Sylvia's Journal

August came and went too fast. In the US Labor Day (first Monday in September) signals the official end of summer. The roads fill up again, university cities add tens of thousands of residents as students return. Faro returned to his immersion Chinese school, first grade now, and babbles easily in mandarin according to Sita- none of us understanding him of course.

Sita went and returned from her job at the eventful ASEAN World Economic Forum in Vietnam and barely got to explore Hanoi. She wants to go back there, as we would want to.  It’s an idea for a family vacation.

I completed the lion’s part of my consultancy with an organization in North Carolina, just in time before hurricane Florence moved in. I have started to immerse myself in the preparations for my teaching job in the fall and put the finishing touches on the lectures and workshops in Japan.

We left for Japan on the 12th using up my last Delta global upgrades before they would disappear forever. Even in business class the trip is long. We emerged in a  daze after 19 hours from the moment we got up. After entering and leaving various stations and trains and going up and down stairways and escalators, we found our way to our lovely hotel in the Roppongi area of Tokyo. Our abode here is the Rockefeller-built International House of Japan – a building with a philosophy of cultural and intellectual exchange to get Japan back on its feet after the war. It certainly did!