We live above a DVD-booth rental shop, so the stairways leading up to the 4th floor are papered with movie posters.  One thing I’ve come to appreciate about movie posters is that the images are so intense – each scene is a powerful emotional message designed to capture and communicate something about the experience of watching the movie.  Walking (or hobbling) through the stairway is like wandering through a gallery of intense emotional moments, and with over 100 posters, there’s a moment for every emotion.  Whether I’m headed off to work or trudging back, I can find a movie to match my mood.One of my favorite movie posters is for “Midnight Meat Train.”  A blurry image of a psychopath with a meat mallet, ready to brutally tenderize every part of your body.  It’s a great movie poster for foul moods, and one can just imagine Seoul readying herself to maul us.  Then there’s “The Wrestler,” for days when we feel beaten down and burned out.  There’s also a movie (top right) with Shia Lebeouf, which really just fills us with rage because we think of Indiana Jones IV.  On the bottom left, a beaming Ashton Couture with his beautiful girlfriend/wife Cameron Diaz…that is not quite a poster I’ve empathized with yet here…Finally, on the top middle, “The Transporter.”  I’m just waiting for that day when I can walk down the stairs and feel like Jason Statholm ready to seriously kick some ass.

So I think mood forecasts are in order, based on those movies whose posters just seem to say, “I feel you man – here, let me show you exactly how you feel, but more so.”  Expect such forecasts to follow…

If you’ve ever been traveling with others, you know that there’s a strong feedback between how they’re feeling about something and how you feel about it. The idea is a lot like waves in a pool of good morale– if many waves come together at their peaks, things are amazing, and we feel absolutely vindicated in leaving our lives behind. The problem is that Brian, Matt and I meet at our troughs as well.

Episode 3 begins to explore just how we felt every day living in poverty. We could tell ourselves each day, “yeah, I’m poor, but I’m poor in Japan!” but saying it didn’t take away the mental and physical exhaustion. It didn’t inspire us to put in another all-nighter, and it didn’t give Christmas back to those that missed their families.

Maybe that sounds like a lot of privileged whining. I’m ok saying that, because the depression we felt around being poor wouldn’t have been so strong if we hadn’t had nice lives to look back on. Matts, Brians, and Robs in alternate dimensions, were laughing with their cousins, ordering a pizza, or playing with their cat. They were happy and healthy, and best of all, not hungry all the time. While so many would envy our lives abroad, keep in mind just how tremendous these comforts really are, and also just how much it sucks to live a monotonous life of white rice and eggs.

The beautiful nature shots in the beginning of Episode 203 were from Tokyo Bay Hamarikyu Onshi Teien – a giant tea garden – that we stumbled across while wandering around early in the morning near Tsukiji Fish Market.  We were some of the first people in the park, so we were able to wander around alone in the morning quiet.  It was perhaps one of the most peaceful places I’ve been to in Tokyo.  Shibuya is constantly buzzing and bustling, and our own neighborhood in Miyamae-ku is about as eventful as a crater on the moon (but without the “hey we’re on the moon!” feeling).  So our lives oscillate between the hyper-active and the inactive, but at the park, it was a comfortable medium.

Massive monolithic buildings towered on all sides, making the park seem almost like a little valley from 400 years ago.

Jed and Conrad

About 50 stories by 40 rooms of concrete and glass overlooking a ceremonial tea house…it felt like ancient Japan nestled within modern Japan.

We discovered that long ago, the area used to be a falcon range for the shoguns, but it also came to serve as a tidal pond, a tea garden and a wild duck hunting site.  After WWII, it was made a public park and protected under Japanese law.  Many eras in Japan have passed through this garden, and perhaps it was the layers of history that made it feel so peaceful.  In Tokyo, a subway ride can be literally overflowing with people but also feel silent and almost sterile (at least to a mind accustomed to constant conversation); central squares can feel claustrophobic with so people but also incredibly lonely because no one will ever look you in the eyes; bedroom neighborhoods, like ours, can be full of residences but empty of social interactions.  The park felt like a unique space for us – serene but still stimulating.  The park was mostly empty, but it didn’t feel like we were being separated from other people as much pushed together with our own thoughts and reflections.

Skyscrapers on the lake

Our current diet of experience isn’t incredibly nourishing for our bodies or our minds, but this separate peace in the park helped rejuvenate my passion for traveling.

This was just the beginning

You saw this message as well as I did.  As Brian just mentioned, we aren’t in good shape (I try to be positive and think of being 20% not-fucked…).  We have a couple creative strategies for getting nutrition, taste, entertainment, and something that is vaguely Japanese on our empty budgets.  We haven’t considered shoplifting BUT I’m just saying that a bumper sticker illegally pasted on the side of a road told me that it wasn’t crime if we decided to go there…

Japan doesn’t really “do” Christmas as much at they do a Christmas themed multi-month shopping experience.  We arrived at the end of this knowing no one and managed to meet just enough people to find ourselves our first Japanese Christmas party.  This party was actually at a French club better know for its fashion industry after parties and burlesque (only on the weekends) than anything resembling holiday joy.  We drank and danced until about 3 AM where we were then told the real Christmas party was at a different location, so off we went to Unit another unique Japanese club.  Where we continued the marathon night until 7 AM.  DJs, private parties, underground clubs, dancing, girls, booze, more dancing.  All in all a very Tokyo, and very unique Christmas.

As Brian said in the episode, we are practically family.  We live together, we work together, we play together.  We’re friends, colleagues, roommates, and fellow travelers, and in such circumstances, friendship must intensify.  Rob’s divorce hit the entire team…hard.  It was heartbreaking to see our best friend go through such an ordeal.  Everything was put on hold, and we pulled together to act simply like the band of friends we were when this whole crazy idea was born.

After Buon Me Thuot, we grew to dread the words “100%,” even though it became a routine part of our lives.  To me though, the phrase doesn’t just mean “finish your glass.”  I think it accurately describes the camaraderie in this team – we’re in this together one-hundred percent.  Vietnam has been 100% in so many ways, and friendship is definitely one of them.