Sojourner - Traveling with the “Canman”

 Flying back from Italia to Texas on the "oľ gal" (a 747!), listening to the King's College of Cambridge men's choir (a heavenly experience) gave me some time for reflection. I have finally finished, "Gulag Archipelago", Aleksandr Solzhenisyn's Nobel Prize winning book that chronicles 40 year's of life, torture, and death in Russian political prisons. Even the abridged version is a long slog, with way too much savagery to take except in small doses, hence the dog-eared copy in the photo below that accompanied twice flying over Siberia where it took place.  Millions of people gone, vanished.  Today who remembers or cares? If you are reading this blog, then you very likely have not experienced injustice on such a grand scale.  Horrific individual instances making the headlines in the US, pale in comparison. Imagine 100's of people just disappearing everyday for decades! We are so lucky to be free! Contrast the gulags to my plush experience glid

Japan is a mix of wonderous and perplexing, sweet and plain. The peach in this picture is an example of the wonderous and sweet. It is a Shimizu White Peach grown in Okayama. It is pink and milky white, juicy, perfect texture and so Sweet! It is unsurpassed by any I have sampled around the world. In contrast, the rice wrapped in seaweed has very subtle flavor and is indicative of Japanese snacks with little or no sugar. What do teenagers do on a weekend night. Synchronized dancing in droves around public buildings where they can see there reflection, rent booths to sing Kareoki in multistory complexes. And there is nothing to compare to eating at the plethora of small sole proprietor run eating establishments where you can meet and interact. I wish the US had such places. Japanese people are so polite, sometimes reserved, sometimes sacarine sweet. Bill Murray starred in a film called, "Lost in Translation" which depict some of the challenges about an American tra