International Society Speech

DCIM100GOPROToday, I went down to meet Mai’s parents for lunch and to do a small presentation to a group of people interested in international cultures. Since September, I had been planning with the president of this society a speech about my childhood and upbringing, my education and career, how I started my own business, and finally, my strategic trip around the world.

DCIM100GOPROOn our way to the community center, we stopped for a quick peek at the beautiful cherry blossoms that lined the Yamagata River, and it was spectacular. The blossoms were at ‘Mankai’, meaning full bloom, but in a specific sense of that of a full moon. Sakura, or cherry blossoms, are an integral part of the Japanese culture, and it’s the most special time of year that has culturally created the reason for their school system’s new year beginning, along with being woven into the fabric of the daily Japanese life during March/April. All stores are shrouded in pink, foods have special ‘Sakura’ versions, buildings have special ‘Sakura’ light shows.

I was a little nervous that I would be able to keep the attention of the group, granted that the average age seemed to be about 65 years old. To my surprise, the group actively participated with questions and enthusiasm, interest, and curiosity into my life’s path. We were able to share a great afternoon together, and I think everyone was pleased with the outcome.

I then left Tamagawa and headed for Shibuya to do a little shopping as well as meeting up with a friend from California who is doing an English teaching job here with his wife. Four of us went to dinner and found a great Okonomiyaki, or Japanese Pancake, shop where we had about 4 big pancakes with pork, cheese, bacon and other toppings. I was pretty exhausted from the day, so after dinner I headed back home for a nice quiet evening and started organizing my backpack for heading out the next morning.

Skytree!

Japan has tickled the skies again with their newest structure called the Skytree. I made my way there this morning to check it out for myself and see this structure in its perfect splendor, and boy, it is impressive.

Coming up from the station you are spat out inside the buildings so there’s no impressive sight until you can find your way outside or to a window and see the webbing of the buildings steel skin stretching up to the sky.

The wind was strong today, in fact so strong that upon entering the building the following notice was given: 強風の為、展望台は1:30まで停止。Due to strong winds, the observation decks are closed until 1:30. Darn it. Well let’s shop!

Roaming around the mall like interior complete with stores of all kinds, I browsed some souvenir type stores along with kids stores to see if there is anything for the little niece and nephew :).

After a bit I decided to queue along with my disappointed colleagues for a lunch at tonkatsu sobaten. Gourmet tonkatsu–fried pork cutlets–count me in. After a 35 minute wait, I was seated for a gourmet treat complete with grinding my own sesame seeds, pouring the sauces together to mix my tonkatsu sauce to my liking. Next pouring the dressings into the cabbage bowl completed the condiment section of my meal, to which I was starving.

There it comes! As the waitress complimented me on my fluency and began asking me questions, I had to stop my Pavlov salivation from making me spit at her with my flittering tongue speedily speaking Japanese to her.

The first bite. Whoa! This is soft. Even though it’s fried it was almost a powder or dusting of fried bits that covered the pork cutlet. Delicious. Before I knew it, I was forcing one last bite.

After my lunch I headed down to escape the madness of people waiting around and sightseeing. I took the obligatory pictures and made my way back to the station (oops! Mister donut! Gotta take one to go!) and thought I’d go see Asakusa Kannon temple, a famous tourist spot nearby. Argh. The crowds. Too much!

I then got back onto the train and headed down south to meet Mai’s parents for an early dinner before speaking to her English students that evening. We had a fun talk, albeit 80% in Japanese to make the kids more at ease. I’d say things in English and then follow them with the Japanese.

We took a group picture and I was headed home from an exhausting day!

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Kira Kira

The flight to Japan was really easy, thanks to Boeing’s beautiful 787. Entering into the plane, you’ll notice the openness and spacious ‘lobby’ and the soft lighting illuminating the interiors. Finding my seat right behind the entrance door, I pulled open the huge storage bins and was pleasantly surprised to have more than enough room for my backpacks.

After getting settled in, I started watching some TV I had downloaded, and shortly after, dinner was served. I opted for the Japanese version of the meal which served a seasonal menu with 9 small dishes. The food was delicious, and I was excited to be on my way to Japan.

The flight was smooth as anything, and before I knew it, we were descending into Tokyo from the north. Looking out the huge window, Japan sparkled below. As we approached, the lights were so small and white, and tightly compressed together that it truly looked like diamonds sparkling, and I thought of the Japanese word for something that sparkles.. kira kira. In the sound itself, you can almost sense the view.

