"How can they arrest him, when he has two young kids?" I said in Japanese to Etem, whom I'd bumped into at counter B, work and special activity visas.
"Wouldn't see that in any other country would you?" He chuckled bitterly, and the woman next to me laughed.
Why do I always forget when I'm speaking Japanese to Turkish people that other people can understand us too?

"I'm in the same boat." The woman told us. "My husband was arrested and we have a baby. She's sitting over there with a friend." She gestured to the corner of the waiting room, which was more crowded than I'd ever seen it. I was confused that I couldn't place her accent; it had none of the staccato sharpness of a Chinese Japanese speaker, nor the fuzzy roundness of a Korean.
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"Myanmar. My husband and I are refugees." She lowered her voice and gestured secretly to the counter full of brusque Japanese men in blue jackets who were busy shuffling paperwork and calling names. "Really they're hen." Japanese has a handful of loaded words that just can't be translated. Hen: strange, odd, abnormal, obscene, was the perfect way to describe the way the Japanese Government cycles asylum seekers in and out of detention centers, trying to wear down their resistance through time, confinement, lawyers fees and hoshoukin (bail).

A name was called, and a thin woman with magenta lipstick rushed over and handed the Myanmar woman a tiny baby dressed in a knitted pink suit and tiny white mittens. She kissed her quickly on the cheek and ran to the counter, where she was given a card, a locker number, and 10 minutes or so to spend with whatever loved one was sleeping in Shinagawa.

I held the baby while the mother explained to Etem that her husband had been arrested 3 weeks ago, but she couldn't work herself because (this was harder for her to get across in Japanese) she'd thrown out the discs in her back. The baby had a heart problem (the specifics of this I'm afraid I didn't get at all) and all she could really do was just wait until her husband was released. She had some money saved up, but it wasn't going to last forever. Etem gave her the number of an agency that would probably help. 40,000 yen a month for her, and 20,000 yen for the baby. She thanked him and promised to call later that evening.

I'd been holding the infant for a while but still couldn't figure her out. She seemed pleased when I tickled her or lifted her up, but she didn't squeal or giggle. In fact she made no noise or fuss at all. She didn't mind being passed around to me or Etem or magenta lipstick lady, but she also didn't snuggle or grab fingers or hair. She burbled but didn't drool. I didn't get it.
"How old is the baby?" I asked her mother.
She held up four fingers "Yon kagetsu." Really her Japanese was good. Very little accent, natural intonation.
"How long have you been in Japan?"
"16 years."
"16 years!" 16 years and no visa. It was a good thing her baby seemed to have a kind of 'roll with the punches' attitude; she was obviously going to need it.
Our names got called and we left the woman bottle feeding her baby in a stroller, unavoidably in the way of all the Koreans, Chinese, Uzbeks, Iranians, Lawyers, and the rest of the potpourri of milling visitors, less than half of whom had chairs. Etam gave the woman 1,000 yen, and told her to get the baby something to eat.

We were told to put our cameras, phones, and other recording devices in a locker, and we were given a keycard to Room 20, where Mehmet was waiting for us.

Mehmet stood up to greet his brother, and he seemed surprised to see me, his cousin's American fiance.
"Yo! Hisashiburi!" He smiled and pressed his open palm against the glass dividing us. I did the same. I've been to three or four "menkai" already, and have always wondered how this greeting became the standard. If it were me I think I would've just waved, but maybe if I lived in a detention center I'd feel differently.

Mehmet used Japanese long enough to ask me where Selo was and what I was doing at the immigration center, but then fell into Turkish with Etam. I looked around the asylum white walls, which were covered in ballpoint pen graffiti in all sorts of languages. Most were messages to loved ones, some angry name calling towards Japan, one seemed to be directed towards Osama bin Ladin, and then there were just scribbles. Etam began carving a word into the plexiglass using the room key. Posted above our heads was a paper sign that said "NO GRAFFITI"

The flow of Turkish drifted in and out of my ears, words I recognized tripping my attention like larger rocks in a dirt road. I understood just enough to catch the following exchange about about another relative who'd been inside a while.
"Will he get out?"
"Like shit he will."
I started laughing, and they thought it was hilarious that that was the Turkish I understood. Apparently their friend had gone crazy with the confinement, shattered a ceramic washbasin and cut his chest with the pieces. They put him in a solitary room, only to have him break all the cameras in it.
"And what about you?" I asked. "Are you keeping your mind sharp? Are you genki?"
"Yes, I'm still OK. I'll be fine."

