Lisa Niver's Blog: We Said Go Travel, page 308

Belongings and Belonging: American Hoarder in Japan

Belongings and Belonging: American Hoarder in Japan

“You don’t belong here,” says the voice. “This place is too fancy for you. A condo? By the ocean? Did you forget living in a trailer? What are you even doing here?” It demands. “What kind of a joke is this?”

And I don’t always have an answer. Yes, I do. I think. Sometimes. I belong with my husband and daughter. I belong where I am happy. I deserve to be here. A lot of hard work got me here, and it’s not for nothing.

This doesn’t really help the part of me that still feels like a kid up past her bedtime, as if there is something secret or forbidden happening here and if I leave, I’ll never find out what it is, like the end of a cheesy late night horror flick. I’ve seen apprentice geisha dance, watched fake ninja fights, stayed in numerous love hotels, hiked the Nakasendo (Ancient Samurai Highway), practically bathed in sakura petals, and explored enough castles to have serious opinions as to their quality. Yet there is more, so much more, waiting somewhere to be found. Only this month did I see a festival I had never seen before and enjoy a fried pork bun for the first time.

Going “home” is unthinkable— that’s admitting defeat! Giving up on fun! How could I do such a thing as ending my adventure early?

Early, though, no longer applies. Seven years abroad has eaten the remainder of my twenties and left me with a family I never imagined having here but would never want to be without. Regardless of belonging, I can’t leave, and wouldn’t have any reason to uproot what we have here. Life is more complicated than it was when I landed on these shores, but even with these new complications, the same old urges arise.

When I get a surge of what I call “Gaijin-itis” or “swelling of the foreigner” in which I feel utterly lost in this place I’ve called home for nearly a decade, I really want to shop. I want to spend enough money for Japan to accept me purely due to my economic impact, filling the whole of this tiny, fancy condo with knickknacks, kitch and clutter until only I can find my way around.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a problem with stuff. I always want more, even if it’s worthless, especially if it’s free. Anything and everything; even without a purpose, I want it all.

Moving Japan did nothing to cure this wanton appetite for acquisition, though it did put some nice limitations in place. Now, I can clutter a room with around one fourth as many possessions as I left strewn on the floors of the rent houses we departed in my youth. After a lot of soul searching, I have come to realize it was all about the departing. Moving so often as every couple of years meant that we weren’t like the families on TV with height markers on the door frame and memories breathing life into the house. There were no pictures taken in the rooms where we were standing, hanging on the same walls and reminding us of times gone by. Every place was new, and every move erased a little more of our history. Every new home had the potential to be our forever home, I seemed to think, and maybe if I just made it messy enough, we wouldn’t be able to leave.

Somehow, that never worked. Most of my possessions were lost every time, and I would spend months unintentionally putting together a new waist high clutter-maze. Whether this was to keep others out of my room or keep my family in the house, I am not quite sure, but likely both have some truth to them.

Now, at the age of thirty, I’m managed to confront some of those inner demons, and while my house is unlikely to win any cleanliness awards, it’s not so bad. The condo is cleaner than I thought I could keep a home and most importantly, it is safe for my toddler. It’s not perfect, but it’s mine. Organizing and storing are ongoing processes, but acquisition is not. The Gaijin-itis fades over time, and a good hug for my partner is usually as much as it takes to set my brain to right.

I’ve hung pictures on the wall and scattered ceramic versions of my college mascot around the house. Finally I have laid claim to a space without turning it into a landfill. The journey was long and arduous, and it’s far from over, but at long last, I live in a safe environment.

And I am keeping it that way.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

The post Belongings and Belonging: American Hoarder in Japan appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

Runaway Soul – Shores of Laxman Jhula, Rishikesh, India

Runaway Soul – Shores of Laxman Jhula, Rishikesh

It was during the summer of June 2011, that, I embarked for solitude, after the frenzied events happening in my life and escaping the same, in quest of peace. Anxious, desolate, puzzled, imploring for wisdom, I traversed through an unknown state of mind which directed me to ‘Dev Bhoomi – Land of Gods’ – ‘Rishikesh’. Though, in the land of divinity, I felt a bit afflicted. Something was deficient, Psyche was apprehensive. I was exploring for a locale to be at serenity.

