Getting there isn't half the fun -- it's no fun at all

I am about about to tell you something that will earn me no sympathy at all: I only have to set my alarm two times a week and I only have to make morning commutes those two days. One of those days is Sunday.

I am about to tell you something that ought to earn me sympathy though, if you have any feelings at all: I have no car. And I live in a place where it rains a whole lot.

Here are my options for getting across town to meet with like-minded people on Sunday mornings, and how those options are affected by rain:

Commute Option #1

E-bike. My preferred transportation is my e-bike. When my meeting is over I can roam around and take in different scenery. But when it rains, this option is really terrible. If I only had to go a few blocks, I could endure, but all the way across town? No way. The rain poncho worn by e-bikers is not efficient at keeping rain off your face and out of your eyes. I would arrive looking and feeling like a drowned rat. Ask me how I know. I am not good company when this occurs.

Commute Option #2

Subway. Subways are nice enough, but getting to and from the subway stations is the hard part. From the time I leave my door to the time I am at the subway platform takes at least 20 minutes by foot. It is a rough 20 minutes though, dodging cars, bikes, street vendors, crazy people on a narrow street. If it rains, it takes slightly longer and is more dangerous.

Once I arrive at the subway station platform, I may have to wait 10 minutes between trains. The subway trip across town takes 20 or more minutes. When I get to the other end of town, I have to walk another 10-15 minutes to get where I'm going. You do the math. This gets to be obnoxious, especially the part about walking in the rain for so long. And the math.

Commute Option #3

Taxis. Taxis are nice. Someone else does the driving, you just sit in back and relax. But finding a taxi is hard in good weather, and might-near impossible when it is raining. And if I do get lucky and find a taxi, then when I get to the other part of town, I may not find a taxi back home. I have waited for taxis for an hour or longer before.

If I am choosing the taxi option, then when I leave home I go to the main road, to the south of where I live. If I can't find a taxi, usually it is too late to go with a back-up plan -- the subway is the opposite direction.

Rainy commutes are very stressful. I had a rainy taxi commute this past Sunday.

Here I am waiting for a taxi. I'm on the curb between the bike path and the main road. See my umbrella at the top of the photo?

 E-bikes zoom by. 

Buses zoom by. 

Not a taxi in sight.

The Import Grocery Store

Once upon a time when I lived in Bedrock, there were no grocery stores. No, not one.

I remember being in Bedrock during the summer of 1996. At the time, I lived in Hong Kong, but had felt led to move to Bedrock later that fall. I asked some of Bedrock's university students to go with me in a taxi (rickety van) to give me a tour of the grocery stores in town, so I'd know what to expect once I moved to Bedrock.

I explained to the students that I was looking for the store where they sold things to eat. I tried to explain packaged groceries, but the students' English level wasn't that developed, and I worried that my meaning got lost in translation. We drove around town for hours, and they seemed frustrated that the muddy outdoor markets were not meeting my standards for "grocery store." It finally dawned on me after several hours that there WERE NO GROCERY STORES in that entire county of 10 million people. I recall that to be a very, very, very sobering moment for me, because I had already decided to move there. How in the world could I live in a city without a single packaged item of food? I would soon learn. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. When I lived in Bedrock, I stood in line at the pig butcher's shed every Saturday morning. I rode my bike through mud several inches deep to buy veggies at the most primitive market you can imagine. Though Coke and Snickers don't qualify as food, they were oddly available and I would consume more of those than any person reasonably should. But these were not reasonable circumstances.

Every time I would leave to go to some place like Shanghai or Hong Kong (even America), I would go to import grocery stores and buy Betty Crocker cake mixes, macaroni and cheese mixes, hamburger helper, canned tuna, mayonnaise, cookies, chips, canned goods, spaghetti noodles, tomato sauce and anything I could find that would make my life easier. I would mail back as many as possible, and the items rejected by the post office (breakable items) found their way back to Bedrock inside my suitcases. Thus my suitcases were extremely heavy; I would either pull my back out trying to get these up five flights of stairs, or I would pay my taxi driver to help me carry it up.

Around the turn of the century, Fu Mart came to town. It was a Chinese-style Wal-Mart store, and it had a tiny import section. Sometimes we could buy popcorn, tuna and spaghetti noodles. I continued to buy groceries in the bigger cities, but I didn't have to buy quite as much in the big cities as I had in the early days.

At that time, there were no local online stores as there are today. Today, if I lived in Bedrock, I could order some packaged food items and have them delivered to my door. But this was not possible when I lived there.

So now I live in a city that has lots of foreigners, and it has import grocery stores. I try to go every now and then to buy some things to make my life easier. I can't afford to go there for everything, so the markets are still my main source of food.

You'll see that the carts at the import grocery store are not very large. They don't expect you to buy much, I guess. And cost is not the only reason you don't want to buy much. You do have to carry that basket of groceries up a flight of stairs to check out, and then somehow you have to get it home way across town without having a car.

