Soul Searching

And so my adventure begins. i am in a taxi on my way to the airport. I was up until 6:30 in the morning preparing my luggage and tying up loose ends - though there are still many left.

I woke at 7:30 am, too nervous to lay in bed. it’s just as well, I am hoping it will help me adjust to the new time zone faster. (it’s the part I hate most about travelling, changing my sleep habits!)

Although my first destination is Ubud on Bali, it won’t be the first place I visit. I have a 24 hour layover at the Tokyo airport (hotel provided by the airline). My plan is to travel to a town called Nikko. Apparently there is an ancient samurai trail that runs through that town. The place is also supposed to be littered with temples of all kinds - Shinto, Buddhist. It’s reported to be worth the 175 km ride even tough it’s a bit touristy. I would love to get some bodywork or acupuncture while i’m there but time will be short, we’ll see.

After that I go on to Bali. I get in at 10:30 at night and head straight to a town called Ubud. I’m super exited to see it and some one I know has put me in touch with a local clinic there where i might be able to see some patients. how exciting! from there I plan to follow my nose. There’s an island called Flores, where archeologists found the remains of a tiny branch of our ancestral tree - little people! Three feet tall and using tools! It puts a kink in the whole brain size is relative to intelligence thing (I bet a whole bunch of brainiacs with large craniums came up with that theory!). Then there’s Komodo, where the dragons come from. I have been fascinated by them since I was a little boy. How incredible to see one! (I am such a geek!)

Well, my thumbs are getting sore from typing on my palm pilot (no room for a laptop on this trip), so i’m going to stop for now. I wrote all that and I’m still here in nyc in the back of a yellow cab that seems determined to try and break the sound barrier! Hope everyone is well. (The cab driver and I figured out that the trip from Brooklyn to JFK took exactly 32 minutes!)