Drifting through the narrow lanes, amid mysticism, I elapsed through many individuals clad in maroon and saffron longing for acumen. Rhesus Macaques’ along the boulevard played tranquilly with the pedestrians. Flavors of hot beverages and zesty lip-smacking snacks being made in the proximate kiosks filled the air. Shops selling local handicrafts were embracing the patrons for the affair. Local shutterbugs were keen to silver screen the tourists in the backdrop of the magnificent iron gargantuan – the ‘Laxman Jhula’. Snarling winds whisked past, making the environment more appealing with the oozing Ganges.

Segregating my way from the sounds of life, I marked my way down to the banks. Nestled in the base of Garhwal Himalayas, with waters of Ganges gushing along, are the maiden sandbanks, waiting to be reconnoitered. Sanctity is in the air. Just north of the western promenade of the illustrious Laxman Jhula Bridge at the plaza, stroll downhill on a narrow path covered in canopy of the greens. A few strides further, across a seasonal stream and Voilà, landscape’s untouched splendor and the hullabaloo of the bustling square was unheard. It was me, the open & wide Blues and the Azure Ganges. A few moments there and I were in poise. Time transpired and the sun was at the horizon. The shrines were beginning to brighten up for the dusk, with holy psalms and the oil lamps lit up, conferring reverence to the Mother Ganges. A sight to behold! My search for peace was attained.

Summers are the prudent period to stay in the divine land so as to escape the roaring waters of the rains and the freezing winters. Once at the concourse, taste the snacks and delicacies served by the hawkers and the adjoining food cabins. Don’t forget to get your exquisite moments snapped in the stunning landscape. And, to procure absolute harmony, just advance to the suggested lane from the plaza. Simply relax on the white sands and feel the temperate water. It’s YOU and the Mother Nature, total bliss! Your mind is at peace.

About the Author: An Architect by profession & an enthusiast of Political Science; traveling, exploring and understanding distinctive locales & cultures hold a center stage in me. Each human settlement in the world has its own identity making it distinct from another, which is shaped by its language, cultures, natural features, etc. Such uniqueness needs to be appreciated. Through the passage of time, I have felt an impulse of exploring them and comprehend it.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

The post Runaway Soul – Shores of Laxman Jhula, Rishikesh, India appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

The Black Hole of Chattra Sagar, India

The Black Hole of Chattra Sagar

I happened upon the Black Hole when out for a post dinner stroll in the dark under a  skyful of stars. Chattra Sagar was an oasis of rural peace between the kaleidoscopic assaults on the senses which are Indian cities: we had marvelled at the circus of Old Delhi on a rickshaw ride which somehow made its way like a stop-start tortoise which has wound off track and now picks its way through quicksand and against a tide of humanity.  We had walked round Jaipur, our heads made giddy and our nostrils keened by the smells and spice, inhaling the noise and smiling away the constant attentions of the press of locals who seemed simply to want to interact  rather than to profit; only the cows are untroubled here. Jodhpur’s blue houses and great fort  would come next.  That these few days in Rajasthan followed our time in Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas in the thin mountain air under high blue skies – our spirits salved by the tranquility and beauty of it all and by the unquenchable good-naturedness of the Buddhist people and the resonances of their ancient monasteries – made the transition back to the Indian cities seem like a flight to another planet.

But Chattra Sagar was an oasis, another change of planet.  In Ladakh we had camped and washed in freezing mountain streams and wheezed as we trekked; here we stayed in the most luxurious tented camp, eating aromatic and craftily spiced vegetarian food, and swam in the warm waters of the reservoir-lake down a flight of stone stairs from the tents and surrounded by a Jurassic Park full of bird life and bird sound and a golden haze.

