us again. Soon. Andy has returned. This is a good thing. We wander the city with its spitshined sidewalks. We are only a mile from Tsujiki fish market, the clearing house of all of the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Oh we westerners. Take away dinner for a night, and suddenly we're grouches. Take it away for two and suddenly we're plotting insurrection. Take it away for three...and suddenly, wait...we don't mind? Such is the tradition in the Doi Suthep monastery. No eating after noon. Pretty much the rule of thumb through the Buddhist monastic world. It takes some getting used to, makes one realize how conditioned to the dinner bell we are. Sort of like dogs. Dogs that have to wear the white of a novice the entire time they are in the temple. I feel like Barry Gibb. Natalie [View Full Entry]

---

---

Natalie here---I have a few words on Chinese hospitality. It is incredible! Not only were we treated like royalty by our new friends, but I was lucky enough to have a traditional Chinese dress made for me. Now, I have been to tailors before, but those experiences don't even compare to the one I had in Beijing. Our friends picked us up in the morning and drove us to "the best tailor shop in Beijing" which has been in the same hutong shop for 100 years. Just getting to the shop was something, as we had to navigate our way through [View Full Entry]

---

---

We are on a lake just north of the Forbidden City. It is midnight. We are on a small boat drinking beer with Chinese businessmen, neither of whom we knew 12 short hours ago... Sometimes one gets themselves into situations in which they need to work backwards...figure out precisely how they ended up there... We are six. Natalie, myself, Mason, Jay, their girlfriends Bessie and Susie (names anglicized, obviously)... It seems Mason knows Andy (of Spain and Camino fame). One of those nebulous international connections Andy has. Andy is certainly CIA now. Without question. Mason is [View Full Entry]

---

---

Some years ago the inimitable Kenny Rogers sung of a Train Bound For Nowhere in his opus, "The Gambler". I am searching for this man, this gambler. We are on that train. A few years further back than that, God made the world. He was industrious and creative and conscientious in this endeavor, and must be given high marks. He varied the landscape, laid down chunks of forest next to sea, desert next to mountain. The extra bits--the monotonous, the redunant--he swept up into a corner of the world he expected no one would ever see. We are travelling through those [View Full Entry]

---

---

We're 50km from anywhere, which is in turn 1000km from anywhere else. I'm pretty sure this ger camp is inauthentic, made for westerners. But it sure is nice out here. I'm pretty sure that the real nomads don't have electricity, or flush toilets in a block hut 20 yards from their gers. But it sure is nice out here. I'm also pretty sure they couldn't get an ice cold beer from the nailed-together bar in the mess hall. I also haven't seen any Mongol throat-singing or bareback horse-riding or barechested wrestling in the dirt. But is sure is nice out here. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Viktor lives in the Urals. They used to send prisoners here because it was in the middle of nowhere and they could not get away. Viktor lives here. We arrive to him by raft. He is the only person we see on our 3 day journey down the Usva. We are likewise the only people he sees. He works out of a dugout canoe. He catches fish and smokes them over his fire beside the river. This is his life. He yells at us from the far bank. Would we like to buy some firewood. Would we like to buy some [View Full Entry]

---

---

"My feet ache. My left ankle aches. My achilles tendon is visibly swollen. My back is crooked from the weight of my pack. Am I going to need a chiropractor when I get back to the States?" These are the thoughts that filled my mind as we slogged through our LAST day of walking the Camino. Once we arrived at the cathedral, I could not really grasp the fact that we had finally arrived at our destination. I don´t know if it was the sight of the magnificant facade or that there was finally some sun out, but we decided to [View Full Entry]

---

---

Lying on hard stone never felt so lovely. After 500 miles we arrived at the Cathedral in Santiago and promptly deposited ourselves on the ancient tiles of the plaza in front of the church. The four of us (Allen & Annie had joined 115 km back in Sarria) just laid there in the sun on our backs, our backpacks as pillows, and took it all in. I cannot really describe the feeling. Even now, 24 hours later, I can't fully get my mind around it. It's maybe like the last day of school in junior high. We're done? Really? I mean, [View Full Entry]

---

---

We came in out of the rain after 20 miles of walking. Soaked head to toe in ponchos and rain pants. Socks swimming inside our boots. But Thank God, after all that open space, we had finally found a hostel. A place with a roof and a radiator. Some place not out there... Such solace in small things. Simple things like roofs. Except... ...realizing with dread that I didn't have enough cash for the room, I asked the proprietress--a sawed-off fire hydrant of a woman who looked suspiciously like Pat Buchanan--if they accepted Visa. They did not. I asked if there [View Full Entry]

---

---