A journey through time and space...

How perfectly retched of me for not updating this sooner. I have simply been basking in the warm after glow of my cross-country adventure these past weeks and have left you my dear reader waiting for my tale to unfold.

Where does one begin a tale of another world? How can I express the way it felt to walk the streets of an ancient city, see gold float on water, see monkeys turn their backs on evil- it can not be done. Words are so small for a place full of such magic.

To say that my navigator was exceptionally prepared would be the understatement of the year. I am eternally grateful to him for leading me through seven different cities, all like miniature worlds of their very own, arranging a place ahead of time for us to lay our heads at night, carrying my bag up and down flights of stairs (I’m such a girl-too much stuff!), teaching me, leading me, going to the same temples he’d seen several times before with enthusiasm (I’m sure it was much like our- “yes, this is the bean” moments in reality for him), for getting me juice when I needed it, and for being the best companion anyone could ever wish for on a journey through time and space.

14 hours pressed between a middle aged businessman and a perky coed; 45 minutes to figure out what landing card I was supposed to be given while at O’Hare and being herded like cattle through customs; 10 minutes to find where I was supposed to transfer my train voucher for an actual ticket; 2 seconds to say “F it” and lift my suitcase over the security turnstile to get to train platform; 15 minutes to wait for train; 1.5 hours on bullet train; 10 minutes in cab; 30 minutes trying to communicate with the man at the front desk of the hotel; 1 second to fall asleep once my head hit the pillow. A total of 16+ hours of travel time- and worth every minute.




Kyoto, Kobe, Nara, Osaka, Tokyo, Nikko, and Hiroshima. Each city like a different planet in some other solar system. Kyoto was my favorite. I instantly felt at home there. I truly felt that if I had to move to Japan for one reason or another I could exist there easily. Nikko was breathtaking. Like an old ski town that only comes to life in the winter. The lodge we stayed in while there has become one of my favorite places to stay. We even sprung for another night we liked it so much. Tokyo was a neon, skitsophrentic version of NY. Glad to say I did it- don’t care to go back.

Please check out the photos posted on my photography page. I can not articulate the beauty you will see in those photos.

One comment before I let this get entirely too long (too late): Japan’s transportation system is absolutely amazing! Subways, bullet trains, buses, cabs, streetcars, you name it! We never had to wait more than 5 minutes for anything and it was clean, no one talked on their cell phones- except for businessman openly reading comic porn and the odd advertising of cats being electrocuted it was close to ideal.

I wish to return some day.