We had spent the day swimming and strolling round the the nearby village and its fields, our senses dulled by the sultry heat and by the fly-swotting indolence of it all.  Here a turbaned old man in white reclining on a barrow with one knee raised as he lived out his time thinking who knows what thoughts; there two barefooted children playing with a home made spinning top; a young girl carrying a giant pitcher on her head turning to give a huge gap-toothed smile; the flies meandering as if their fly-hearts weren’t really in it round white cows wandering droolingly down the empty dusty street.  Even the odd monkey here is enervated by this dusty Raj-heat – such a contrast to their city cousins clambering over the hotchpotch of wires and cabling between the buildings of the narrow Delhi streets, screeching and hyperactive, their tempo mirroring that of their more distant human cousins in the crowds below.  In the fields women in stunningly colourful saris, looking like they must be dressed for a night out on the town – in orange and purple, blues, reds and bright green – bend and squat with their hand sickles to quietly fell and gather and stack the golden sheaves and tug their bright headscarves over their heads to ward off the sun.  At dawn the sun had risen huge and hot over the jagged hills beyond the reservoir: the biggest sun I have ever seen and filling the sky with orange.

We had eaten wonderfully: gently spiced potatoes that tasted of potato, tomatoes cooked with star anise, delicate lentil and bean curries in which individual spices stood out and washed down with a couple of cool beers.  The night was densely black and balmy, warm but comfortably so and the moonless sky was a stunner.  So we strolled  at the sauntering pace of the place after supper, necks craning up to the turning heavens.  I heard my daughter Tess, who had walked this way earlier in the light, begin to say: “Watch out for the….”

And I plummeted into blackness.  It seemed quite a long way down as the thorned plants that grow everywhere and bigger and sharper in the tropics slashed away.

 

I recall letting out a remarkably mild expression of surprise on my way down, rather than the expletives I would have expected of myself, and thinking that was a funny thing to have said, even in my nonplussed state at the time of my continuing descent. Something along the lines of “Well I never” but not that; I wish I could remember now exactly what it was.  My family – someone had dug out a torch by now – were in hysterics of course.  They formed a human chain to help me out of the Black Hole, which fortunately hadn’t been quite as bottomless as it had seemed on the way down, barely able to hold onto one another’s hands, so helplessly convulsed by laughter were they all.  I came out blooded and scathed but, I like to think, dignity intact.  The merest mention of the Black Hole of Chattra Sagar, even these years later, will set them off again.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

The post The Black Hole of Chattra Sagar, India appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

Not Like the Movies in the USA

Not Like the Movies in the USA

After I send him this picture, he emails back: “Wait a minute! You live in this cabin?! No way you live in this out-of-some-movie cabin?! No way! Okay, can I be your friend?! Please? Please? Okay, I am overwhelmed with this! You should write something romantic out there.”

            Of course, in reality, my little cabin has nothing remotely cinematic about it. Compost toilet, perennial mice, flies, a water system that has broken down every winter for seven years and counting, so that many months of each year are devoted to “hauling water,” a new chore unfamiliar to me in my previous existence as a city-dwelling professor living on every grid that exists.

            Some of my old colleagues came to visit, and uniformly agreed, “I could never live out here,” and I knew they weren’t talking about the compost toilet, because they hadn’t yet entered the cabin.

            But my beloved, also a writer, was thrilled when he actually visited. “I bet I could finally finish something I started out there,” he said, imagining life off the grid not as a hassle, not as an interminable drive over excessively wash-boarded roads away from what some call “civilization,” but another reality entirely. A place where one can “hear oneself think.”

            Pronghorn antelope roam the meadows, sometimes seating themselves at the edges of the road, taking in the morning sun-warmed dirt. Every summer one male, cast off by his group, searches for a new herd. His horns sometimes appear over the crest of the hill a mile from the cabin. He is my sentinel, alerting me to the nearness of home. Surely it’s not the same youngster each of these seven years, but I sense a similar melancholy in these boys. Cast out, seeking community. Perhaps some of my visitors feel the same when they come to this wide open space without trees. Perhaps they feel cast out of someplace else rather than welcome to this vast land.