He switched back to Turkish, and I had leisure to study him and decide whether I believed him or not. He looked thin, but he was thin to begin with. His face just seemed off... I first looked at him and then his brother, and compared the two, and decided that Mehmet's hair had gotten too long and unruly, which was not a good thing for a man who is going bald. I realized how much hair is crucial in judging Crazy, and filed that in my universal truth file for later. He was also wearing a blue large knit sweater with white animals on it, which I would think is generally not worn by anyone between the ages of 4 and 80. In any case, he just didn't seem himself. The last time I saw him he was strutting around his apartment smoking a cigarette, and bragging to me that his older son was trilingual- fluent in Turkish, Kurdish, and Japanese.

"Are you really OK?" I asked.
"Sure. You know, out my window I can see the whole city, all the way to Shinagawa station. Those poor bastards who live on that side," he gestured with his left hand, "all they can see is the ocean."

Further proof that Google news either automatically culls images or has a very twisted admin on staff

Tokyo-San Francisco- 8 hours
Layover in San Francisco- 6 hours
San Francisco- London- 10 hours
Layover in London- 7 hours
London- Paris- barely an hour
Getting the fuck out of Charles De Gaulle airport- Infinity

I doubt I've spent another 3 days where time had as little meaning it has had since I left Tokyo. The numbers on my watch or on any of the 5 cell phones I was carrying (don't ask) could have meant anything. Light and dark came and went with no rhyme or reason, and sleeping and eating came in random intervals and in strange variety.

On my flight to Tokyo I got bumped up to business class on JAL for the second time, either because they value me as a customer or because I had explained my schedule to the woman putting the tags on my baggage and she took pity on me. So dinner that night consisted of things like tureen of tortoise and sea breem and ginger and other things that should never be written down in English. I felt like going a bit less exotic for breakfast so I asked the flight attendant if the western "breakfast sandwich" had pork in it. She answered quite positively that it did not. Then she brought it back to me and said "actually, it has ham in it, you don't eat ham do you"?

Unless your ham is made out of chicken, no I do not. So I had fish and rice for breakfast.

In SFO I had a $1.63 apple with a side of T-mobile internet. If you can think of anything more bittersweet after an 8 hour flight than seeing the face of the person you love flattened out on a computer screen when you're used to having it right in front of you, please mail it to me and I'll send you a mop and bucket to wipe up your tears.

Just before my flight to London I had a falafel platter to the tune of British chatter over a 49ers football game. Very international.

I slept through my flight to London mostly, except for like, the one time I had to get up to use the bathroom when the person sitting in the middle had also gone to go somewhere, and the asshole in the aisle just sat there while I climbed over him rather than getting up for me. Please don't be that guy.

I was glad I had the window seat when we landed though. It was a beautiful day, and what I saw of the city was very pretty from the air. The captain pointed out the river and the Queen's residence, and other areas of interest and then made a crack about trying to get home on the freeway. Thats when I knew I was in England.

Layover lunch in England I sprung for a restaurant because it was the only peaceful place to sit in Terminal 5. Heathrow should win some kind of award for "most spilled Starbucks on the floor". Brava. I ordered the veggie brunch because I had no idea what meal I should be eating. It was good, and I even liked the beans. I've never had beans for breakfast. Is that a British thing?

Don't ask me what I did for the next 5 hours before my flight. I don't know.

On the (delayed) flight to Paris they gave us a beverage and a chicken wrap. The male server had a gigantic box of them and handed them out as though it was a treat we should be really grateful for. Or maybe we should have been grateful for his efforts to say "Chicken wrap" to every single passenger on the flight.

"Chicken wrap"
"Chicken wrap"
"Chicken wrap"
"Chicken wrap"

All hail Andy, bringer of chicken wrap!

Actually, it was a good little snack, but I think the first 6 rows of first class seats got something heated up. Seriously, where do you get off sitting in first class on an hour long flight?

