Having just returned from a three-week adventure in Japan and Washington State, I wanted to record my memories while they were fresh.  This is mostly a travel journal for myself, but I thought others might find it interesting.  Please forgive my ramblings!

If you would like to see more pictures from the trip please visit the link below. 

Three Week Adventure to Japan
 

Seattle

We stayed at a hotel right downtown.  I thought that being just 8 or 9 blocks from the market would mean it was easy walking distance.  Technically it was, however, what I didn't count on was how steep the hills are in Seattle.  If you want to walk in Seattle, just know you are in for a workout!  On the plus side, we had the best raw oysters I ever ate at Mr. Fish down by the market.  They serve them with some sort of hot vinegar and lemon.  No cocktail sauce... no crackers... that really would ruin them.  We also sampled raw scallops.  That seemed a little questionable to me, but... when in Seattle....

I hand fed a pigeon!  There was a man sitting by the water with at least a dozen pigeons around him.  They were sitting on his shoulder and on his knee, flying up to his hand so that he could hand feed them.  It was obvious that he had been doing this every day for a very long time.  I asked him if I could take his picture, then I asked if I could try to feed one.  They were very tame, and let me feed them peanuts from my hand.

My new favorite fruit - White nectarines.  OMG.  And the CHERRIES!!

Tokyo

Mom was stopped by customs and had to go into a room and answer a bunch of questions.  It was a little freaky because Emma and I had already gone through.  I had no idea how long they would keep her or if we would miss our connection to Osaka.  She had to explain the "crimes" which she declared on the form.  Her crimes being when she was arrested for protesting in D.C.  It was pretty painless, actually.  Once she explained that she was arrested for protesting nuclear weapons the Japanese customs people were more than happy to let her come into the country.  It seems they also don't care for nukes.  Onward to Osaka!  

Osaka

This was the day that never ended.  We left Seattle in the late afternoon, and it stayed light the entire time we were in the air, for more than 10 hours.  We flew all night, but it was day the whole way.  The plane ride on ANA airlines (a Japanese company) was very cool though.  They feed you constantly.  The stewardess made a card for Emma to welcome her and to give her recommendations for places to eat.  They all took really good care of her even though we forgot to tell them she was a pescatarian before the flight... they made sure to find things that she could eat. 

Osaka from Emma - "It is hotter than the devil's butt cheek right now." I agree Em. 

4:30 a.m in Osaka and the sun is coming up.  Very strange.  We stayed very close to the airport since we knew we would be tired.  Across the street from the hotel where we stayed was a store called Trial.  It was basically like a Walmart, but everything seems super inexpensive!!  We ate breakfast at a family restaurant called Joyfull.  It reminded me of a Japanese Denny's.  Except instead of pancakes it served Salmon, rice, Udon noodle soup, a Sunnyside up egg and toast with bean paste pudding.  In Osaka, an old friend of Mom's named Bob met up with us to be our guide and help us navigate our way to Kobe.  He wasn't all that excited or Joyfull about the restaurant fare.  I don't think he would like Denny's either.    

Kobe

An interesting observation.  We took a train from Osaka to Kobe. There are cars designated "Women Only".  I wonder what prompted that... is it an old custom that is still kept alive?  I was not sure if it was an honor bestowed on women because they are revered, or if was to protect them from harassment. I never asked about that.  I wish I had.    

Up until this point, Japan has been all work and no play.  We have been on the move for two days lugging huge suitcases and bags.  Nobue warned us to pack light, and in good old American fashion we ignored her warnings... actually, we didn't really ignore them.  We just didn't know what "pack light" meant.  The next 2 weeks will be a hard lesson.  If I take anything away from this trip it will be a solid understanding of what "pack light" is not anyway!  On the bright side, in Kobe we stayed in a really posh hotel right by the ocean with gorgeous views.  It was a resort, with an incredible buffet breakfast (my favorites were the pickled ginger and the pickled sweet potato), an indoor golf course, Japanese hot baths, massages, a really lovely serenity garden, a chapel... on and on.  There were plenty of trees around as well.  You could tell because of the noise.  The cicadas were deafening.  Really!  It was crazy how many and how loud they were.  