            Never in my life had I imagined living without trees! I moved here from the excessively verdant Pacific Northwest, where moisture drips incessantly, moss burgeons across rooftops and sidewalks, and the forest overwhelms the trees.

            No obvious shelter here, no deterrent to the relentless wind that sweeps the acreage, picking up lightweight rocking chairs from the deck and smashing them, piecemeal, onto the scrub. And yet, there’s something elemental about that openness to sky and cloud and weather of every kind. The hawks glide the thermals and sometimes land for a kill: mice or voles or moles or prairie dogs. Out here, you have to make peace with the critters, or you’ll never survive a year.

            Inside, the walls are adorned with my son’s drawings, Aboriginal prints from Pitjantjatjara, bark cloth from Fiji, and hundreds of Crayola-colored bundles of yarn for rugmaking, which also help to pad the uninsulated half-log cabin. Yet the wind can blow them through the cracks and hurl them onto the floor, lift the curtains from the glass with numbing velocity.

            What will we look forward to out those single-paned windows? Spectacular cloudscapes, storms that linger in summer, casting hail on the nasturtium flourishing in pots lining the deck. This year, mice gobbled my germinating buds – inside!

            New problems announce themselves regularly, and one has to be fertile in creating solutions. Nature is in charge here, not people. I prefer it that way. He likes the coyotes infiltrating the night silence, and the way unexplained lights pierce the dark. Looking ahead to winter, our fantasies of being snowed in bode well for when the roads slick up, and drifts lace the ridges, when we human beings are really, truly, out of control.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

The post Not Like the Movies in the USA appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

Freedom to discover in Vietnam

It can get cold in Seoul in the winter, and with the skyscrapers

blotting out the southern horizon and what little sun there is in

December anyway, it stays dark.  I had had enough. Being 5000 miles away from

anyone that I might spend a Christmas with, my calendar was free. I

checked my bank account, and tried to a find a flight that would get me

closest to the equator for the cheapest amount possible. Ho Chi Minh City–

left in a week on Christmas Day, 600 bucks. Seemed feasible.

 

I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City nearing on midnight, with no pre-conceived

notions of what I might find there.  I landed on Christmas Eve. It might

as well have been New Year’s Eve.  The streets were packed, the shop

doors wide open, firecrackers going off at every street corner.   I did

a double-take as a short, black-haired Santa, wedged between his parents

on a motorbike, zipped between cars trapped in traffic.  I reached for

my passport and checked the visa — sure enough, “Socialist

Republic of Vietnam” … THIS was the big bad communism they had warned

us about in school? Over the next few days I got a few subtle hints of communism

— at least the pop culture sort I’d expected to see.  On the back of

the motorbike at night, I couldn’t see the monuments to the fallen

comrade.  I couldn’t read the missing sentences in newsstand magazines

in the market, which had been there just hours ago in the same magazines

in the Busan airport.   I drove right by the poster, two stories tall,

with an angry, beautiful mother (baby on her back, machine gun with

bayonet fixed in hand) marching forward across a field.

 

But, for now at least, no one seemed dour.  Moms handed kids wads of

cash to spend liberally on trinkets and toys,

fried somethings on a stick, and beers; full-faced smiles

passed easily between old men; young boys and girls dressed for Los

Angeles flirted with each other and texted their friends on iPhones.

 

My motorbike driver dropped me somewhere close to where he thought the

hostel was.  I wandered for 15 minutes, admittedly lost.  But, I didn’t

care. My night was free and so too did it seems was everyone around on

me on the sidewalk.

 

A little jet-lagged, I popped into a corner store to pick up a

pick-me-up.  I grabbed a couple bags of dried fish strips and a couple

of drinks I hoped were alcoholic, and headed back to the street.  I

found a low wall facing a busy boulevard, plopped my bag on the

ground, cracked a beer, and just sat there watching the people roll by

while I took stock of what I just stumbled upon.