They handed us no entry or customs cards on the flight because frankly, the French can't be bothered.

And rather than a big room for immigration like they have at SFO or NRT with fancy little line dividers, CDG has two kiosks that people just crowd behind like a movie theatre line. Each kiosk can seat two people, but the second the line starts looking less like the line for Batman and more like the line for Love Guru, one or two of them go on break. It may not have been the longest leg of my journey, but it felt like it.

Similarly, the ticket machines for the RER out of the airport take coins and credit cards, not bills. So it was with great trepidation that I pushed my HSBC card, which had utterly failed me in Tokyo and London, into the machine and typed in my pin, since the 1 euro in change that I had probably wasn't going to get me anywhere. The card was accepted, and I successfuly paid 8 Euro for a ticket home.

Of course, the turnstyles and ticket stamping machines were closed for repairs, and no one checked the tickets on the train. Merde!

These are the four most recent headlines about China in Wired magazine.

Deadly Earthquake Doesn't Shake China's Internet Censors

In Pre-Olympics Rebuke of China, Congressman Pushes 'Global Online Freedom Act'

Once the World's Great Factory, China Is the Next Great Innovator

China Destroys Tibet's Sacred Environment

McCain blasts ruling on Guantanamo

Classic bush-league logic. There are basic human rights laws protecting enemy combatants. So what do we do when we want to indefinitely detain and secretly torture people? Don't call them enemy combatants.

Bravo McCain, welcome to the douchebag camp.

I was really proud of myself for the half body metaphor I used a couple entries back, but for some reason the image I keep conjuring when I think about my time here is my feet in two different canoes, floating down the river. Its an image that makes very little sense, I know, but when I keep living tethered to my laptop and having to fess up to the fact that I can't even count in French all I can think about is how far downstream the river splits, and just how flexible are my adductors anyway?

But the thing I love most about travel is that even when you're moving through a place rather than living in it, there are still parts of the scenery that creep into your experience. You can't live in Paris the way you live in Tokyo. The ingredients of life are different, even if you're not sure what to do with them, yet. Here are some things even I haven't failed to like about Paris.

1) It's beautiful. Yes, I've been out, yes I've seen different bits of the city. While I'm less than impressed with the tag artist 'Milk', and others who have left their eloquent marks on every bit of stone wall from the 13th to Zone 5, even the run down graffiti'd buildings have more charm and character than at least half of Tokyo. And the stuff thats nice, well, its really nice. Its hard to even talk about. You can talk about one beautiful old building, but when block after block and mile after mile is full of the same beauty and history, it fills you with.... something, that I guess is unique.

2) Free shit from the government. I just got in the mail my new navigo transit card, which I ordered from the ratp website and which has my picture on it. Being able to order it on the net meant not having to deal with non-anglais speaking station staff, but more importantly, it was absolutely free. The Japanese equivalent, the suica, costs 500 yen to make, and it doesn't have a photo attached. This new addition to my purse makes me almost as happy as

3) Credit cards with chips in them. After living life for weeks worrying if I have enough Euro to get through the day, I finally have an official credit card from an official European bank which means I can officially pay for goods and services without worrying if they can't swipe the magnetic strip on my now comically old fashioned American cards.

4) Chivalry. I'm not saying that any dude is about to give up his precious seat on the RER during commuting hours, but at least when I get off the bus the guy in front of me will insist on letting me pass rather than crashing into me or breezing by me. Things actually get jammed up if I don't immediately recognize and accept an opened door or a turn in line. This is all new to me and I'm still getting used to it.

5) Good, cheap wine. I had to say it, right? I mean, I was going to say a more relaxed work day, but then I'd get a bunch of chastising comments on how I didn't mention the food, right? (a big PS, while I adore French bread and admire the quality of French produce, I am way too poor to eat out. I can tell you that I like crepes, kebabs, sandwiches and all other food items that hover around the 5 euro range, but that's it).  To my surprise and delight, a 3 euro bottle of wine from the grocery store is like, appreciably decent. Vive la France.