Observation - people walk a lot in Japan.  I can understand why they are so thin!!  Mom's friend, Nobue met us in Kobe.  She actually lives very close to the hotel where we stayed.  Nobue is Mom's age, but she walks like she is Emma's age.  She is very small and energetic... she speed-walks out of habit.  She laughs a lot, and smiles even more, and she speaks excellent English.  

Back to the trains... we took the Bullet Train from Kobe to Hiroshima.  The bullet train is called the Shinkansen in Japanese.  It travels up to 200 miles (that's 320 Kilometers) per hour.  It is very comfortable, as long as you have a ticket.  More on that later.  

Observation - not many people in Japan use the beautiful hand fans anymore.  Well, some do, but a lot of people have these battery-operated fans.  I prefer the hand fans.  They are pretty and battery free 🙂

Hiroshima

We stayed in a Guest House called House Blanc.  We had a private room for the three of us, but the bathrooms and showers were on a different floor and shared.  The room was very simple.  There was a table, and chairs made of raw plywood and three twin beds.  There was a fire station around the corner from the guest house, so we heard sirens at all hours of the day and night.  It was a little unnerving at first, but we soon grew accustomed to the sounds.  It was clean, and there was an elevator to get up and down.  There was also a shared kitchenette/common room with a dining table.  Most of the time the shared bathroom thing was not an issue... I hardly saw anyone there at the same time as me, although Emma ran into a gentleman wrapped solely in a towel coming out of the shower.  At least his privates were covered!  A girl dropped her underwear on her way back to her room, so we were stepping over it all night going to the toilet.  At first, I wasn't overly keen on staying in a guest house, however I can say after staying for four nights that it was a good experience.  We met several very nice travelers.  There was a sweet girl named Zoira from Sweden who sounded like she was from New York, and the students from France and China, and Claudio was from Spain.  He was on a yearlong journey around the world.  He said he stays in guest houses most of the time.  He stops in a city for a time, sometimes takes odd jobs to help fund his trip.  I remember a time when that was my dream life.  Sometimes I still fantasize about doing that someday. 

Once we were checked in, we met Yoko.  She is a WILPF member who lives in Hiroshima, who volunteered to help guide us around Hiroshima.  For our first night in town, she took us to dine at the home of another WILPF member, Noriko Tanio.  It was amazing.  The Japanese people are incredibly gracious.  They take entertaining guests very seriously.  They elevate it to an art form really!  Tanio served us a multicourse feast, and then afterward she honored us by playing a traditional stringed instrument called a koto.  Her apartment was pretty small and the koto took up the entire length of her living room, but she laid it out on the floor, knelt down and played it beautifully.  Afterward she showered us with gifts.  That is another thing Japanese people elevate to an art form... gift giving!  In fact, their souvenir stores specialize in omiyage - which are gifts.  Hosts often give gifts to their guests and guests give gifts to their hosts.  It seems as though the entire Japanese culture is centered upon thinking about others and making others happy.  At least that was my experience throughout the trip.  It was really inspiring. 

Hiroshima is a beautiful city.  It was one of my favorite places we visited.  There are six rivers running through it.  The buildings are all pretty modern.  They were all built within the last 80 years of course.  Our guide, Yoko, spent 10 years in the US while she was getting her graduate degree.  Her mother was a survivor who worked in a factory at the time of the bombing.  The factory walls were very thick, and it was a little further from the hypocenter, so she was not badly injured by the blast.  I learned that there are almost 100,000 survivors still alive. They are the Hibakusha.  They include people who moved to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years after the bomb who were exposed to the radiation.  The interesting thing is that they don't know who all the survivors are, because they didn't all talk about it.  Survivors had a difficult time getting married afterward.  People sort of shunned them due to the radiation exposure, worried that the problems caused by the radiation would be passed on to their children.  

Observation - Most of the toilets have been westernized, although there are still traditional options in most places as well.  And all the toilets have bidets.  In fact, all the toilets have control panels that would rival the control panel on a car!!  The toilets also sense when they are in use and make the sound of running water to offer a little auditory privacy.  🙂 Many of the toilets had hand washing sinks tied in, so when you flushed the commode, the water first runs through the hand washing sink, so it saves water.  Japanese are so freakin' clever!!  I was a little hesitant to try the bidet.  Maybe later.  