After deplaning, I headed for customs and noticed their systems had changed. I guess everyone is now doing finger prints and facial photography for their records to get into the country now. I then headed out and made my way to my first reservation, the First Cabin. Inside the airport is a capsule hotel of sorts, which made for a very convenient way to end the flight. After checking in, I took a shower and had a quick place to crawl into bed to get some rest.

The next morning I got my things together, and headed out of the airport to my Airbnb reservation. Once at the station, I was able to easily find the apartment building. I was a little early, but they knew I would be coming in the morning, so it all worked out. They let me into the building, and Yoshi, answered the door. I was excited to use Japanese, until his fluent English made me feel silly. He had lived in the US for practically his whole childhood. I was shown my room, told how things worked, and he went back to bed.

I got my items sorted, and afterwards headed out to meet my good friend Shoko and her husband for lunch. Having Tmobile and the unlimited data/global roaming plan has been awesome. I’m able to be in contact and use maps and such to easily get train schedules, best routes places and such. Meeting Shoko was great fun, and we had a beautiful sushi lunch at Isetan. After lunch, her husband Hiroshi went back to do work, and we went out shopping and for tea to talk about our upcoming plans for Kyushu.

I started to get a bit tired at this point, so by around 4pm, I headed back to take a quick nap before meeting a fellow ICU exchange student back from 1999-2000, Martin. Martin and I left ICU and randomly reconnected one day after I stepped of a cable car in San Francisco years later. Recognizing him, but not sure where from, we instantly reconnected and remained in good contact throughout the years. Now anytime I come back to Tokyo, we catch up and enjoy a great meal together.

After our dinner at Khyber, an Indian restaurant in Ginza, I headed back home pretty exhausted and thankful for a first full day in Tokyo, soaking up every bit of Japan and Japanese I can.

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Round the World 2014 Start!

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I’m Sitting in the airport right now waiting to board my flight to Tokyo to start my world trip 2014. Stopping in San Francisco reminded me about my previous life here, and how much has changed for me since leaving in 2011.

I had such a great time with all of the friends that came out to see me during my stay. I truly am lucky to have crossed paths with so many great people, and I thank everyone
For their support on this trip.

Though I’m going alone, I know so many of you will be along for the ride as well! Here’s to an amazing next 6 months!!

Benji

Day in Medellin

Today, I woke up feeling like I’d slept a lifetime and was happy to have had a full night’s rest. I went to the grocery to get a little breakfast and had a fresh fruit juice with ginger and a pastry.

I then made my plan to go to the botero museum to see the artwork of the famous botero. He paints ‘voluminous’ people and objects and his works are really fun to look at.

I made my way to the subway and to the museum without any trouble and met another American at the train station. After a short chat, he ran his own business as well and was in online ecommerce and from the Bay Area. Small world! He’s here for several months because he wanted to learn Spanish.

The museum was great. I really haven’t been to an art museum where I was really looking at every single picture but this one I was. I’d actually wished the audio guide gave more info! All the works were donated around 2000 by Botero himself.

After the museum I went to get some food at the restaurant there. I texted with Andres and we set a plan to meet at 2. Right at 2 he arrived and I got into the car and we headed for the botanical gardens.

We walked around this beautiful park area, hung out with butterflies in the butterfly house, and enjoyed a pleasant walk through beautiful plants. We saw a lot if girls having photography done for their quinciñeras with nature as the beautiful backdrop.

We then left the botanical gardens and drive for Plaza Mayor and checked out the grounds there. They had a really amazing piece of machinery called ‘Airbol’ a play on the word tree in Spanish. It would take polluted air and transform it through am ionization process that removes all pollutants and spits out fresh air up to 80m away!

Afterward we went to Meet his cousin and uncle for an amazing Italian dinner. This was my first real meal since getting sick. My body completely soaked everything up, and I was so happy that my stomach agreed with everything.

After finishing our meal, Andres drove me back to my apartment and we called it a night.

Healing well!

I was happy to start feeling better, albeit very weak still but had a wonderful night sleep.

