3 months in a nutshell

Hello, suckers!

It's been a while. I had told myself before starting this shitty trip that I would force myself to post at least one message per week. Which I didn't, obviously, otherwise I would already have won the Nobel prize for literature and the Goncourt, not to forget the Tanizaki.

But you know how life works. Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans: I got caught up in other various things, like discovering the Japanese culture, traveling around, learning vocabulary - but mostly getting drunk and having fun. My liver had to work full time, so my brain and my writing abilities were kind of on a break, like Scruffy would say.

So here I am after 3 months of silence. I guess I lost the little audience I had managed to gather, and I doubt the 11 members who spontaneously enrolled are still around to follow my adventures... But somehow, like Mulder, I want to believe there is something out there. This blog is not dead! Let me give you a reason to read me again, to comment or to wire me money to pay me an Ipad (ou me le donner gratos, hein Jeremie?). Let me try to summarize my summer.

Where should I begin? First of all, I had a blast. I won't give too many details on what I did with whom (by the way, the post concerning the point number 5 is hereby declared void: after some deeper research, I can maintain that Japanese guys have much more to offer than what I thought), but basically I saw many places, had my sister visit, climbed Fuji (TWICE, bitch!), hitchhiked again and again, went to Korea, to the best open air hot springs in Japan (which also happen to be free, BITCH!), to some small islands... Unfortunately, the adaptor that recharges my computer died on me, so there won't be many pictures.

Quoting Bismark to emphasize my thoughts:

"Alles hat ein Ende - nur die Wurst hat zwei"

(translated in English: everything has an end, only a sausage has two),

I was forced to put an end to those delightful summer days. I swam a last time in the Pacific ocean, took a last breath of fresh air and then hopped in a ferry to dirty Tokyo where I met a friend with whom I would travel back to Europe, via the transsiberian train.  

This was 3 weeks ago. I had cleaned my room, mailed heavy stuff home and stuffed all my belongings in my backpack. I left Japan the 22nd of September, and I would lie if I said that my eyes contemplating the port of Sakaiminato, from which we left, were not soaked in tears of sadness and melancholy. Nostalgia for a country that I liked, loved, despised, adored, for a country that pissed me off like hell, that blessed me with happy days and expensive but delicious food, was a beautiful feeling that I felt on that boat, looking at the horizon and at that 'departed' stamp on my passport. Those days were over.

But this feeling was not meant to last - a group of Russian seamen going all the way to Vladivostok opened bottles of Cognac and Whisky, and put us in the moral obligation to drink them with us. And then it hit me: it was time to open a new page on that book of life: Russia!!! The hell with Japan!!! now it's time for cheap vodka, delicious fat and greasy food, impolite and rude people! And more important... I was on my way home!!! (Where I should have stayed, if you ask my advice)

I'm in Moscow right now and enjoying the rudeness of the people, the presence of trashcans everywhere and the cheapness of cheese, bread, vegetables, fruits, basically everything. AH! 

I'll get to tell you more about those things I did in Japan - one day... Or should I skip all this and continue with the Russian adventures? For all I know, you should run to the nearest synagogue, church, mosque, temple or cave, light a candle and pray that I will find the strength to continue writing those messages.

Anyway. I should go. Thanks for reading.

PS: Oh, and for the record, I did win that contest. Not the best prize, but enough to be proud of myself and to buy one month of beer. Thanks a lot to those who helped. And to those who didn't: you suck!