Over the years a few good friends have joined us on our bike trips, offering us their help with pulling heavy trailers, cooking oatmeal, keeping up a positive attitude and adventurous spirit, and speaking foreign languages. Our experiences in Eastern Europe and Central America would certainly have been quite different if we had been on our own, unable to connect with the locals in a meaningful way.
This time we've also been very lucky to have a friend help us adjust to a completely different culture and language. It's been several days now since Maki had to get on the train and go back to Osaka, but it still feels like she's with us. Every time we enter a convenience store, eat sushi, set up the tent (and, ahem, sneak through red lights at a quiet intersection) we talk about how Maki helped us find our way in and out of big cities, showed us what we could eat and helped us get online. Kaisa's phone keeps beeping with helpful messages telling us how to ask for coconut milk in a supermarket and links to photos from our first sunny days in Japan.
Blog readers! Go cycling with your friends! You never really know someone until you've spent a night with them eating noodles, slapping mosquitoes and getting ready to crawl into your sleeping bag.
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