After a small breakfast, Andres came and parked at the apartment–my place came with a parking space! We walked to the metro station to check out the city by medellin’s spectacular metro system complete with trains buses and gondolas. We took the line all the way to the north and hooked up with the gondola that took us up a huge mountain. We then transferred to another gondola that took us into a beautiful national park called Arvi. It was so interesting to be riding this little gondola above jungle like land that led us to the park.

Once we arrived, we walked through the little marketplace. I felt like I was on survivor as I was extremely hungry yet had ‘lost’ a reward challenge and had to watch Andres devour fried potatoes, cookies, coffee and who knows what else. I had to walk away it was such torture.

I was feeling pretty tired at this point just from being up and about but it was a perfect excursion for the day because we could sit on the transit system yet see so much.

Once back home, I cooked the chicken soup wed picked up the night before and had such a great meal. It was this meal that have me the glimmer of hope that I was nearly done with the sickness in the stomach.

I watched the finale of survivor and the finale of homeland at night to relax (well, that show is tense!) and went to bed for another restful night.

Worst day ever

This morning, my plan was to go visit the Museum of gold in downtown Bogotá. My plan was foiled however when I spent the entire night getting up to the bathroom. By morning, I felt so weak and could not fathom the idea of taking a taxi two hours without a bathroom to downtown Bogotá. So I tried to rest more before our plane left at 2:45 PM.

At around noon, our taxi ride to take us to the airport. I was feeling very nauseous and could not eat much, so I was extremely weak trying to carry all my baggage to check in. After we checked in I felt even weaker and got nervous that I was not going to get any better anytime soon, so while we waited we called for the infirmary.

Finally after about 20 minutes, two guys appeared and started taking my blood pressure and asking questions about my past few days with my stomach trouble. They said that I was too dehydrated to get on the plane and that they needed to take me down to the infirmary and an ambulance to get rehydrated before I could even think about getting on a plane. This of course meant that we would miss our flight to Medellin.

When they brought me to the ambulance, I couldn’t believe what a horrible experience this was turning out to be. I’ve never had food poisoning or a bacteria this badly before. Once down in the infirmary I felt extremely weak and I was thankful that we waited on the people to come. They hooked me up to an IV, and let me lie there to rest for the next two hours. Andres went to see what we could do with our flights.

Andres then returned after and said that our flight had actually been delayed for two hours. I couldn’t believe the luck in our flight being delayed so we could still make the flight that evening.

After one bag of saline rehydration, I started to feel better. A doctor came in and she asked a lot of questions about what I had eaten and what exactly I was feeling. She then had said that my blood pressure was extremely low when the paramedics got to me. Luckily after being rehydrated my blood pressure had returned to normal and everything was fine.

I was then discharged wondering how much I would have to pay for an ambulance ride along with simple Celine solution to rehydrate myself, and the beauty of universal healthcare is that everything was paid for. They discharged me with a prescription for a couple of medications, and then we made our way to the gate for our flight to Medellín.

Once we boarded the flight we sat on the tarmac for another 20 to 30 minutes it seems due to congestion. I just point I was so anxious to get home to the apartment that I had rented on air Bnb. Once we landed just an hour later we taxi to the gate and sat for another 20 to 30 minutes waiting on a date to be prepared. We then waited at baggage claim to get our backpacks. After getting our backpacks we met with Andres’s aunt and we went to her car.

She was a lively Columbian woman with a great charisma. I was completely exhausted at this time, and I was so wanting to interact with her more because she seems so fun. On our way home we stopped to get food for me to bring back home to eat–a chicken soup. Finally after an extremely long and trying day we made our way to the apartment I have rented on air BNb.

The apartment is fantastic. It has a little kitchen a little living area and a bed in a studio form. The view is incredible. I’m on the 11th floor at the top of the building and overlook the entire city. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day after a good nights rest.

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Last Day in Bogota

Today I felt so much better. Last night I was so sickly that I really wondered how I’d be able to continue on! But this is part of traveling and experiencing new foods and places.

Today I’d hoped to see the gold museum of bogota but after researching of course they’re closed on Monday :( that was the last hung I was hoping to see in bogota before heading to Medellin tomorrow.

So Andres and I went to the mall instead so we could use Internet. His friend Diana then came and picked us up for a late lunch at a smaller version of andres de res, a popular restaurant in town that has rave reviews. Unfortunately as I’m still getting better, I only ate a small patacone with chicken and mushrooms.

After our lunch, we walked around ‘la zona rosa’ which was a cute little area with bars restaurants high end shopping. We then made our journey through Bogotá traffic again back home.