Observation - 7-11 is huge in Japan.  Like seriously huge.  There is a 7-11 on just about every other street corner.  And they don't sell slurpies.  They sell good food, and underwear.  (Weird).  They sell food like onigiri, mochi, udon noodles, and cool snacks like chestnuts and dried sweet potatoes.  They sell saki, dried squid and octopus, and coffee.  I thought tea was a thing in Japan, and it is... But so is coffee.  Thank GOD!  The yogurt at 7-11 is awesome!  It is whole milk yogurt and seriously excellent.  We ate breakfast from 7-11 almost every day we were there.  

Observation.  None of the stores give you shopping bags.  They charge like 5 yen if you want a bag.  I love that.  They seriously do consider the environment in their daily lives.  Alot of people hang their clothes outside on clotheslines to dry on their balconies.  Japan is densely populated in the cities, but the people make it work.  However, there are also ALOT of drink vending machines, in the oddest places.  Like outside residential buildings, on street corners everywhere.  I guess they don't want to get thirsty!  

We spent a good portion of our first day at meetings for the World Conference for the Elimination of A&H bombs.  It is the main reason we came to Japan with Mom, since this is the 80th anniversary.  We heard firsthand stories from many Hibakusha.  It was hard to listen to, but important.  They will not be here forever to tell their stories firsthand.  Afterward we went to dinner with a large group from the meetings.  Most of them did not speak English, but we had our friend Nobue with us, who could translate.  Dinner was lively with plenty of toasts and laughter.  Emma had her first legal alcoholic drink (the legal drinking age in Japan is 20).  

Emma and I scooted out of the meetings for a bit to do a little shopping in Hiroshima.  My purse broke so I was on the hunt for a replacement, so we checked out Hondori Street.  Seriously great shopping district.  I found a secondhand store that had some really cool clothes, and I found a Louis Vuitton purse for about 45,000 yen.  That is like $300.  I just couldn't pull the trigger on $300 for a used purse.  Of course, for the rest of the trip I would kick myself.  I should have bought Louis V.  When are you going to find another perfect Louis Vuitton purse for $300 again?  Never. That's when.  Ugh... I am still upset!!

Emma is learning Japanese from Nobue and from Yoko.  Interesting fact - children in primary school are required to learn English in Japan.  It is amazing how many people are able to speak at least a little English.  Not only that, but there are THREE "alphabets", or writing systems, in Japan, and children have to learn all three.  There is kanji, which is the oldest that was apparently adapted from Chinese symbols.  It is the most complex, more formal and difficult to learn, so there is a simplified hiragana for everyday use.  Then for writing words that are of foreign origin there is katakana.  Good grief.  And the characters are pretty!!!

Our second day in Hiroshima was one of my favorites.  Yoko took Emma and me to Miyajima, or "Shrine Island".  There is a beautiful Shrine, and a really cute town, and there are not-so-wild deer everywhere!!  They really have the run of the island.  They walk right up to you without any fear whatsoever.  Yoko taught us how to behave and pray at the shrines, and we ate eel with sansho, a Japanese pepper that is very tasty but makes your tongue numb.  For dessert we ate mojimi manju, which is a stuffed waffle shaped like a Japanese maple leaf.  Emma drank Sake with me.  I am diggin' the Sake for sure.  In the evening Emma joined some of the younger people from the conference and went out for dinner.  One of the young members from Gensuikyo (The Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs) named Satoru was especially kind.  He took Emma under his wing and really made her feel welcome.    

Yesterday was such a great day, but toward the end of the day I began to see flashes of light in my peripheral vision that started to scare me.  A few days back, on the train from Kobe to Hiroshima, I fell and hit my head on a metal seat.  I think I may have had a concussion.  Yoko, bless her, volunteered to take me to the doctor.  I was concerned I might have a detached retina.  I was remembering when my Mom had that, and I definitely didn't want to chance flying if that was the case.  So around 5:00 in the afternoon, off we went to a walk in Ophthalmologist who advertised that they spoke English, but in reality, they probably learned it back in primary school and promptly forgot it.  Regardless, I was really happy to find a doctor who would see me without an appointment.  I asked if they would take my insurance, but they didn't.  They suggested I pay out of pocket and then file when I got home.  I was a little concerned about how much it would be; my experience having only been the American healthcare racket.  Once all was said and done, I walked out with peace of mind that I was not going to lose my eyesight, and a charge of $65.  That is not much more than my co-pay back home.  American healthcare SUCKS!  I love the Japanese people so much!!

