Nihongo wa chotto dake wakataru (I remember some Japanese)

I have landed in my second home. I always knew that coming back to Japan would be an easy way to kick off my world tour. Having lived here for two years made it an easy jumping off point. However I never expected to be so comfortable so soon. I was worried that my Japanese would fail me and my friends would spend all their time translating every word for me. Although I haven't been able to have a fully comprehensive discussion, I am quite astonished how quickly the vocabulary would come back. I am picking up way more in conversation than I would have guessed. Especially since I just came off a 17 hour flight schedule this afternoon.



Now I have to give me host family all the credit. We weren't talking about international affairs or discussing the finer points of Japan's economic policies, but we did make it through a couple of discussions about Canada and my family.



There is hope yet for the old brain of mine. Maybe after another week I will be back to my Grade 5 level like when I left 15 years ago.



Ja ne!



Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

What exactly is deicing fluid?

Still sitting here in Toronto! Feeling like my post from an hour ago was so full of expectation and hope. The reality is things like deicing get in the way and one's pure vision of escaping off into the early morning is slightly less romantic - but probably much safer.

Ah the orange goop flows across the wings and engines. Soon I will be sliding as effortlessly across the sky.

Ok - looks like my lack of sleep is making my writing a wee bit loopy. Time for a nap. Hopefully when I wake up the goop and tarmac will be a distant sight and the only thing ahead is blue (and warm) skies. I am not a fan of the deicing delays.

And so the adventure really begins

I am sitting at gate 139 in terminal 1 in Toronto. It is 7:27 am and I haven't slept a wink. There were too many thoughts and ideas running through my head. What if I slept through my alarm, what if my aunt couldn't get through the snow to drive me to the airport, what if when I arrived at the airport they refused to check me in because I didn't have all the right paperwork.... Shish - with all this late night pondering and problem solving you'd think I could take a crack at solving world hunger or global warming. I work on that over the coming months.

Anyway, back to the airport.. I am literally on the edge of my seat waiting to get this adventure underway. All my months of planning, list making and checking off tasks has finally lead to this. I want to go NOW! Not in 20 mins when my flights boards, but NOW. The folks heading to Shanghai get to go now, maybe I should have gone there first.

As I sit here looking at everyone waiting patiently I am reminded that there was a lot of people responsible for this opportunity. My friends, family, colleagues and even perfect strangers have all done everything in their power to ensure my success. I am truly humbled.

Whoo Hoo! They just started boarding my flight. This is it. I am off! Bye!!

My round the world route

Well I have finally got a reasonably complete route to take me around the world and back home again this year. I have had to make some compromises, but I have also found a few extra add-ons that I had not originally anticipated.

I had hoped I would get a thick wad of airline tickets bound together into one stack that would be torn out one leg of the trip at a time. But apparently most airlines only issue e-tickets these days. As an online professional, I should appreciate the efficiency and convenience of the digital world, but it doesn't seem as romantic to have an email in my backpack.

So here is the rundown of my grand tour. All comments and suggestion are welcome.

Jan 28 - Feb 10: Japan - Visiting friends from my days teaching there
Feb 10 - 14: Hong Kong - A total indulgence from the past. I know it will all be different, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to stop by
Feb 15 - Mar 12: Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia - I will be on a 26-day tour throughout the area staring in Vientaine and ending in Siem Reap
Mar 13 - 28: Thailand - Hopefully my brother Dean will come and join me for some down time on the beach. I want to get my SCUBA certificate
Mar 29 - Apr 12: Kenya - I would like to explore some areas of Kenya I didn't get to last year
Apr 13 - May 14: South Africa - I will be participating in a couple of volunteer programs outside of Capetown. I will be diving with Great White Sharks and working with a conservation team monitoring whales and dolphins. I also have some relatives nearby so hopefully I will be able to catch up with them too.
May 15 - Jun 3: Moving North through Africa - I am hoping to make a stop in Botswana, Tanzania and/or Rwanda. I am not really sure yet.
Jun 4 - 21: Egypt / Jordan - I will be on a 17-day GAP adventure tour through the region.
Jun 21 - July 5: England / France - I will meet up with my Mum and her side of the family in England and then travel south to France where we will have a few days on our own in Paris and then off to visit her sister in the south of France near Nice.
July 5 - Aug: Ireland, Scotland, England & Holland - There are no hard plans just yet, but I am hoping to spend time with family and friends along the way.
Sept: Spain & Morocco - My close friends Stuart, Manish and Celia will join me for a tour through Spain. Celia and I will also embark to Morocco. We are also hoping to entice our friend Katheryn to join us.
Oct & Nov: Greece & Turkey - I would like to tour the Greek Islands by sail boat and then make my way to Turkey for a fairly extensive final tour. I will likely also hit a few more places, but right now I am not sure where, could be Italy, Croatia, Germany, Austria, France. Before I leave Europe in early December I think I will swing through Holland and England again just for one last visit with the various family members.
Dec 4: Back to Toronto

I have repeated this list of dates and destinations many times in the past few weeks, and it never fails to impress my listeners. But every time I reel it off I get chills and there is a small twinge in the pit of my stomach. I find I ask myself, "Am I really going to do all of this?", "Is it really possible to take this all in, in one single trip?" and "What are you going to pack for all of these different locations?". These questions can't be answered yet, but hopefully you will check back throughout the year to see what I encounter along the way. Hopefully when I finally return home in December, I will have the answers to these questions and a whole lot more.