But frankly, cost is the real deterrent to excessive spending at the import grocery stores. See these bottles of Clorox. They are 299 RMB each. And let me tell you, 299 RMB is equal to $50 U.S. dollars. FIFTY U.S. DOLLARS for a bottle of Clorox! (Did you just pass out when I said that?) And there are expat housewives that are stupid rich enough to buy this stuff, just because it is familiar looking, not realizing that the exact same kind of nice-smelling bleach is available at Chinese grocery stores under a Chinese label for about a dollar or two.

How many bottles of $50 Clorox have I ever purchased? If you said "none," you are correct.

Little house on the prairie

You may recall we experienced the hottest summer on record last summer. It was miserable in every way. And our beautiful green grass that had been planted a year earlier at great expense appeared dead as it sat in its little dust bowl. I was sad. 

But I am sad no more. That grass has made a stellar comeback. It was pleasantly long when I left for Japan, but when I got back from Japan, it was so long that it bent in the wind like prairie grass. They tend to go for the natural look here. Some of it was up to the top of Mimi's back (doesn't look like it in the photo, but trust me, it did).  

Yesterday, they began the days-long chore of cutting the grass -- with a weed eater, as usual. The footlong cuttings pile up on top of the lawn. If a good stiff wind doesn't come along to blow it away, it will probably kill some of the grass underneath. All sorts of grasshoppers, roly-poly's, mosquitoes and other pesky little insects and spiders have been pulled out of hiding.

Soon, it will rain a lot more (it's rainy season again) and the grass will grow exceedingly tall again, and every month or so they'll hire the old men with weed eaters to repeat the process of chopping the lawn. In the meantime, there is no neighborhood committee to tell them the grass is too long, and no one complains. That's just the way they roll in my (not so) little corner of the world.

Allergic to Tokyo

I must be allergic to Tokyo. I sneezed so much today I thought my eyeballs were going to pop out. Can't take any more days like this one!

The end of the day

Trains and subways form a massive web in and around Tokyo, creating the most utilized mass transportation system in the city, if not the entire world. Millions of train trips per day move the people of Tokyo to home, work and play.

This evening, while riding the train for about 15 minutes during rush hour, notices kept popping up inside the compartments, above the train doors. In several languages including English, the alert gave the name of a particular station, information that the station was closed in both directions, and the reason why: passenger injury. 

It was explained to me that "passenger injury," specifically, means suicides.

Suicide by jumping in front of a speeding train as it enters the station is a preferred way to end it all for the shamed or depressed in the world's largest city.

It happened three times, at three different train stations, during our 15-minute train ride. For three sets of family and friends, life will never be the same again.

Tokyo

I'm in Tokyo now! I got here this afternoon and ran into my friend on the train. What luck that we ended up on the same train!

Japan is a very interesting place with an unfortunate history. My dad is not fond of Japan, having lived here a year, in 1954-55, as a draftee of the U.S. army. 

My Chinese friends are not fond of Japan (to put it mildly), due to Japan's WWII atrocities and occupation of China. Nanjing alone saw the slaughter of 300,000 of its citizens within six weeks (starting December 13, 1937) at the hands of Japanese troops. I tell my Chinese friends that the ones who did the atrocities are probably no longer with us, but they still don't like Japan. They say Japanese are taught to hate Chinese and look down up on them. I try to encourage a positive view of Japan and throw around words like "forgiveness," but the wounds are very deep and I cannot change their minds. 

Therefore, I have no one excited that I am in Japan but me!

I like Japan's environment, because it is quiet and clean. When it rains, it doesn't create mud, it just looks cleaner. Unbelievable. 

Tokyo is modern, efficient, and interesting. Seems so odd to me that it is one of the least evangelized nations in the world. 

UPDATE:

Here's what my dad has to say about his time in Japan --

"In your blog, you mentioned that I was not fond of Japan. I really did not see much of it. I had one 3-day pass while I was stationed there at Misawa, and three other guys and I went by train to Aomori and Hirosaki (two towns near the northern end of the island Honshu, the same island you are on). We had planned to spend all our time in Aomori, but a blizzard was blowing there and we never saw anything of the town except for the train station. We decided to try Hirosaki, which was south and west of Aomori.  It took a long time to communicate with the Hirosaki station master that we needed a taxi to take us to a hotel, but we finally got to a hotel and holed up, because the same blizzard was still blowing. So, we didn't see much of either city. My main memories of Japan are snow and ice and hard cold winds and living in a tent. And earthquakes, frequent earthquakes."

Happy Easter

When someone says there are many paths to God (as I heard someone say this week), it makes me feel sad … and for those who may not be aware, it is unscriptural. In the Bible, John 14:6 records Jesus as saying: 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father except by me.'