 

I was happy, genuinely so; and for the first time in a couple months of

winter since I’d first arrived in my temporary home in Seoul. Why?  Was

it the 60 degree change in weather? I always prefer shorts and flip

flops, but weather isn’t everything. Was it the beer? At 4% alcohol,

that was doubtful.

 

No, I said to myself, I was happy because I had the privilege of

independence, the freedom to wander or linger whereever I felt. I had

the freedom to discover. Months ago, I was excited to move to Seoul to

do dissertation work in graduate school not because of knew what made

the city great, but rather because I knew so little about the place.

Sure, you google practicalities in advance (is there a bus from here to

there, a place to stay the first night, etc.), but then you just let the

city itself educate you. And now, I felt the same thing was about to

happen with Vietnam.  I spent the next week or so, setting a few

priorities for the day (seek out this park or that museum), going out

and finding it. But, never was an itinerary inviolable — sometimes a

sound of music or a smell of lunch down a sidestreet leads you away from

the destination you originally struck out for, you go wander and soon

enough you’re discovering yourself someplace new. Before going to

Vietnam, I had quickly sketched out a plan to go from HCMC to Hanoi by

train. All was set except the tickets — until one morning at

breakfast. I chatted with a Cambodian truck driver who’d stop for lychee

on the way to work about his home.  So intrigued, I hopped a bus to

Phnom Penh and 24 hours later was waking up in Siem Reap.   That’s, for

me, independence.  To be able to set your own path, using the collective

knowledge of guidebooks, locals, travelers as waypoints to make sure

you’re not missing something stupendous.  But the rest, the rest is up

to you.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

The post Freedom to discover in Vietnam appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

Crane Machine Comfort in Japan

The Late 1990s

Fort Worth, Texas

Coerced by my father to spend time with him during his league night at the bowling alley, I found myself thoroughly bored. There are only so many times you can watch overweight, middle-aged men throw heavy balls down the lane before you start calculating the average turn time per person (thirty seconds per ball with ball return, shorter for a strike) and translating Beatles songs into Latin (Ea te amat, yeah yeah yeah), after which it is obvious to all involved that you need a break.

With a buck from my dad, I headed to the arcade. For all that money, my only options were one round of the racing game Cruisin’ USA, one attempt at a shooting game that only gave instructions in Japanese, or the claw machine. Of these, the most time consuming was the claw, so there I went. For two quarters, I was in for a grab, followed by a chance to get additional grabs by stopping a wheel at the right spot to earn up to three extra attempts. Having timed that out too, every fifty cents was worth four grabs, and that dollar could kill a half hour pretty effectively.

The prizes were lame and not worth my time or money. I told myself it was physics, that I was learning something, that it was a skill worth having, but when league night was no longer a problem, the usefulness of the skill died away.

2010

Sendai, Japan

I had moved to Japan two years earlier, to a tiny mountain town with no foreign coworkers. Eventually I relocated to Sendai, one of the largest cities in Northern Japan, and took a job with another company. This time I was working at the head office with several other foreigners, but having never mastered the ability to work well with others, I struggled to find common ground. They went out drinking after work. I lived with my probable future in-laws who expected me home at a decent hour and sober. They ran off for weekends elsewhere. My boyfriend worked more than 24 days a month. We didn’t have weekends.

Boring, I called myself, and in that little misery I decided to do what made me feel better earlier in life. I headed to the arcade.

The arcades in Sendai were expansive things with claw machines lining the front and ranging in difficulty from tiny machines with cheap and easy prizes to massive monsters that charged 200 yen per play with a claw about the size of a human torso. I opted for some of the middle-grade machines and found them fairly easy. I came back to work that day with some gloomy bears, stuffed animals made adorable yet bloody in a juxtaposition that is so indicative of modern Japan that most foreigners love the things.