By the way, I had the best Dim Sum of my life for dinner.  I laughed when Yoko told me that Chinese food here was good.  "Why would I come to Japan to eat Chinese food??"  🙂🙂" She was so right though.  

I feel like the longer I say here, more and more of my old self is breaking.  My purse, the one I have carried for 15 years... done for.  My shoes have a hole in them from all the walking.  I am physically beaten up.  And my old, preconceived ideas are proving to be false.  But I feel more like the person I want to be than I have in a very long time.    

 

August 6^th in Hiroshima.  It was a solemn, beautiful, sad day.  The Hiroshima museum was really powerful.  And crowded.  We ate okonomiyaki and it was AMAZING!!  We said goodbye to our friend Yoko, because we are off early to Nagasaki tomorrow.  I truly love Yoko.  She is so warm and kind and generous.  

  Observation... there are almost no water fountains or public trashcans in Japan.  And yet, the streets are so clean!  How do they do it?  (Oh snap, now I get why there are so many drink vending machines.. no water fountains!)  

Observation... if you look at your phone like you are lost, don't worry, someone is going to stop and ask you if you need help, very politely.  Probably in English.  

Rules are there to be followed in Japan.  That is one thing that we learned right away.  If you are crossing the street, you do it at a crosswalk, and you wait for the light to show it is time to cross.  Even if there is not a car in sight, you wait for the light.  If there are cars, it is a little strange, they halfway turn before they stop at the light.  I think it is an efficiency thing.  Why leave all that space?  

If you need to catch a cab, you find a taxi stand and you wait your turn in line.  The taxis load up one at a time (they wait their turn as well).  You don't just flag one down like in New York.  It is all very orderly.  

Observation... napkins are NOT a thing in Japan, however everywhere you buy food, whether it is a fancy restaurant or 7-11, they give you wet wipes automatically.  All individually wrapped.
 

We said farewell to our friend Nobue at the Shinkansen station.  We are off to Nagasaki.  Nobue arranged for us to join another group and even has someone meeting us on the train to help us get where we need to be.  She will meet back up with us when we go back to Kobe in 3 days.  She is so good to us!!!  How in the world can we ever repay her kindness?  

Nagasaki 

The train from Hiroshima did not go all the way to Nagasaki, so the plan was to meet up with a tour bus of activists from Kobe who were also on their way to the conference in Nagasaki.  One train stop before we got off, our next guide, Mr. Shimada, met us to help guide us on our way.  He doesn't speak a lot of English, but he tries very hard to communicate, and he is the sweetest man!  His smile could light up the world, I think. 

Our plan for Nagasaki was to stay in another guest house.  Mr. Shimada helped us find a taxi and took the taxi with us to make sure we got to the guest house safely. 

The problem was that this guest house was a disaster!  It was new and looked very nice on the outside, but our room was on the 5^th floor and there was no elevator.  Only these very steep stairs with no air conditioning. Emma volunteered to start carrying our 50-pound suitcases up the 5 stories of stairs, but I put my foot down.  There was no way I was going to spend the next three days climbing up and down those hot stairs, and I was not going to let Emma try to carry all those suitcases.  Thank God for Booking.com.  I booked us a super nice hotel called the Monterrey Nagasaki in a really great neighborhood, close to the trolly.  It was PERFECT!!  So ends my guest house experience.  I am sure this guest house had great rooms, although we never made it to ours, but I was happy to be comfortable and to have our own bathroom.  And an elevator.  And air conditioning.  I truly am a spoiled American I am sorry to say.  

  

Right next to our hotel was a Pizza restaurant.  I know, "why would I go to Japan to eat pizza?"  Because it was freakin' AWESOME!  Hands down the best pizza I ever ate.  Better than Brooklyn.  Better than Manhattan.  And definitely better than Lakeland.  Paper thin crust but chewy on the edges, homemade slightly sweet sauce, not too thin, not too thick.  We had a Margherita and a Seafood Pizza the first night.  Not sure which was my favorite.  I could literally eat that pizza every day for the rest of the trip and be happy.  (Confession, I did have it again the next night!) 

