Last week my friend Michael came to visit me. Michael lives in Melbourne. He traveled by train for nine hours. Melbourne is as far away as DC is to Boston. The Australia train system is particularly slow, I thought nine hours was an excessive amount of time to spend to travel only that distance.

The last time I saw Michael was three years ago in Japan. He was getting on a train to go to the airport back to Australia. Now I ran into Michael again on a train platform. Funny how things come around.

Michael has changed. I really enjoy how he has changed. He was in Japan before me and he knew a lot about how to survive there. Cause of his seniority I looked up to him a little. I decided that I still do. Of course I don’t physically look up to him cause he is rather short. In Japan he didn’t seem short, but against the backdrop of Australians he seems shorter.

Back in Japan I promised that I would visit him in Australia one day. I meant it. Fulfilling that promise was a motivation for me to come to Australia.

Here is a video of us together.

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When I lived in Japan there were two guys in the school with me that I became friends with. The first was Michael, he and I were the only foreigners for the first five months. Then during the last month a funny chap named Philip came to our school.

The teacher of the foreign students made an inside joke where we cross our fingers as mark of our “learning”. The teacher who was a historian of sorts pulled the symbol up from ancient Egyptian mythology. The teacher called it the “Mark of Tahudi”. We made this hand signal in Japan. It reminds us of our friendship, and ridiculous things that happened in Japan, and is nostalgic for us.

Here is a photo of Michael doing it before he went home. 2008

January 13? 2008

Here is a picture of Philip and I doing it after Michael left and we are visiting a temple that Michael wanted to go to but never made it too.  2008

Philip and Deren 2008

Here is a photo of Philip and I making the mark in Cambridge, England. I visited Philip when I lived in England. 2009

England. 2009

And finally here is a photo of Michael and I doing it in Sydney. 2011

Feb 3rd 2011

Now that I have seen Michael I have completed the grand tour of my friends from Japan. Visiting both England and Australia