Same same, but different...

After nearly three weeks of motorbikes, buses, mispronounced words (fairly certain I didnt get a single one right), beaches, street vendors, cheap, incredible food, the best coffee in the world, kicking around in flipflops everyday, and chatting with genuinely warm, playful people, I am finally back home in Naruko. Currently I am sitting at my desk at school, and everything is apparently back to normal. A few co-teachers asked about my trip, but not in great detail.

"Happy New Year, how was Vietnam?" they asked. "Great", I replied. End of conversation. Back to daily duties.

Ah, Japan, just as I remembered. Perhaps a few were more interested than they led on, but the office is not a place for chatting, it is a place for work.

My last night in Vietnam, my travelling buddy Aaron and I were talking about returning home to "normal": jobs, schedules, apartments, driving our own cars, etc. Seemingly back to same old same old, and yet it won't be the same, we decided. After three weeks in a completely new place, our attitudes, views, ideas, knowledge, has been slightly, or, greatly altered. The feelings about the state of our lives, and how we relate to those in our realm are different. "Places change you", we declared simply.


Just as I will return to America after two years in Japan with a much different outlook than when I left, I returned from Vietnam with new ideas, new goals, new knowledge, and if you will afford me a triteness, new life.

I hope the following blogs and photos will express the abundance of positive energy I experienced during my short journey.