Two of my coworkers realized my skill, and together we went on arcade raiding parties, trying to find new toys and new ways to win. I wasn’t always perfect, and sometimes lost up to ten dollars worth of yen in pursuit of an item that moved slightly once, but my colleagues were forgiving. After all, we were fighting the same machine. Soon, we were laughing or commiserating. The excitement of winning a prize or frustration with failing to do so formed our common ground.My hours at the claw machine finally paid off, only in friends rather than trinkets.

2015

Still in Sendai

My life has changed considerably since those lunch break prize grabs. I’m now mostly a stay-at-home mom with a toddler to show for it, and budgeting is significantly more severe, but still sometimes I find myself at the machines, trying to win a BayMax, a Rirakuma, or even a gloomy bear. I still see my raiding buddies from time to time, but we don’t spend as much time at the machines for lack of funds and necessity. For the most part, we have the prizes we need. Anything we find now is just for the sake of entertainment.

 

Here I am, on the other wide of the world— still a girl with a game, winning toys to amuse myself.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

The post Crane Machine Comfort in Japan appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

Big, Weird, Wonderful Long Island, USA

The first site that we hit is the 33-foot witch. She looms over the abandoned nursery with her red eyes, pointy nose and flaking grey skin.

“Why is this even here?” my husband asks.

“I think they put her up for Halloween and never took her down,” I say.

“This is horrible,” he says, but he takes a picture and we get back in my parents’ car.

“Are you ready for ‘Giant eagle that flaps its wings’?” my dad asks.

I grew up on Long Island but left over a decade ago to move to the UK, and I’m rediscovering it via the Roadside America app, which promises to unlock ‘offbeat’ attractions. My father downloaded it the day before and we spent a lot of time narrowing down our options. The app has a surprising number of grave-related sites, including the grave of Nixon’s dog Checkers and a historic graveyard in the parking lot of a Home Depot, but we have bigger things in mind. Literally. We are only planning to see things that are stupidly large for no reason.

The eagle has a 20-foot wingspan, but it seems small compared to the witch. Also, we have missed it flapping its wings by about three minutes, since it only flaps on the hour. Disappointed, we walk across the street to the next attraction on our list, a large bust of Hercules draped in a sleeping lion from a 19th century ship. I poke at his delicate tufts of painted armpit hair. He is in better condition than the witch and slightly more impressive than the non-flapping eagle, but we’re eager to move on to what we’re sure will be the highlight of our trip – the giant rooftop hotdog.

The rooftop hotdog captured my imagination as soon as I heard about it. Suddenly, I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten this far in life without seeing a giant rooftop hotdog. As a vegetarian I don’t even eat hot dogs, yet I am excited about seeing a very, very big one. It is the most American thing I can imagine.

We find the hot dog on top of Hot Diggety Dogs, with the back end on the roof and the front end held up by a yellow pole. It it indeed giant, and had a stripe of yellow mustard painted across the top. The sign in front promises the world’s best hot dogs, but the shop is surprisingly empty. My husband gets a hot dog and pronounces it “just okay,” but the fried pickles that I order are a revelation. The breading slides off and they burn my fingers but I continue to eat them, dunking them into a mysterious cream sauce with great enthusiasm.

On the way home we stop at one last attraction, temptingly described as ‘Rooster pulls buggy, spits water.’ We spot it in front of a poultry market – a giant metal rooster attached to an Amish-style buggy. He is flanked by two normal-sized roosters, one of which has fallen over thanks to a broken leg. We wait for him to spit water but he doesn’t. Still, he is amazingly large.

“You need to see The Big Duck sometime,” my father says on the drive home, referring to a shop in the shape of a 30-foot tall duck that was built in the 1930s to sell poultry.

It occurs to me, perhaps for the first time, that I’m lucky to be from Long Island, a place where people don’t seem to ask “Why?” but instead “Why not?” I feel at home amongst these big, weird things that serve no practical purpose.

“I can’t wait,” I say.