An interesting factoid about Bogotá traffic is one of their ways of reducing traffic is that on even numbered days, they only allow cars with the last digit being even on the roads during rush hour. Apparently what this did was made everyone go buy another car that had a number that was opposite if what they currently owned. There’s always a way to breach the system!

Day to Zapaquirá for the Salt Cathedral

Today we got up and started our day by going to Bagatelle, a French inspired restaurant with a circus theme. Unfortunately, something I ate previous gave me a bout of food poisoning (now looking back) and my stomach had been pretty iffy the precious night. I knew something was indeed wrong when a delicious plate of eggs toast fresh orange juice and everyone else’s meals gave me no appetite whatsoever — and worse, it made me nauseous. I’d so been looking forward to the French toast that Sandra had described so it was a sad miss to not even be able to get through one egg.

The lack of eating set me up for a much harder day. Since we were up north in Chía, we planned to go to the salt cathedral in Zapaquierá. When we arrived andres wasn’t feeling so hot either, and I couldn’t help to laugh at what us 3 must have looked like. Sandra’s had a cough for a week now that’s incessant, andres was woozy, and I kept looking for a toilet.

We pressed onward and got to the top of the hill where you can start your descent into the tunnels. Once our tour started, we walked through beautifully lit tunnels that were covered in salt formations, stalactites hung above us as we made our way to the first station. It was a beautiful, interesting and religious feat to have created such amazing designs. They created 14 stations that signified each of the procession points of Jesus’ crucifixion and had alters and crosses made of stone.

At the bottom after passing through 14 stations, it was a humongous auditorium with beautiful acoustics. It was stunning to see the light coloring backing these beautiful crosses and designs. At this point I was probably feeling quite bad and weak since we had descended over 180meters underground, I was definitely feeling exhausted and sick.

At the end if the tour we continued to walk around and I was getting so queasy I went back up at the top to be near a bathroom and get some crackers and Gatorade. I couldn’t believe how fast I’d been hit with this, and it made me feel horrible.

After andres and Sandra made it out, we headed back down to the car. During the ride home I continued to get worse feeling really weak and shaky, along with chilled and pure exhaustion. We dropped andres off at his aunt’s and Sandra and I headed home.

We stopped to get a few items like the hydration drink for babies and some stomach stuff. We got home and I just wanted to take a quick nap as I could barely move anymore.

After my nap I felt better and then we cooked some ramen to get me something in my stomach. It was hard again to eat, but I pushed myself to have something in my stomach.

That night I hit the low point with sweats, and going back to the bathroom frequently, but after my body had decided it had gotten rid of anything and everything, I started to rest much better.

Full day of Bogota

Today we started out after breakfast to do a driving tour of Bogotá. Traffic has a new meaning here for sure. Although we only went short distances we were always tied up in congestion if traffic anywhere in the city.

We made our way to the neighborhood Candelaria to see some government buildings including all the ministries and the presidential palace. We couldn’t park anywhere so we were literally doing a quick look as Sandra drive another block around.

We then headed for Montserrate, the mountain point that looks over the entire city. After parking we took a gondola up for sweeping views of the southern part of bogota. What a huge city! Boasting 8 million people, it’s no surprise that traffic is a nightmare.

Once at the top of the mountain we wandered through an old church and the marketplace full of souvenirs. We then made our way to the back side of the mountain where a quaint French restaurant stood overlooking the city. A lot of proposals apparently go down here so ladies, if you’re ever invited to this restaurant, you may have a proposal awaiting on the other side of dinner.

We then headed back down the mountain to the parking lot where we started our trek to the countryside to a restaurant that is a traditional Colombian BBQ style. It reminded me of Rudy’s BBQ in the sense that you order the meat and sides you want and it comes out on a huge platter for you to take. The food was delicious. We had pork ribs, yucca fries, potatoes, steak, blood sausage, pork loin and guacamole. To top it off, their pastry area had quite the options and I found chocolate covered strawberry skewer to my liking.

After our huge meal we headed back and I got dropped off at the mall for some shopping and andres headed out with some Bogota friends. The mall was fun to see the different shops (and not so different–seriously, Taco Bell and forever 21?!) after some clothes shopping Sandra met up with me and we ate some food from Crepes and waffles (culprit of food poisoning??) and headed home to bed.