My brain won't stop spinning

It is 5:17am and I can't sleep. I have been awake since 3:47am. My brain has taken me through hundreds of scenarios from never seeing my passport again to how much cash to carry on me to how many pairs of pants to take. Ugh!

All my normal tactics to elivate my anxieties are not working. I have written down the questions so I can tackle then in the light of day. I have weighed out multiple pant options which included stumbling around in my closet to double checked that my kahkis from last summer still fit (miracle). I even made a rather frantic call to Fedex to ensure I filled out the waybill correctly for my passport's safe return. The nice lady (Louisa) kindly reassured me that I had done it right. None of these things has given me any relief from this crazy brain of mine.

Warm milk didn't do a damn thing except make me need to pee. Sleeping in the other room just turned out to be colder. And now I am sitting in bed tapping out this note on my blackberry in hopes of finally allowing my brain to get out all its worries and "to do" items.

Please brain - I am begging you - let me go back to sleep. I am going to be a wreak for the rest of the day. Oh great, something else to worry about now!!

Nightie night - I hope.

Coming home for the holidays

Having fallen from driving grace, I arrived in London on the Greyhound bus. I had my eye on everyone as they got on, making sure that the person who sat next to me didn't look like she has homicidal tendencies. The worse thing I could say about her was that she had the latest GQ magazine (Jennifer Aniston's baring it all cover) and it made it really difficult not to read over her shoulder.

Eagle Eye Boode was waiting for me when I stumbled off the bus and into the terminal. I walked up to Dad, before he even realized I had come off the bus. Apparently I have this bus riding thing down so well, I fit in with all the other weary riders.

We waited out the afternoon keeping an eye on the Northwest Airline website. We were tracking Dean's progress. He was delayed in Detroit, but that was no surprise given the weather. Once he got in and we were all feasting on Mum's Chicken Pie around the dining room table, you could see the relief settle in over Dad and Mum. Their kids were home.

Even though Dean and I have our own homes and established lives, I think we will always call our parent's house our home. We have never lived here ourselves, but the sentimental value of the family together makes this place our home.

Kiva conceived and concluded

Volunteering is a big part of what I want to do on my sabbatical.

I applied for the Kiva Fellows Program in October. Kiva is a US charity that works with microfinancing organizations around the world. As a Fellow, you are sent into a region where Kiva has microfinancing relationship. Your role is to support the microfinancing organization in its efforts with its entrepreneurs and with their relationship with Kiva.

My application was approved and I was asked to engage in several tasks; including setting up a blog space on Wordpress, developing a budget and providing a writing sample. As a Fellow, you are responsible for interviewing entrepreneurs and providing written updates on their process via the Kiva site. Plus you are expected to blog about your overall experience on the Fellows Blog. The posting on the blog were a major factor in my decision to apply for the program. The descriptions provided by the Fellows were compelling and gave great insights into the world of overseas volunteerism. I was convinced that this program was aligned with what I wanted my sabbatical to be about. Plus with the 10 week commitment required, I would be able to balance my time with volunteer programs and travel. If accepted into the program, I would start my travels in San Francisco in January for training and then move straight into my placement.

During the application process, I kept being reminded what it is like to work with non-profit organizations. With all the best intentions, most programs I have been involved with are not always run smoothly. For Kiva, they required me to have two phone interviews; one with a previous Fellow and one with the Fellow's Program Director. In both cases, the initial interviews were missed, with little or no explanation. Both times, I need to reach out and reconnect with the group to set up alternative times. I was (and still am) very understanding and forgiving for these missed steps in the process. However, I did wonder if these set backs were simply early lessons in how to work with the microfinancing organizations or with Kiva itself. Also, it seemed that the only time I was contacted by Kiva about the next step in the process was when I was proactive and sent a note inquiring about my application status.

I had requested that my placement be in Africa or Southeast Asia. As it turns out, Africa is the most competitive region, and by the time my final interview took place, there were no longer any African placements. I was offered Cambodia, Somoa or Azerbaijan. I had difficulty with offer, because I had put so much hope and expectation into getting a placement in Africa. I was not prepared to spend that much time in Somoa. Although it is suppose to be a beautiful island, not being able to travel easily to other places during my program, was not going to work for me. I wasn't even sure where Azerbaijan was when it was first suggested to me. I seriously had to look it up on a map. And for those of you who know me well, that is unusual. Given its location and my lack of understanding of the place, I thought it would be a big stretch for me to spend almost 3 months of my sabbatical in a place I hadn't even considered to travel to. Finally, Cambodia was a tough review. I had said that I would consider going to a placement in Southeast Asia. In preparing for this overall trip, I had had many discussions with people who had taken similar trips. Most of them had spent some time in Southeast Asia. Almost all of them recommended Cambodia as a place to visit, but wouldn't suggest staying there for any prolonged period of time. I have heard of several horror stories of people getting very very ill in Cambodia. I didn't want the beginning of my year long trip to be marred by a serious illness.

Having gone through the whole process, in the end, I had to turn it down. And the final interaction with Kiva was again a sign that I wasn't meant to participate at this time. I sent the Director a note explaining that I wasn't going to be able to joining the three placements they had offered, but that I wished them great success and hoped that in the future any application I might want to enter would be accepted without issue. I also congratulated them on having so many qualified applicants in place already. The response I got back from them within 20 mins was as follows: "Your application has been terminated.".

Despite not getting the program I had hoped for, I am still glad to have gone through the process. It really helped me define the importance of the sabbatical and reinforced that although things don't always go according to plan, they do all happen for a reason.

I may not be working with Kiva, but I am still participating in a couple of volunteer programs in Africa. Check out the programs I am joining.