“Osaka is basically closed,” my host told me. “People are being urged to stay inside. Everything is shut down.” That was it. She wasn’t there when I went to check out, but I had always said farewell to my hosts and she was so kind, so I sought her out. When she asked where I was headed next, that was the warning I received. It started to rain, which hilariously set the mood perfectly and added to my misery, though it wasn’t funny at the time. Looking back, I think I was actually a little scared. A hundred thoughts went racing through my mind; how do I get home? Should…

Purchasing my ticket for the Shinkansen and looking like an idiot trying to slide it through the reader backwards, I made my way to the bullet train. It was, without a doubt, the fanciest looking coach I’d ever seen; both on the outside and in; pearl white body, lavish blue interior with comfy chairs, storage space and loads of leg room. I had my mask on, as did all the others in my car, and I wouldn’t remove it for the whole ride. It rocketed down the track, burning at 320 km/h; so fast that it blurred the foreground of all the photos I took of the picturesque Japanese landscape.…

Tanaka Gokurakudo https://www.hostelworld.com/pwa/hosteldetails.php/Tanaka-Gokurakudo-Guest-House/Kyoto/280879  was right next to the train station in Kyoto so I’d come full circle. I thought I’d been locked out since the door didn’t pull open. Apparently, this one slid. Feeling foolish in front of the few in the kitchen, I casually joined in the conversation. The pair of guys were scuba instructors from northern Spain and told me about the colors of Madrid and all the vacationers they’d met. The younger lady in the room was from, surprise surprise, Germany, traveling the world. After crossing North and South America, she wound up here and was planning to go to mainland Asia. With all the plague stuff…