365 days, weeks #44-46.

How is it mid-November?  Someone please tell me.  For the past 3 weeks, the pace of life has been go,go, go. I'm almost at a loss for words, but in my attempt to document, here are a few thoughts today, disjointed just like the images above:

1. It's the early morning of day 3 of a crazy week, filled with: me kicking unethical journalists out of meetings, who I then chided for endangering already threatened community members; me and others just completely frustrated by the lack of progress by key stakeholders, by an apparent absence of due diligence (wish I could say more here, but I cannot); me writing frantically, harkening back to the late nights I often pulled working as a lawyer at a firm, except this time the subject matter is so emotionally taxing, the mechanisms unpredictable, inaccessible.

2. Last week, craving urban space, Ethan and I took a circuitous route through Koh Kong, Cambodia, with its verdant mountains, crossed the border into Thailand, and headed into Bangkok.  Again!  It was like many of our journeys: one of movement.  I've been fortunate to travel as much as I have this year, while working as much as I have - this would not have been possible except for the crazy Cambo holidays that riddle certain parts of the calendar.  In Bangkok this time, we observed the flooding preparations (sandbags, new concrete mini-walls in front of shops), and I probably had the best bowl of ramen since my last trip to Japan two years ago. I also scored a pair of yellow Worishofer-esque clog/sandals.

3. I started taking cyclos around the city, when I can find them.  They are much slower on movement, but I don't know how these men, usually much older, compete with the ubiquitous motor bike operators. I associate cyclos with Yangon, Burma.  One memory I have is of riding around one in the city after sunset, pitch black because of the common black-outs, the high-pitched cyclo bell ringing, cutting through the dark.

4. I really hate farewell parties.  

5.  I picked up my SFS Circle Top at the post office. It arrived in Cambodia from San Francisco in less than 1 week, although it took the Cambo post system some time to inform me.  Score 1 for the US Post.  The top is airy, the print is lovely.  

6. In one month, I travel home.  Wow.

Isetan in Bangkok

via tribu02 flickr

In my two short visits to Tokyo, I was lost, each time, in Isetan, a massive Japanese department store, which has a brilliant food court, stocked with Japanese goodies and sweets.

I almost entirely forgot about Isetan, until today, when I wandered in for the afternoon, looking for an electric oven.  From my cursory review, there are two major distinctions between the Japanese and Thai stores. First, the Japanese store, as I recall, was much more forward with its fashion offerings.  Second, the Thai store is more accommodating with its food - there are seats and benches galore that entice you stay and have that matcha scone with clotted cream, or that mango yoghurt, or that salmon onigiri, or that hot-off-the-griddle okonomiyaki.  At the time of my visits, that was not the case in Tokyo - no one was eating.  How?  I do remember being irked several times in the Isetan in Tokyo, as I had to slink away to sample my store-bought treats.  (I just realized that, when traveling, I spend a fair amount of time slinking away to eat.)

In other news, the flooding is getting worse in Bangkok.  In order to meet a colleague for dinner, I spent an unfortunate part of my evening traversing a dark, very flooded section of the city. And, I never found the place! 

Lingering

Japan is on my mind.

Today

This feeling comes and goes. Now and then, it rears its head, only to be lost in the din of daily life, dissolving into forgetfulness. But I'm holding onto it for a minute more, and today, I am documenting it. To remember.

In our big meeting this morning with the "big" stakeholders, as I munched on buttery cake, I thought: All the pouring over documents, laws, and legal memos; all the drafting and re-drafting, the agonizing over one word; all the site visits to impoverished communities via bumpy bus rides, to communities where, when you sit still for a moment, a swarm of flies attacks, where the heat is unbearable, where you are fatigued so quickly; all the women crying to me with their stories, with their half-naked children in their arms; all the evidence gathering.

SOMETHING -- and I don't know the contours of that "something" yet -- has come out of this, grown from it, from my work.

Amazing.

These pictures are from my trip to Japan with Mami last year. We were in Kyoto, on a cold afternoon that was quickly turning to evening. I remember walking through the park that floated above the city, staring at the reddening trees, above and below.

Not related. But this is kind of sums up how I feel this afternoon.

Statues, Smiles

(In order: Soja, Japan; Siem Riep, Cambodia; Champasak, Laos, last two photos.)

Dressed up Buddha statues, as you often find in temples, wats, and monasteries throughout Asia, make me smile.

Green Tea

via Fashiontoast

Today, I am craving green tea donuts and green tea Kit Kats. Yes, they do exist (though rarely stateside), and when I discovered them a few years ago, I was at first skeptical, but shortly convinced, of their yumminess. (Confession: Each time I'm in Narita Airport, I stock up on the green tea Kit Kats, but they never make it home.)

Shadows. Silhouettes.

(In order: Luang Prabang, Laos; Kyoto, Japan; Gobi Desert, Mongolia; Olkhon Island, Russia; Gobi Desert (again), Mongolia.)

Clay On The Brain

I want to play with clay. The pictures are from my time in Soja with Mami. She and her father let me play with bizen yaki clay. I made a "hukurou" (owl) for Mami and named him "Theodore."