If you could get to heaven by burning incense; visiting a temple/church/impoverished foreign village; memorizing verses; prostrating yourself on a long journey to Lhasa; admiring nature' or any of the other things that some other religions promote as the way to God, then Jesus would have certainly told us to do those easy things and be on our way! If there are lots of ways to God, by all means take the easy route! But he never told us to take the easy route. There is not one. Jesus died as a sacrifice, to pay the price of our salvation. And though he did it willingly, it hurt him deeply. For us to discredit that by looking for an easy way out, or by telling him we found another way to achieve the goal by ourselves, it is an insult to Jesus who deserves so much more from us. Really, why would he bother to die a brutal death (a blood sacrifice) if there is some other way that would reconcile us to God?

God is the one who created heaven, and he gets to make the rules for what it is, who gets in, and how. He decided that the door to heaven is through Jesus. All our deep thoughts and alternative paths that point to anything else amount to foolishness. We humans don't get to make up the rules.

And Easter seems an excellent time to say so.

If anyone wants to know more about how to become a Christian, Romans chapter 10 in the Bible can help you get started. I realize that most people who read my blog already know this information, but, you know, just in case, it seems worth saying.

On a personal note: I have had some crazy stomach bug or food poisoning all weekend, and had to cancel all my numerous weekend activities -- including the Easter ones. Monday morning my time (Easter Sunday evening for those of you in the U.S., around 8 p.m.), I 'll be flying to Japan where I will stay until late Friday. I would appreciate your prayers for the stomach bug to go away, for travel safety (especially on airplanes, but road and rail safety too) and for no earthquakes while I am in Japan this week (They had a relatively small one this past Friday. The whole Pacific Rim of Fire is really active right now with earthquakes popping up every day at one place or another.) I've been through a few earthquakes before, and if I never experience another one, I'm totally okay with that. Thanks so much!

Count your blessings

Blessed is the man who owns a car with a trunk, for he shall be spared such indignities.

My week in review

 This old rusted pay phone on a university campus isn't getting much use in the age of the cell phone. I saw this when I was invited to a university campus earlier in the week. 

 I went out after dark one evening and saw the beautiful night lights. How I wished I'd had my good camera with me! I got home and discovered my good camera really was with me the whole time. Duh! Too bad I didn't know it at the time. I used my cell phone for these three pics. My phone camera is really only good on close-up shots.

I met up with some young people for coffee one evening. It's close to my place so I go there by e-bike when we meet every week (we used to meet on weekends but now we meet on a weeknight). It's my favorite coffee shop in the whole wide world because of the awesome decor and ambience. And, believe it or not, the pepto-bismol pink e-bike is not mine, the white one is!

Brace yourself. This post is full of random information. It's all over the place, just like my life as of late.

My life is extremely busy these days. I have, uh, let me count ... 7 extracurricular work-related activities during the week. That's nothing if you have a car, but I travel by foot, e-bike, subway, taxi and bus. And I, like the U.S. postal service, travel in rain, sleet, or snow. (I surpass them, really, because I work on weekends too). It is not so easy. 

And of course I have my "desk job" to accomplish too. I just finished a major work project -- a website! -- that has consumed most waking hours that I wasn't at a meeting in the past two months. Yeah, I was working on the work website, so I didn't have much time to work on this one. I tell ya, that thing was a nightmare. The enemy was working overtime. It's over now though, so I hope to resume normal postings on my blog now.

Since I finished the above mentioned work website, I have had abnormal waves of sleepiness every day. And by waves, I really mean I am sleepy all day long. Am I just worn out from overwork? Is there something in the air? Am I anemic? Is it the weather? I have no idea. I remember being sleepy in the spring before, but this year it is ridiculous. I can down two pots of tar-like coffee and still fall asleep.

Friday night, an American friend who lives across town had chest pains, and I was awoken from a deep sleep in the middle of the night by his wife to go translate for them at the Chinese hospital's emergency room. Of course I was glad to help despite the unfortunate timing; no one seems to have chest pain at lunch time. The hospital is half an hour away by taxi. It's not a place you'd want to go when you are having any kind of sickness, but it's the best we have in the middle of the night (we have better options by day). Tests indicated no heart attack, so we all went home. I was gone over two hours. When I got home, we had torrential rain and thunder, which means Mimi kept me up the rest of the night. A gal suffering from extreme sleepiness got a sleepless night. Not a good thing!

The spring flowers and greenery are just gorgeous right now, but I have had two weeks of sneezing fits and watery eyes from allergies. It's hard to see how pretty everything is when your eyes are watering (and you're about to fall over from lack of sleep). Is this the price you pay to live where it's pretty?

The weather is still kind of cold and damp here. I stopped wearing long johns this morning. Unfortunately, that lasted only until lunch time. I either had to put on long johns or re-start the heater. Long johns are cheaper to operate than the heater (electricity is expensive in these parts). So layers it is!

Mimi got a bath earlier today. She loves the whole spa treatment of a shampoo and blow dry. She LOVES it. Especially the blow dry part.

Hope this finds you all well. Enjoy your Palm Sunday and the remembrance of holy week.

Spring in Bamboo Forest