I walked down from our bungalow to the
narrow dock that connected the tiny Ghizo-adjacent island of Mbabanga
to fatboys restaurant. As my inadvisably bare feet cleared the
concrete and shell walkway and landed on the smooth wet wood, I knew
they were trodding on wide red letters in a serif font that said
“fatboys.”- lower case, with a period- a reference to Dickens's
“The Pickwick Papers”. I couldn't see the letters. I couldn't see
the dock.

Ahead of me there was the silhouette of
the restaurant, and behind it, Kennedy Island, where one of
our most beloved presidents was shipwrecked and became a hero. The
wind was blowing whisps of moonlit clouds either away or towards me
and the stars were, well, all there. I could see the white arm of the
galaxy arching over me, lifting me, until the sound of the lapping
water against the dock pulled me back down. The dark wood planks were
invisible, but the water below and on either side was glowing.
Little lights like sparks from a fire were flying and flitting just
below the surface of the water; the entire area was teeming with tiny
phosphorescent creatures. I sat down, and then lay down in the middle
of the dock, sky above, ocean below.

There are over 900 islands in the
Solomons, and there are even more sandbars, reefs, and solitary
coconut trees standing improbably on some barely-sand 6 inches under
water. But there's not enough there to keep you from staring into the
wide empty ocean, or to keep you from seeing the curve of the earth
on the horizon. The sky seems higher up, and bigger. Its something
about the way the clouds move, like they don't even notice you at
all. I feel like it must be hard to live there, where everything is
the wrong scale, and none of Man's achievements are grandiose or
defiant, but humble, like a hut, a family, or instant coffee.

After weeks of suffering from chronic disconnection as a result of
having no internet, I find that a Paris WiFi hotspot has been just
sitting here within spitting distance of my apartment. Parisian parks
are a bit of a mystery to me, since they consist firstly of large lush
patches of grass you're not allowed to sit on, and secondly large
swarths of gravel which you are. Also, Parisian parks are apparently
the only places where dogs are not allowed to roam freely, despite
being allowed on posh shipping streets and the metro. In this
particular park there is also a generous collection of benches, a
gazebo, and jungle gym equipment. I can't help feeling regarded as a
little bit suspicious when I strolled in here with my laptop and an
older lady with her grandkids stared at me for much too long. It didn't
help much when I began skyping to my boyfriend in that fun mix of
Turkish and Japanese that I hope to one day baffle a native speaker of
either with when I'm on my phone on the metro. I don't think I look all
that suspicious but all the same I'm going to refrain from taking a
picture of the place.

Since this is a residential and not a touristy neighborhood, the park
is missing one key element I've seen in every other- sleeping
backpackers monopolizing all the benches. Honestly, it just isn't a
public space unless theres an unshaved, shower deprived twenty
something snoozing in the shade with all his worldly possessions
underneath him.

I find I don't have as much to do on the internet as I thought now that I have it. I guess its just the feeling that I can't use
it that really makes me nuts. Also, this internet is pretty spotty and
unsecured so I'm not going to start youtubing or online banking or
anything like that.

It's really weird seeing so many kids. I mean, I know I wasn't exactly
in a family neighborhood when I lived in Tokyo, but everyone knows that
theres no children in Tokyo anyway. Certainly I never saw a bunch of
dads at a park toting strollers and diaper bags and mothers squatting
in sand and waiting at the bottoms of slides. I just didn't.

The sky is blue, dark blue as if to say "look how far above the equator I am!"

And the sun hits the warm red bricks of my parisian apartment complex warmly as if to say "look how charming and Parisian we are!"　

But when I combine these warm sunny days with the aching voice pumped into my ear from across the sea, the sky explodes into nuclear waste and the buildings collapse into graffitti'd, dusty ruin. Its amazing how profoundly ugly something wonderful can be when you've paid too high a price for it. But in life there are things you do for yourself, and things you do for others. The things you live with, and the things you know you have to give a chance. I'll never experience Paris the way I was meant to with half my heart still someplace else, but I can reconstruct as much of a body as I need to stop floating and let my feet land on the cobbled avenues of the City of Lights.

In as much irony as the universe can command, the language I mocked my fellow high schoolers for learning (because it's useless) has suddenly catapulted itself onto the top of my priority list. I've mastered enough of the language to buy bread and go to the grocery store, but not enough to save me if they ask if I want my bread sliced, or if I'm paying by cash or credit. At these junctures the only thing I can do is pull out the deer-in-the-headlights look I tried so hard to shelve in Japan and hope they give me a break.

