Shall We Meet? Again?

How many times have you run into someone what you know? That you`ve just met? In another city, another state, another island, another country, another time? I remember in Burning Man everyone essentially threw up their hands and said - Perhaps, perhaps I`ll find you, but worry not, if you don`t see me. In the desert, there are no plans. But there must be a strange mathmatical probibility, improbibility factor at work that I just don`t understand. Maybe something like Bistromatics.

Factor in if you would - With no plans, no mention of where I was going, no idea where I was going at the time... As similar with the participants of this little venture, what`s the probability of walking into the same place at the exact right moment to discover that Fate is playing silly buggers again?

So there I was, minding my own business... No... actually I was couch surfing in southern Kyoto when my host decided to bring home another couch surfing guest, a Spanish woman named Marta. It was a surprise, something of a surprise for her too I gathered. But we became friends and traveled around together looking at shrines and hunting Geisha. Geisha are fast and hard to catch.

So then I wandered on to Hiroshima, but decided to stay in Miyajima for the picturesque beauty of it. A good choice, it is beautiful and one of the nicest places to explore that I`ve found. It also has my favorite temple　Daisho-in. A temple that seems to be based on the principles - if you have room for one, why ｎｏｔ　ｆｉｖｅ－ｈｕｎｄｒｅｄ？ My last night there, who should wander into the common space (where we were all huddled to keep warm) but Marta. She had decided to also come to Miyajima and managed to find me while I was downstairs on my computer. Not a great feet I grant, it was warmer downstairs than in my room so I spent most of the time there. Still, she wasn`t in the same room as I was, that I know of. We greeted each other warmly and then I decided, somewhere around two AM, to head to Beppu, as my plan to return to Tokyo was on the fritz. So, the next day I headed to Hiroshima to figure out how to get to Beppu and because I wanted to go to the A-bomb museum, which I hadn`t gotten to before. I highly recommend it for anyone and everyone who can go. It`s a rough museum. But it`s important to know how ill informed we are, how dramatic the suffering of nuclear war is. And how much foolish power we give our goverment, and our greed. That type of suffering is very real... and horrible... Please ask me about it, I`d like more people to understand.

Anyway, not five minutes after I arrived, I heard my name and looked up to my great surprise. There was my Australian friend from Kyoto. We spent the day together, wandering around the memorial and talking about how impossible it is to fathom true nuclear war.... bombs a hundred times more powerful than the one that obliterated a third of Hiroshima`s population within four months of its detination. Its not the four thousand people that died instantly that make you shudder... it`s the way the other 136,000 died. But even a bomb that can kill 4,000 people in an instant is terrifying. We try to make such a strong argument for our use of the bombs.. We can`t. We exterminated a third of a city`s population. Indiscriminately. Innocents. Children. And those that survived continue to suffer... for generations.

But this is not that story... I spent the day in Hiroshima instead of moving on as I had run into a traveling companion whose company I enjoyed. We took pictures, went to see the christmas light show, had dinner together, before he finally had to head back to Kyoto, and I to find someplace to sleep.

Then I went on to Beppu. The land of hotsprings, way in southern Japan. And who should come join me, but Marta. I found her as I walked into my hostel the afternoon after I arrived. She was checking into the same room as me. Very funny. So we spent the last couple of days wandering around together and going to onsen. She had been bound for Nagasaki and decided to head south to Beppu instead.

What are the chances?