Bipolar traveling...from Haiti to Japan

A couple weeks ago, I spent an incredible week in Haiti with a team from my church and 3 others who we were blessed to spend the week with.  There was incredible physical poverty, the kind that makes you rethink who you are and why you were graced to be born into a developed nation and the Haitian people were not.  80% of the population is unemployed, and the World Health Organization declared it the poorest country in the world recently, previously it had just been the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.  Of course, declaring the world's poorest country is largely determined by who is measuring it and what measures they are using; GDP, healthcare, educational access, or a combination of different measures.  Regardless, it's not exactly a list that you want to find your mother nation on.  It was very heartbreaking and moving to say the least, and I believe God will use that trip to change all of the team members' hearts into something more beautiful and willing to say yes again no matter where God may call them, whether that be to adopt locally or become a missionary overseas or live more intentionally in the setting that God has already placed them in.

After a week in Haiti, I spent a couple of days back home in Sarasota, in order to rest and catch my breath a bit before I went on my next trip.  It was very encouraging to see my church family and discuss what I had seen and experienced in Haiti, though a 5-10 minute conversation hardly did it justice.  All the same, it was an honor and privilege to be reunited with my church family after such a difficult week to process and try to comprehend.

Two days seemed to be the right amount of time to catch my breath, so it was time to move on to LA for a night and then onto Tokyo for a few nights.  LA was good although I was only there a night; I was reminded of just how diverse our own country is as I ate dinner at a local restaurant near my hostel that had a menu that was solely in Spanish.  You don't have to travel far to meet someone of a different culture, they're probably right in your own backyard, sometimes quite literally.  Even in mostly white Sarasota, I teach at a school that has a roughly two-thirds population of students who speak English as a second language and whose parents speak none or very little English.

I arrived in Tokyo in the middle of the afternoon and had some time to kill before my couchsurfing host was able to let me into his place after he finished work at 11:00 pm.  Since I didn't want to carry my large check-on luggage, I was thankfully able to store it at the airport for a few days for around $20, not bad as far as luggage storage prices go.  Afterwards, I went on to my host's place to make sure I could find it when I would have to go back there in the dark, always wise to find your destination in the daytime if possible which is something I've learned the hard way from arriving in several international cities in the pitch black and not having a clue as to where to go or how to get there.  Sorry mom, I've not mentioned that to you before for obvious reasons.

My host let me in right around 11:15pm when I arrived at his lobby of the skyrise that housed his flat.  He was a wonderful host who displayed the true meaning of hospitality to this American man who thought he knew something of living generously but turned out to be woefully mistaken and put to shame by Japanese hospitality, to the point where I vowed I would be more hospitable to my couchsurfing guests and others who I invite into my home in the future.

On Friday, I was left on my own to explore the city and take in some of the sights.  My girlfriend had emailed me a list of places to see, phrases to use, etc. that turned out to be very helpful as I didn't even crack the book that she loaned me that was a visitor's guide to Japan.  I much prefer to get someone's personal advice on where to go and especially appreciate it if a couchsurfer can take me to those places himself.

Thankfully, my host was in fact able to show me his city on Saturday since he doesn't have to work on weekends.  I learned however that it is common practice for Japanese people to only have weekends and national holidays as their vacation time.  Personally, I thought 2 weeks was pretty pitiful after having visited Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand where it is typically 4 weeks depending on the job.  He informed me that he took 3 days off for his honeymoon, and I encouraged him to come visit me in Sarasota sometime but I'm doubtful that will ever happen, even if I did suggest he tell his employer that he needed to take his wife on a second honeymoon.  If/when I marry my girlfriend, provided she actually/slightly surprisingly says yes some fine day in the future, the near future according to my friends' and family's wishes but I've written the first book of Hesitations and am well on my way to finishing the sequel, our honeymoon will consist of something quite a bit longer than 3 days.  Hopefully closer to 3 months if I have any say about it.

Needless to say, Haiti and Japan are very different countries, and reminded me of having bipolar disorder in just how different they are.  One is extremely poor and underdeveloped to put it lightly; while the other is in many ways more advanced than even American culture, for instance having a toilet that is smarter than the average person as opposed to the seemingly boring and almost hole in the ground experience we have at home.  There were so many things that amazed my senses on that trip, from the way the car park whizzed your car away atop a moving belt to who knows where only to return it upon your request just as quickly and seemingly magically, to the ways the public transportation is able to handle a large percentage of the 20 million residents of Tokyo who depend on it for their daily route to work.

You see, for me traveling is much more than just going to a new place and sight-seeing.  It is about connecting with locals and being willing to learn from their cultures as they ask and try to learn from your home culture as you try and explain the best you can where you come from.  Couchsurfing is a beautiful way to accomplish this, and one I hope to continue to use both as a surfer and a host for as long as is humanly possible.  AirBnB is another great website devoted to the same purpose, with the significant difference of charging money to travelers that hosts get in return for offering their spare bedrooms.  I use both, but I prefer couchsurfing as the majority of its members are like-minded in their pursuit of traveling with the purpose of not only seeing and experiencing the world but also learning from many different cultures and having a much richer experience for having been blessed with such wisdom.  That being said, I am also grateful for AirBnB as I was able to rent out my master bedroom this summer to a pro golfing Spaniard for a significant source of income in my absence.