Day two in Nagasaki and Emma has been asked to be a chair at the conference to introduce all these amazing speakers such as the Ambassadors Egypt and Mexico (who was a very impressive woman), representatives from Parliament from Great Britain, on and on.  There were about 3000 people at the conference.  The Japanese people were very impressed by Emma, I think.  She is very respectful and inquisitive.  She seems to have achieved some sort of celebrity status.  People keep coming up and asking to take pictures with her.  Mr. Shimada told us that when he was a kid living in Kobe, they didn't see a lot of gaijin (foreigners).  Whenever he saw one, he would stare.  Anyway, Emma made several friends along the way.  One of the best things about this trip compared to trips we have made in the past is how many people we are meeting and really spending quality time with.  In Nagasaki we spent quite a bit of time with an impressive student named Nino and a very nice activist from California named Nick.  Nino is a dual citizen from both Georgia (the country) and the US.  We met some women from Austria who are also WILPF members (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) and spent some time talking with them over coffee.  

The food in Japan is really good, and so cheap!  The three of us ate in Chinatown... we had a really good Salmon salad and a noodle dish with seafood, and hot tea and Mango pudding for dessert.  All that was 3450-yen total.  That is literally like $23.  And you don't tip. Crazy!

Observation... when you buy something from a shop owner, especially the small private businesses, they don't just put it in a bag and thank you.  They give you gifts.  I bought a shirt from a seamstress for Emma.  The seamstress gave us candies and a crochet potholder.  Kind of random but given with such kindness and generosity.  I bought a mask from an antique dealer and as we were leaving he scurried out and gave Mom a small figurine.  We thanked him profusely, so he went back in and came back out and gave me a fan.  We hurried away at that point because I was worried that he might chase us down to give us more gifts!  He was so sweet!

One of the most unique customs we have encountered so far is the whole taking off shoes thing.  We have taken them off in restaurants and outside our room at the guest house, which we expected, but we even had to take them off before going into a public bathroom at the gymnasium where the Nagasaki meeting was held.  They have these rubber sandals you put on.  It seems so strange because how many hundreds of dirty feet have used those sandals???  I have been wearing socks the whole time for sure.  

Next stop... Kobe... or is it?

Our last day in Nagasaki Emma said she internally asked for a sign that everything was going to be ok.  Not sure why she was feeling the need for that reassurance, but immediately after she asked for a sign we walked up to a bird that was dying on the sidewalk.  It upset Emma tremendously because she saw it as a portent of bad things about to happen.  Perhaps she is more in tune with the universe than we know?    

 

The story of Kokura

Emma was invited to spend the night or multiple nights if she liked with a woman name Yuki when we get back to Kobe.  Nobue highly recommended the experience for Emma, so she agreed, at least for one night.   Mr. Shimada showed up to see us off on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) back to Kobe. 

The bullet train is very comfortable.   Much comfier than an airplane.  The seats swivel around if you want to talk to the people behind you. There are restrooms and free wifi, and tray tables.  Remember what flying in a large jet felt like 40 years ago?  That is how the Shinkansen feels, as long as you have a reserved seat.  More on that later.  

We had not traveled very far on the train, only a few towns really, when it stopped for several hours.  Apparently, there was heavy flooding from the rain.  Finally, they pulled the train up to the station after several hours and told everyone to get off.  The train was shutting down for the night due to the flooding.  We would have to try again the next day. 

There were hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands of people stranded at the station in this small city of Kokura in Kitakyushu, with only a few hotels.  We scrambled to get a hotel room and ended up having to take one pretty far out because all the close ones were already full.  We also helped a group of French activists, Roland, Fatima and Mia from the Nagasaki meetings to get a room at the same hotel.  Then it was time to find a cab.  Remember how I said that when you take a taxi, you don't just flag it down, you get in line and wait your turn in the queue?  Well, we did that.  It took 5, yes 5, hours.  Kokura apparently has a shortage not only of hotel rooms, but also of taxi cabs. 

Perhaps the strangest part in all this was shortly after we got in line for the taxis, Mr. Shimada just appeared behind us.  Like some kind of guardian angel, he just kept showing up in our times of need.  The last time we saw him was in Nagasaki, but somehow, he found us in Kokura standing in a taxi line.  There wasn't anything really that he could do to help, but bless his kind heart, he stood in that line with us for 5 hours for moral support.  He even came back early in the morning to help us get back to the train station!     