About the Author: Katie Lee is an ‘Americanish’ writer who grew up on Long Island but has been living in Britain for the past 11 years.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

The post Big, Weird, Wonderful Long Island, USA appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

Munchery: The future of the delivery business.

One advantage that some restaurants have over others is their ability to deliver food.  Sometimes people just don’t want to miss the game they’re watching and want their food to be delivered instead.  It is for this reason why delivery services are increasingly becoming popular around the country.  One fantastic delivery service that has set itself apart from the rest of the field is a company called Munchery.

What is Munchery?  Munchery is a chef-driven food delivery service featuring a roster of in-house chefs.  These chefs cook up fresh dinners that are delivered right to people’s doors, which makes answering the question of, “What’s for dinner?” much easier to answer.  Chefs that have worked at restaurants such as Patina, Hatfield’s, Craft and the ACE Hotel cook up a variety of main dishes that are made with seasonal, high-quality ingredients.

Are you ready for a chef made meal

Los Angeles: Send Forth Graduates and Stories

From Rabbi Joshua Knobel:

“Send forth…So begins this week’s parasha, shelach-lecha, in which God commands the Israelites to send emissaries to investigate the land. When the spies return with reports burdened by fears, they create a panic among the Israelites, who are condemned to remain in the wilderness after wondering, yet again, why they had abandoned Egypt.

At Stephen S Wise Temple, we heeded the command to send forth, as we celebrated the graduation of Wise School’s Class of 2015. With song, video, and dance, 48 students emphasized the import of their Jewish education – our people’s values, traditions, and language – to their future.

Like our ancestors, these students enter a land flowing with milk and honey, with opportunity around every corner. Also, like our ancestors, they enter a world fraught with peril. Well documented are the prospects of assimilation and irrelevance that accompany Jewish life in America.

They enter this world, however, armed with the skills and fearlessness necessary to traverse a constantly changing global landscape and to create our Jewish future. The Jewish world they create will not resemble the Jewish world of today. However, they remain eager for the opportunities and undaunted by the challenges that await.

Unlike our ancestors, let us send forth our emissaries with confidence in the future they will create, as their path is the only way out of the wilderness.”

What choice will you make about how to educate your children? What choice will you make about how to spend your time? Will you worry about peril? Will you look forward to challenges? Will you worry less about how others see you and more about who you are and about who you are capable of becoming?

Share your story about how you are brave in the We Said Go Travel Summer Independence Writing Contest

Summer 2015
Independence Travel Writing Contest #8
We are looking for an article about your independence. Where do you feel free and the most true version of your self?

The movie, The Book of Life, asks us to have the courage to really live and to live life as if it is a song. “It is all right if it goes wrong, just keep calm and carry on.”

Will you write your own story? Will you follow your heart? Will you sing your song? Or will you play along to the script you think your parents and ancestors predetermined for you?

Maria Posada, the star-crossed lover from The Book of Life,  says, “I belong to no one.” Please share a story about where you belong and if your family and country want you to play along or find your own path. Are you independent? interdependent? Where do you find freedom and joy?

In her book, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough” Brene Brown says: “When we tell our stories, we change the world.” Be Brave! Be Bold! Tell us your Tale.

DATE: Enter from May 18, 2015 to July 4, 2015.

THEME: Independence: A Place that Makes You Feel Free to be Yourself

**Over 1800 writers from 75 countries have participated in contests #1-7 since Jan 2013. Share your story!**

DEADLINE: Enter by midnight PST on July 4, 2015

To Enter: Submit your entry here

PRIZES: 1st Prize – $500 usd cash 2nd Prize – $100 usd cash 3rd Prize – $50 usd cash

.

The post Los Angeles: Send Forth Graduates and Stories appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

Le Rhône et La Saône- France

My train crosses into France and I am unarmed. I am plunging knees first into foreign territory. I’ve created a pastime out of living in different countries. Yet, being wrenched out of my comfort zone is utterly traumatizing. I usually spend the first day of any vacation in my pension or hostel with my stomach wrought and shriveled with hunger, brooding over phrases that will convey “I’ll take the fish, please” “May I have the check, please?” “Thank you and goodbye, please”.