Living abroad has made me think of life in terms of a hundred or so little procedures that combine to give you a week, or a month, or a year in some place- like the procedure of buying a train ticket, or getting on a bus, or ordering coffee at a cafe. Each procedure comes with its own little script, and in big cities where people tend not to ad-lib, you can survive fine if you just remember your entrances and exits and the few lines allotted to you as a struggling expat actor. Someday you may graduate to advanced roles like "I need to refund my train ticket" or "I need my shoe repaired", but I'll be more than happy just to stumble into a cameo like "I need this dry cleaned" before retiring from the French stage forever.

So, living. An hour commute, kidney-stabbing phone bills, beautiful apartment, Spring weather, grocery stores closed on Sundays. One day at a time, and thats all there is to it.

In a series of unfortunate events, I have been doing some major damage to my laptop. I dropped it twice when talking to my parents, which didn't seem to have much of an effect, but the oil that I spilled on my keyboard certainly did. I'm now lacking the use of "Q" "S" and" "D". I tried cleaning the keys but to no avail. Its only the clever use of my stylus buttons and Dvorak key mapping that I'm able to type this coherently at all, but damned if I'm not significantly slowed down by it. Kudos for me for ruining the letters I need for both plural and past tense.

Those of you who know me know that I have been babbling about traveling to Europe for about a year now. I've been wishing, hoping, dreaming, and even half-heartedly planning. Then a casual email flicked out into the universe just happened to find someone looking for someone who's a whole lot like me. I'm now interviewing at his company, and will be traveling to Paris in just a few weeks to do some consulting and just maybe land a job. I feel amazingly privileged and lucky and excited to have not only found a job like this, but also to have lead a life that makes me feel not only prepared, but deserving of the opportunity.

But not everything can be perfect. If I had the ability, I'd want to take everything and everyone that I love with me from place to place to place, but that just isn't possible. Two years after taking leave of my friends and family back home, I propose to do the same thing again. I may be home this time for as little as two weeks. I know that I'm disappointing some people, and I know that some relationships that have barely been holding on for two years just might flounder under the strain of two more. The longer I stay away the more things change, especially at this early stage in people's lives, and the more things change the harder it will be for me to fit back in my old friend's lives by the time I do return.

And then there are the people I've met here that have become so important, mostly my best gal pal, who will be sorely missed. I'm leaving a lovely group of friends, not to mention the lovely group that has already left me; a steady stream of researchers, interns, and adventurers that sat a spell in Tokyo and continued on their way. I hope to see many of them again, out in the "world". Being part of an expat community means that everything is in flux, and meeting people means saying goodbye sooner than you would like. There is no help for this.

And then I met someone in a crowded, noisy room and I told him that I have been in Toyko for nearly two years and would be leaving in two months. And he just nodded because at that point he didn't care.

And now he says, "Are you really leaving?"

And he whispers, "Will you write?"

And I look around at my room full of things packed and unpacked and I think of all the things I am and am not capable of doing. About my choices and what they mean for the people around me and for my own future. I know I can pick up and leave my natural surroundings, but not without bringing and then accumulating a bunch of junk and memorabilia. I know I can leave the people I love, but not without first convincing myself that one day we can always go back to being just the way we were. And I can stand enveloped in someone's arms and feel better than I ever have before, and still know I can't change my mind, not now.

And I know I can stand looking out over the lake in Ueno and see how god damn dingy it is and how awful the homeless people look sleeping in the beautiful golden light and know in my heart that it's time to leave. And I can feel the pull of an unknown, distant city, an unknown language and people. A brand new adventure and an exciting new beginning. And I give myself a look and ask myself if I can handle it, and after all I've been through, there's really only one answer.

That doesn't make it any easier, however, to give up everything you've built in one place and know that your new construction project, like a Tokyo sidewalk, is just gonna get torn up in a few years too. And to know that you're gonna do it again and again because you're addicted and don't know any other way to live. But I still don't have the skin for this business, or the heart either, and when he says, "Will you come see me tonight?" and even though there's a million things for me to do, the only answer I can give slips out before I have time to think about it.