|
You are using an insecure version of your web browser. Please update your browser!
Using an outdated browser makes your computer unsafe. For a safer, faster, more enjoyable user experience, please update your browser today or try a newer browser.
|
|
Me, my bear, & the peloton! |
I've always appreciated a good stick figure or a good sign. Lucky for me, there are plenty in Japan!
Deposit crying children here.
Go ahead and let your children lean over ledges.
I enjoy the formal presence of hats in Japanese signs.
This guy's crime? Hat lacking.
Polar bears and witches are welcome on Kyoto's buses.
These bottles are so happy to be recycled!
Some friends recently moved to Vientiane, so I spent a week visiting them and their awesome kids and watching select scenes of Kung Fu Panda 2.
Vientiane was far calmer and quieter than I had expected. I thought it would be like chaotic Bangkok, but I was happily wrong. I would definitely like to explore more of the country some day!
Walking around Vientiane.
It’s pretty crazy one Saturday I was hiking in Rwanda, marveling at glamorous Kigali and the next Saturday I’m visiting a high school friend in downtown Tokyo!
We spent a day visiting a popular temple.
Rieko took me out for a traditional Japanese dish. I can’t remember what it’s called, but I have never had anything like it! The restaurant gives you all of the ingredients and you cook them yourself into a sort of pancake on the grill built into your table. To eat it, you use a tiny little shovel-like utensil.
It’s common for restaurants in Japan to have plastic examples of their menu items in the window, so we wandered around an area where they sell all these plastic foods.
Coffee cup balconies.
A massive beetle crawls up this building.
The same temple at night.
In just under two months in Africa, I’ve been on…
1 flight (1:15),
17 buses (87:40),
1 ferry (2:20),
and had 1 private driver (13:30).
I’ve stayed in…
2 tents over 11 nights,
21 hotels and 28 different hotel beds,
1 bus station,
and 1 airport.
I’ve visited…
16 different towns and cities in 3 countries.
I’ve read…
10 books
and 1 audiobook.
Next stop Asia!
Posh and Kathryn in Rwanda!
Arriving back in Kigali after spending the past week in rural Rwanda, the city seemed so big and cosmopolitan.
We were too late to get to the genocide museum, which may have been for the best anyway. We’d had such a great trip that it was nice to not end it contemplating genocide. We did drive past the Hotel Mille Collines, made famous by the movie Hotel Rwanda.
There was one last thing Posh desperately wanted to do before we left the country. Moto-taxis are everywhere in Rwanda, so we paid a driver to let us borrow his for a few minutes so we could take a few last photos.
David drove us to the airport where Posh boarded her flight back to the UK and I headed to Asia!
Our last morning in Rwanda was spent hiking to Dian Fossey’s camp. The American came to east Africa in the 1960s to study gorillas and her ceaseless work until her murder in 1985 has been pivotal in gorilla conservation.
We had about ten people in our group. The guide said the hike would take an hour and a half to two hours maximum. This was good news for Posh and I as we hoped to get to Kigali in time to see the genocide museum.
It was a muddy hike and just seemed to get muddier as it went on!
This poor woman’s boot got stuck in the mud! Her sock was saturated with mud when she pulled it out.
I couldn’t help but look at my watch repeatedly. We were moving slowly but time was going quickly. It was really frustrating to realize we probably wouldn’t make it to the genocide museum due to the group’s glacial speed.
Dian Fossey’s original buildings no longer stand after decades in the rain forest, but there are signs letting you know which building stood where.
Dian Fossey’s grave is next to that of Digit, her favorite gorilla. Digit was killed by poachers in 1977.
Our guide knew we wanted to get back to the city, so she allowed Posh and I to make the return hike with two armed guards so we could travel faster than the group’s turtle pace. What had taken the group over three hours to hike, the four of us hiked (and ran!) in about forty minutes! It was pouring for a good chunk of the return hike, so we were totally soaked and muddy in no time. The guards kept checking to see if we were ok and were relieved to see we were both laughing like idiots–soggy, muddy idiots.
In the end, even David’s fabulous driving couldn’t get us to Kigali in time to visit the museum. Oh well!
After the gorilla trek, we had lunch and recharged our camera batteries. The original plan was to drive out to a scenic spot to look out onto a lake. It started to downpour the way it does only in places where seasons are named “dry” and “wet” so David thought we were kidding when we said we still wanted to go out.
The paved road soon turned to dirt, which meant David had to drive us through slick mud uphill on a narrow, winding path no wider than one car.
And the view was great!
This was the big day: gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park.
You are supposed to stay ten meters away from the gorillas, but the gorillas like to come a lot closer than that.
There were about ten of us in our group, plus the guide and trackers. Each group is assigned a gorilla family to visit. Some families are just a ten minute hike away while others can be over fours hours hiking away. We were going to see the Amahoro (peace) family.
It was a rocky, bumpy drive to get to the trailhead.
We hiked for less than two hours to get to our designated gorilla family.
It was raining lightly when we got to the gorilla family, so most of them were hiding in the thick trees to stay dry. The rain cleared up and, before too long, there were several gorillas checking us out, eating, napping, and playing in plain sight.
The babies were bold and loved to show off for us.
But the adults always kept a watchful eye on the babies and made sure we kept our distance from them.
For the physical and mental health of the gorillas, guides are very strict about enforcing the one hour time limit. The time flew by before we returned to the trailhead and our hotel.
Our next stop was to see Iby’Iwacu Cultural Village. It’s set up so tourists, both foreign and domestic, can see what life used to be like in Rwanda. But first, a few photos from the road.
Posh, David, and I were dressed up as the king’s mother, the king, and the queen, respectively.
The king’s hut.
This guy reminded us of Papa Smurf.
Traditional healer.
Sorghum grinding.
Making tools.
Shooting a bow and arrow. It took me about five minutes to finally figure out how to actually shoot the thing!
Our visit ended with drumming and dancing.
That night at our hotel, a group of kids put on a traditional dance show. While I had politely tolerated being pulled into dancing the previous night, dancing with these kids was so much fun! They were having a great time and were dripping with sweat by the end of it. (I tried to eliminate my scary red eyes in the picture, but it always ended up giving me a black mark over my teeth and nose which looked like a Hitler mustache, so I’ve kept the red eyes instead!)