So, the night in the hotel was freaking hilarious.  The hotel we found to stay in was pretty crappy.  The floor they put us on had a piercing alarm sound going off for some random reason.  We asked them to shut it off, but they said they couldn't.  They could move us but only to a smoking room.  I wasn't sure which would be worse.  I can NOT sleep in a smoking room.  Anyway, Mom got so mad she thought she would try to stop the alarm herself.  She noticed that the fire alarm had a button that seems to be halfway stuck, so she pushed it, and the hotel went into a panic.  People were coming out of their rooms in their pajamas, and we were running around saying no, it's no fire!!!  But we didn't tell anyone how we knew.  Then Mom grabbed her suitcases and was going to go ask for a different room and an old lady told her she couldn't leave the floor if there was no fire.  "Why you leave if no fire?  You stay!!!!".  She looked like she would call the cops on Mom, so Mom stayed for a while.  

Meanwhile Emma was freaking out in our room and the fire alarm kept going off intermittently, then they piped in this weird elevator music as an apology to cover the sound. Mom went for the smoking room (ironically).   We somehow slept for a few hours then caught a taxi at 6:30 am back to the train station.  When we met with our French friends, we learned that they had walked down and back up 12 stories of stairs due to a fire alarm in the night.  We almost didn't dare tell them why we were laughing so much about our evening! 

Of course, Fate has a way of catching up.   We caught a train, but the train we caught was not the right train.  We had seats reserved but because we got on the wrong train, the conductor made us stand up in the bathroom car for an hour, until we reached Hiroshima, even though the train was half empty.  Roland kept trying to go sit down on the sly, but the conductor kept coming back to check that we weren't cheating (busted!!!).  It was hilarious.  Emma was not amused.  She locked herself in the toilet and put the seat lid down.  Mom sat in the sink and dealt with a wet butt.  I stood holding the bags so that they didn't roll away.  

    

Kobe and Kyoto

I am glad that Emma's bird wasn't a terrible tragedy, only an inconvenience, and now a funny story.  Anyway, eventually we made it to Kobe and our moods improved greatly!  We were treated like queens.  We had a whole delegation of people come to greet us at our very lovely hotel, bringing gifts, and they took us out for a fancy traditional style Japanese lunch.  We each got our own hotel room, which made Emma very happy.  She missed out on staying with Yuki, but we did get to spend time with Yuki.  It was nice to have a little privacy and down time again for a few nights actually. 

On our walk we found a dead cicada.  Luckily that didn't trouble Emma at all.  In fact, she picked the gigantic insect up and Mom wrapped it up and carried it back to the hotel.  Although it was a very cool and beautiful bug, I am a lot more squeamish than my daughter and mother! 

That evening we went on a cruise of the harbor and then went to a party at a kind of food court that was underneath the Kobe aquarium.  We drank Sake, ate good food, enjoyed great company and visited the fish.  Nobue and Yuki were there.  Kajimoto-san (the General Secretary of Kobe Gensuikyo) was there.  Roland, Fatima and Mia were there.  It was lively and fun and such a wonderful evening. Kobe definitely made up for Kokura!   

Kobe is very close to Kyoto.  We spent the next day visiting Kyoto with Nobue, and two of her friends - Yoko (a different Yoko) and Junko.  Kyoto is a really beautiful city.  I would love to go and spend a lot of time there.  Kyoto has over 1600 temples and 400 shrines.  There is a bamboo forest and a fun shopping district.  We could have spent days there and not seen it all. 

Given it was our last day in Japan we wanted to make sure that we ate something great.  We found a Ramen shop that had excellent vegetarian Ramen.  Emma was happy. 

 

In the morning, we ate our last 7-11 breakfast, checked out and Nobue guided us to our bus which would take us to the airport.  At the bus stop there was a whole delegation of people there to see us off.  Yuki came and Kajimoto-san came.  A lovely woman, who gifted me a handmade kimono came (I need to get her contact information!!). Roland, Fatima and Mia were there. I thought perhaps they were going to the airport too, but no!  They came just to see us off!

I had no idea how to say goodbye to Nobue.  She told me that I was now like her daughter, and Emma was like her granddaughter.  My heart hurt knowing I might never see her again.  How did this happen?  How is it that I have fallen so in love with a country, a culture and its people so fast?  I have to admit it, I cried a little as we were leaving.  Our time in Japan was so much more than I ever hoped for.  And now I am low key planning our trip to France so that we can visit our French friends again.     