As a young woman, I imagine solo travel to be liberating and empowering, but this is has never been the case. Not until Lyon.

In the Lyon station directional signs and advertisements blur past me. French greetings and exclamations swarm my head like flies buzzing around sunbaked roadkill. Dead meat is exactly what I am. I must press on and that entails finding a place to sleep at 23:00 the day after Christmas.

In the morning, I must check out and find somewhere cheaper for the remaining days. I stayed in a hotel next to the station. I found it after circling the block twice, asking room prices, passing in and out of homeless encampments under overpasses stepping lightly if not out of courtesy for the dozing, certainly out of fear of waking them.

Before I locate my next bed, I seek out breakfast. I walk in the direction of the rivers leaving behind dingy Lyon Part Deux. I cross the Rhône and marvel at its power barreling under my feet past grey, parliamentary buildings that stretch for blocks. In the commercial district there are flowers stands, independent bookstores prefaced by people sipping foamy coffee drinks with literature held to their noses, hot caramelized peanut stands spewing steam in the vendors’ faces.

I reach the Saône River lined by a bustling open-air market. The first stands are striped with rows of flowers and bundles of firewood. I am taunted and teased by strips of paper on toothpicks boasting fresh brie goat blue and camembert cheeses. The bakeries on wheels are Sirens that seduce and claw at my line of vision. Behind the cases lie croissants brioches canapés éclairs, all topped with icing fruit or chocolate. I break my gaze to concentrate on what to say.

My heart pounds against my rib cage in protest to my impending self-humiliation, while my stomach purrs out of deprivation and anticipation. Breathe, exhale. Breathe deeper, exhale longer. Be brave, give my order, obtain my prize. The woman looks at me and spits out a sound like “Kes kvoo prawn ay?” Not understanding, I babble back “Oon kwasont, see voo play.” What an accent. Couldn’t I at least fake some sort of a French one? She interrupts my self-degradation by nestling a warm buttery croissant in the palm of my hand. I give her cold pieces of metal and say “Mercy, oh vooar.”

Flakes and layers of lace melt between my teeth, slowing my heartrate and appeasing my hunger. I wander the neighborhoods sandwiched between the rivers. In a plaza with gardens there’s a sculpture of a man and woman swimming. The man is muscly and barreling past her, propelling through space. The woman’s features are gracile, she is sliding her hand down his chest, smiling euphorically, letting herself be sucked behind in his wake. Below them is inscribed “Le Rhône et la Saône”. The caption sparks my curiosity. Where do the rivers meet? When they do, does one indeed over overpower the other?

The more I analyze the sculpture, the more I feel compelled to see their meeting point. I search my GPS for the distance. It’s a two-hour walk away. With my belongings and still no bed for the night, I decide this is more important and start marching.

I navigate down the bank of the Saône. One would think no map is needed to follow a riverbank. Roads dead-end. Construction fences block my path, forcing me to lose sight of the water. I wind through backstreets and step onto curbs occupied by workers of nefarious employ. When I get turned around, I must ask for directions. I am nervous, embarrassed, and pressing further.

 

When I reach the point, I find that both rivers meet and marry peacefully, without turbulence. There are train tracks that continue under the surface of the water. At my feet there is a pile of corks. I imagine how they came to congregate in this spot. Champagne bottles popped on the bridges. Wine corks lazily abandoned on the banks are washed away by rain or kicked into the rapids by children. I pick one and put it in my pocket. I have my answers. I have my prize. I turn back, against the currents, triumphant. I am free of trepidation. Free to be intrepid.

About the Author:

I am 24 years old and have lived in Europe since September 2013, when I moved to Calatayud, Spain to participate in the “North American Language and Culture Assistants in Spain” program. I am now doing a Master’s degree in Inter-American Studies at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

The post Le Rhône et La Saône- France appeared first on We Said Go Travel.