Cambodia

It's hot. 

Reaaallllllly hot.

My hair becomes wet with sweat after 10 minutes in the sun, making it curl and get frizzy and big. My face, my backpack, my armpits, my whole shirt becomes a sweat pool.  But the humidity is good for my voice and (maybe?) my skin. 

The temples at Ankgor were as special as you'd think. So much history and pure craftsmanship poured into 35 years of back-breaking work. 

Now we're in Phnom Penh, the capital. We see relative poverty but according to a woman we met on the bus, it's nowhere near the level of poverty in te rural countryside areas. They just have nowhere to go and nothing to do, no way to make money, nothing to eat. So hordes of people are moving from the country to the cities, which ultimately is unsustainable as well. 

There's a lot of dirtiness and shittiness but there's also a degree of newness as well. We went grocery shopping at AEON mall in Phnom Penh, which might as well be transplanted directly from japan, it has so many of the same products--and prices. 

Later today we're going volunteering with our couch-surfing host, MJ. We're excited to have a unique experience courtesy of her. 

Then tomorrow is our last day in Cambodia! 

Halfway Point

Now I'm in Malaysia waiting to get on my plane to Siem Reap. This airport is nice and has decent wifi (way better than Haneda.) I exchanged $10 into Ringgits (Malaysian money) which ended up being a little bit too much. My breakfast cost 26.40 ringgits out of the 36 I got, so now I have 9 left. What to do with them? Save them til I go back to Malaysia again someday? Haha.

I started feeling nostalgic and sad to be leaving Japan as I was leaving for the airport yesterday, but now I'm too exhausted to really feel or process anything. I'm anxious to get to Siem Reap, anxious about everything, just want to fall into a bed. Hope everything goes well. 

This trip felt weird because I had never taken a "trip" to Japan before--I'd only ever lived there. So being back, there was nothing I could do to convince my body that I wasn't staying there for an extended time, that this was, in fact, temporary. And temporary it was. It felt suuuper short. But it was fun. :) I reunited with some great friends and got to see my students, which is all I could've asked for. 

Now onto SEA. 

Shinkansen

I'm on my final shinkansen (bullet train) ride of the trip. I love how easy shinkansens are to ride. Their signage is easy and clear, in Japanese and English. Many of them have outlets at the seats. They are clean, quiet, air-conditioned, and almost always on time. And they are so, so fast. For me, they're a model of how a train system should be run. They're just really expensive :P even an hourlong ride can run you $50, and it's definitely cheaper to fly if you are going a long distance. But since I've had my rail pass, it's been super convenient and fun to ride them whenever possible :) 

A Creeper

The word that I feel in Japan is safe. It sounds like a magical far-off concept I guess, but Japanese seriously believe in 和 (wa), which sort of means peace/harmony. Don't do anything which disturbs the peace. Obviously this has large repercussions both positive and negative, but one the biggest positives is everyone's sense of civic responsibility. People don't steal. People return things that they find. People wait their turn. People are polite, patient and unintrusive. I generally feel safer in Japan than I do in the states. 

 Today was a reminder that it's not always a utopia. Today I visited Himeji castle alone to do some sight-seeing and a creepy man followed me around, asking me questions, asking to hold my bag for me, trying to talk in barely intelligible English (even though I said 10 times that Japanese is fine.) I was nice at first and then ignored him as much as possible and tried to lose him as I slowed down or sped up my sightseeing pace. But he kept finding me. Finally he asked me something I couldn't understand (due to his English), but it had the word "escort." I said I'm going home after this. He said are you alone? (In Japanese) I said yes. He said do you have a boyfriend? I lied and said yes. As soon as I said yes he quickly booked it out of the area and I didn't see him again. Overall this is one of the weirdest interactions I've had in Japan, and certainly brings up all kinds of frustrating feelings. The fetishization of foreigners. The idea that you're only off-limits once you're "somebody else's" and not because you're not interested. The realization that interactions like this happen every day in every country in the world. Japan is such a safe and easily liveable country, and in general men are polite and unthreatening (which I really appreciate), but misogyny exists here like anywhere else. 

Heat wave in Nara

Today was fun but super super suuuuuuuuper hot. I think I bought 3 vending machine drinks which is a record. And biking around was fun but I almost got heat stroke and was reminded of how shitty I felt in the heat when I was biking around at Sukhothai last year. Woo! I'm so glad I could meet up with Yuka and Manami. 

Then at night Yuki and I met up and Chika, Yudai and Daisuke were there too! Super glad I got to see them and talk to them. Daisuke and I had a really good talk on the train back. 

I haven't interacted with a native speaker of English in about two days and I won't tomorrow either. 

Kansai

I'm finally in Kyoto for the final leg of my Japan trip. Only two more full days! ;_; I'm staying with a Couchsurfer, Shuji, in Kyoto which is really nice. He's really nice but also really awkward in a Japanese man kind of way. I sort of feel like I am abusing Couchsurfing because I am already so familiar with Japan and know so many people here, but oh well. It has its ups and downs compared to a hotel. I'm staying in a real Japanese old house which is exciting and reminds me of the little inn my mom and I stayed at in Tokyo. Sliding doors, stairs that are wooden and steep as f*ck, a teenytiny bath room, etc. and of course tatami woven floors. I actually really love tatami and futon. Comfortable bedding on a tatami floor is so nice and tatami rooms smell great. :) 

Tomorrow I'm going to Nara with Yuka and on Monday I'm going to Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari in Tokyo. This trip is kinda messed up because I could be going to places I've never been like Himeji castle, Koyasan in Wakayama prefecture, or Tottori sand dunes, but I'm not. I'll have to save them for next time. 

I'm exhausted now so bedtime! 

My babies

I'm in a much better mood today. Yesterday was so much fun and due to a series of fateful coincidences everything worked out perfectly so that I got to see all of the students I wanted to see. I visited my school and had class during the day with my students. They were so precious. After school I was futsing around on a ukulele that my successor left at school and watching the girls' tennis practice in the gym when their tennis coach laid out a chair for me and told me to give an impromptu ukulele/singing concert. I'm seriously a beginner at ukulele so I felt sort of embarrassed but it was fun. All the girls just sat silently in a line and watched me. Japanese kids, they just know how to be polite. <3 I'm glad my voice has recovered juust enough from my pharyngitis/laryngitis to be able produce vocal sounds that are actual pitches and not just grunts. I played/sang I'm Yours and More Than Words(which I had just learned an hour before....barely.)

After school Cece (my successor) and I went to Onogami Onsen and happened to run into two of our old students who had graduated. Then later we went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and two other graduated students were able to join us, including my favorite, Konomi. I care about them and their happiness and their futures so so much. I'm really happy I got to see them again. <3 

Today I'm on a day trip to Niigata, a neighboring prefecture, for no particular reason other than to do something and to make use of my rail pass. Except I just missed the last train so now I'm waiting an our for the next one. Woohoo! 

This mouse and man say hi from Niigata station.