  
   

San Francisco

Our 10-hour flight back to the states was uneventful, but going through customs was a little bit of a rude awakening.  Literally rude. One of the customs agents was yelling at people to pay attention and hurry up.  It was a little jarring after having spent two weeks being treated with such respect and kindness.  A little polite please and thank you goes a long way dude.

We had a six-hour layover in San Francisco, and we were able to go have lunch down at Fisherman's Wharf with Mom's half-brother Prem, whom we have never met in person before.  It was pretty exciting. Prem is actually a little younger than me.  He grew up in a commune in India.  It was fun to start getting to know my younger uncle.  

After lunch we visited the Arcade Museum.  This is an arcade that has a large collection of antique arcade games that you can actually play.  The museum has been around since I was a little girl living in San Francisco.  It used to be located under the Cliff House restaurant, but it moved to Fisherman's Wharf, I think when the Cliff House closed.  I saw a man skating around on roller skates who appeared to work for the museum, so I asked him a question.  It turns out that his father was the original owner who started collecting the machines in 1933.  This man has been doing this his entire life.  I was glad that I was able to tell him how special my memories of the museum were from when I was a child. 

Seattle and Forks

My mom left for home, and Emma and I started the last part of our adventure.  Visiting the Pacific Northwest coast has been on my bucket list for a long time, so I didn't want to waste the opportunity while we were in the neighborhood, however before we could get to that Emma had an agenda.  As a huge David Lynch and "Twin Peaks" fan, her only request was that we get a "damned fine cup of coffee" from the diner in Twin Peaks.  We were able to visit several of the locations from the series, and yes, the coffee was damned fine.

Off to Forks, which is pretty much the farthest northwest town you can go to in the continental US, and which also happens to be the shooting location of those Twilight vampire movies.  Along the way we saw blackberries everywhere.  Emma forced me to stop so many times along the way so that she could pick them. 

We stayed at a roadside inn that was surprisingly clean, updated and comfortable.  The only glitch was on our second night we lost power for the entire night.  It wasn't just the inn, it was the town, and the next two towns.  It seems that this is a regular occurrence.  The power in the area comes from Port Angeles and is above ground through the trees.  There are lots of storms, this being the Olympic National Rain Forest, so the lines go down pretty frequently I imagine.  Regardless, we had a wonderful time exploring the forest and walking on the beach.  It really is a magical place.  

          

Back to Seattle, one last night.  Emma paid a street vendor for a poem, written on the spot.  She picked her last cup of blackberries.  I was able to score more raw oysters and so ended our three-week adventure. 

     

We are home now... it has been a few days.  I keep waking up and wondering what city I am in. I have strange dreams about being on trains.  As I settle back into my life, I keep remembering little moments from all our adventures and wishing they would never fade.  Of course they will, so I guess it is time to plan the next trip!           

 

Recently, like many friends and heros, I find myself feeling more and more compelled to protest the changes that I see in this country.  This series of images originally were three separate concepts that were sort of related but were not intended to be a series. However, as my friends David, Null and I collaborated they seemed to come together a little more into a more cohesive idea, at least for me.   

The images with the helmet and the fish are an ironic statement about the hypocrisy of organized religion.  It is a little hard to see, but written on the helmet are the words "Jesus Loves You" and of course the fish is a well-known symbol that represents Jesus.  The bandages represent the injury that has been heaped upon our country, our environment, our relationships and particularly our youth in pursuit of God, Country and the almighty Dollar.  The image with David's shadow threatening a cowering Null was not the original plan but again it is amazing what can happen when three creatives get together!  The balloons are a salute to "99 Luftballons" a song written by Nena back in the early 1980s about how quickly innocence can turn to horror all in the name of nationalism, when men in power, itching to play with their deadly toys, also play with the lives of our children.  The flag image, for me, wraps it all up in a perfect bow.  The flag, held upside down, with Null's body language say exactly what I wanted to convey with these images.

    
 

Recently I had the opportunity to work with an incredible group of women. The idea behind this shoot was to show that while we are all different, we are all the same as well. I love how the women in my life are always there to support me. I wanted to show the bond that we women share. Thank you to my incredibly brave and beautiful models for trusting me and being willing to be vulnerable!