Roundabout

Just as I'm getting excited about dipping my feet in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific rim calls me back. (A jealous god!) My college back home is sending me to a conference on an interesting new curriculum in history next month. It's in San Diego, my hometown! And I'll get to see my parents, from whom I must confess I feel very distant across the great water.

But I'm not going to cross the great water. Turns out that mid-January is the highest of high seasons down here - summer holidays, of course - and all the cheap and even the not so cheap tickets to the US have long sold out. So I'm taking a roundabout route, via Japan! The fare, still pretty expensive though considerably better than the alternatives, requires stopovers in Tokyo. An inconvenience to most travelers, I imagine...
And there I was thinking this was going to be the one year I wouldn't be making it to my old flame, Nippon, as I snuck off to get to know the Chinese and Indian worlds. Another jealous god, or perhaps 腐れ縁 (kusare-en) a karmic connection one can't break, come what may. Can you believe that this rail map of Tokyo and environs sets my heart aflutter?