I love this country.

Tonight I got abducted in the street by a Japanese lady. I was just starting to feel hungry for the first time in about a week, and getting tired of soup from a packet. Since my car has a flat tire, I decided to venture out on my bike to get some quality conbini food instead. Four days is a long time to spend alone in bed, I’ve discovered, and I was feeling quite restless in my quarantined state.

So when someone behind me in the street yelled “Keitorin-san!” I whipped around hopefully. It was a lady I’d met before at city hall, who had kindly invited me to a party at her big mountainside house. It’s sort of the equivalent of having dinner at the farm back home—lots of homegrown vegetables, traditional recipes, and a nice old-smelling house.

When I saw her this time, she didn’t say, long time no see, or, how have you been, just, what are you doing right now? You should come to my house. I think she saw my desperation. So we loaded my bike into her car, picked up a cake, and went home. I helped with preparations, ten other people showed up, and we had another amazing dinner party, with some of the most giving, open, genuine people I’ve ever met. This is what I’ll miss most about Japan.