It's been a long time since I've written. It's been a long time since I left the United States for the great unknown.
I'm so behind in my blogging that I can't possible catch up. I've flown 25,000km in the last 2 weeks. I went from California to Japan for 3 days, then 36 hours in Beijing (one of which was quarantined on the plane after a baby sneezed) and then flew for 15 hours to Sydney through Thailand. I stayed in Sydney for 4 days, and then returned to the tropical wasteland/paradise of Singapore.
In my 10 months since leaving America (during which I' ve returned twice), I have learned many important things about the world. Here are a few things that top the list:
1) The world is miraculously different and similar at the same time.
2) Don't leave your laundry out at night in Singapore, no matter how nice the weather seems, because the next morning you will be knocking at the door of your 5-story-down neighbors asking for your sheets that blew away during the monsoon.
3) Japan is waaay more interesting than popular culture gives it credit for. Some girls choose to walk around dressed like cats. Some girls choose to walk around dressed like maids. Some guys dress up like Fonzie and go to the major parks every weekend to dance to 50's music with very moosed hair. Japan has the best burgers in the world - they make you rich.
4) Living with people you like is the key to a happy home life.
5) Your family is always your family, even across the world, and even more when you're home.
6) Some things always change, and some things never change. Look at India, and Japan...
7) Australia has realllly good coffee. And you can live by the beach. And you can have good coffee by the beach...
8) Seeing Indonesia from your window does not qualify you to do foreign policy any more than seeing Russia from your window. However, taking a 45 minute ferry to the Indonesian beach, might qualify me for a cabinet position...at least I can speak a foreign language, unlike some people who tried to be vice president...
9) You can be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone.
10) The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
1) The world is miraculously different and similar at the same time.
Is it San Francisco with the tye-dye bug? No! It's Perth, Western Australia- the absolute other side of the world (9,150 miles or 14,726 km)
Why of course it must be the US with that image of President Obama...Or is it Ueno, Tokyo, Japan? (Hint: it's the latter...)
2) Don't leave your laundry out at night in Singapore, no matter how nice the weather seems, because the next morning you will be knocking at the door of your 5-story-down neighbors asking for your sheets that blew away during the monsoon.
There is no picture of my lost laundry. And, in fact, I was unable to get my sheets back when I discovered that the apartment where my sheet had blown was unocccupied. By the next monsoon it was gone. Littering sheets is probably as much a crime as littering streets in Singapore...
3) Japan is waaay more interesting than popular culture gives it credit for. Some girls choose to walk around dressed like cats. Some girls choose to walk around dressed like maids. Some guys dress up like Fonzie and go to the major parks every weekend to dance to 50's music with very moosed hair. Japan has the best burgers in the world - "they make you rich."
(According to the 'freshness burger' logo)
One of the many Japanese fonzies sets up his music in Yoyogi park in Ueno, Tokyo
Best burgers in the world! Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
4) Living with people you like is the key to a happy home life.
The residents of 19 Cantonment Towers in Tanjong Pagar - Augustin Marie Noel du Payrat, Shabnam Faltenbacher & Augustin's cousine, Sophie, visiting from Paris
5) Your family is always your family, even across the world, and even more when you're home.
Melanie's high school graduation - "Students, you will ha
ve one partner in the world, and that partner will be the US government...Pay it well..." (the El Camino high school 'inspiring' commencement speech)
6) Some things always change and never change. Look at India.
The same mango season ripens as it does every year in Hyderabad, a city that has developed from a small Islamic kingdom to a center of international business in just a few years. Poor people still knock on car windows and tap water is still undrinkable. But Barista serves fresh Italian coffee to those who can afford it.
Japanese people still gather in the same garden in summer as they did in sakura season, as they have done for hundreds of years, to watch nature.
7) Australia has realllly good coffee. And you can live by the beach. And you can have good coffee by the beach...
Really good Australian beach after really good Australian coffee at Penguin Island Easter with the Hanslips outside of Perth, Western Australia
8) Seeing Indonesia from your window does not qualify you to do foreign policy any more than seeing Russia from your window. However, taking a 45 minute ferry to the Indonesian beach, should qualify me for a cabinet position...
Foreign policy qualification- Bintan, Indonesia
9) You can be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone.
Lost in Translation - Tokyo
