yeah i'm reading MY article in today's oregonian. i've been busy getting hundreds of phone calls from my friends all over the world this morning. they all tell me that i look awesome on the front page.
i even sent a copy to the boatman(in the pic)who took me on that special trip along the ganges river, because he has no internet access.

i really want to thank laura who wrote this fantastic article about me(...well i guess about shawn and yo too) and opened up the window for me to become a celebrity.
if there's anyone who is interested in seeing more photos of me, please go to

http://www.flickr.com/people/kumakoandyo/

and also whoever is interested in my autograph, you can contact my manager, yo. now when you pay $10 for my autograph, you get two more autographs for free, like a buy 1 get 2 free thing, what a deal!!! you should tell all your buddies.

okay, the phone is ringing! i gotta go!!! ciao.

love you all!

kumako

when you enter a new country, you get a stamp in your passport at the border. we always check it out right away and discuss it. some are stylish, some are really boring, but over all stamps are getting less interesting these days. by the way, my favorite one from this trip is the stamp we got when we entered nuweiba, egypt by ship from aqaba, jordan. it has a cute little boat picture on it and except for the country name, its written entirely in arabic.

so who is the winner with the most stamps on this trip?
shawn: 30 new stamps
yoshimi: 40 new stamps

!!!!!!!!yes, i'm the winner wahoo!!!!!!!!

yoshimi

Thanks for following along.
Take care,
Shawn & Yo(Yoshimi)
We can be reached at:
stdonley@hotmail.com

last sunday, shawn's sister erin and our friends wes and tony helped us to move into our new place. it took only 2hours to move everything in. erin, wes and tony, thank you so much for your help.

my life is getting back to normal. i'm going back to work tomorrow and shawn has been working almost a month now.
it's really weird that so much inside of me has changed after travel, but everything else seems to not have changed at all. yesterday i saw the same homeless guy standing at the same spot on the same street he was 7 months ago, it made me happy and sad at the same time.
this journey has ended, but shawn and i are already planning the next trip, maybe south america or the indian subcontinent...we're sick, i know.

yoshimi

After 6 months, 19 countries, 14 flights, 44 different hotels/hostels/guesthouses, 72 buses, 18 subways, 9 trains, 8 boats, and 37 taxis/rickshaws, our trip has come to an end. While we have each done a fair amount of traveling in the past, this has been the first time we have ever technically traveled around the world on a single trip. It all started in Iceland and we are now in Japan, our last stop. We've staying with Yoshimi's Grandma in a small fishing village.

In Japan they are very proud of their four seasons. And while they are certainly not the only place in the world to have four seasons, no where are they more distinct than in Japan. Each season has its own special foods, festivals, and activities. We usually visit in autumn, so this is the first time either of us has experienced a Japanese winter since we left 9 years ago. Electricity is expensive here and the houses are poorly insulated, so everyone gathers in the one room in each home that is heated, giving it a warm & cozy feeling. Seasonal fish & vegetables are eaten family style out of a hot pot while a heater under the table keeps everyone warm. Yoshimi's Grandma greeted us with her signature dish, mixed sushi, steamed rice combined with 14 different ingredients, mostly grown in her garden.

The Japanese take their baths seriously, and in winter, hot springs are especially popular. Yesterday we took her Grandma to a Japanese style hot springs resort. There were indoor & outdoor baths of varying temperatures, waterfalls, steam baths, salt saunas, and the infamous denki furo--electric bath. They seem to feel that its healthy to sit in a bath with an electric current running through it. To me it feels more like an attack from an electric eel. In a few days I will return Portland. Yoshimi will stay here for two more weeks. This will be the last posting on our blog.

There are many reasons for NOT traveling: a 30 year fixed rate mortage, an empty employer matched 401(k), a metallic gray Honda Civic Hybrid, a yellow lab puppy named Cooper, or a ticking clock of the biological sort. These are each options we've considered for ourselves at one time or another. However, you can't have everything in life and very few of us can afford all of these things and travel for extended periods of time. Choices need to be made. We've chosen to travel. Long term travel has always been a chance for us to take a step back from our lives and analyze it from a perspective that is not possible when you are a little too close. One of the things we've figured out while on the road is that this isn't a once in a lifetime trip. Its something we hope to continue doing again and again. Travel, for us, will remain a priority. Now its time to return to P-Town, go back to work, and start saving for & dreaming about the next big trip.

Shawn

I don't think we could ever truely be happy in a place that doesn't take its food seriously. And there are few places that are as passionate about food as Hong Kong. There is a good reason that you don't see many Icelandic or Bulgarian restaurants around, and that Cantonese food is know the world over. There must be more restaurants per capita in Hong Kong than anywhere else in the world. And they all seem to be busy from early in the morning(so I've heard)to late at night(so I've seen). While normally we'd be way into sampling all the international cuisines on offer, instead we decided to focus only on Cantonese cuisine. After a mostly vegetarian existance for two months in India it feel great, but also a bit strange and even primitive to be tearing pork off the bone and pulling the heads, fins, and tails off of sea creatures to get at all the protein inside. The food is cheap and the menus are huge, so it fun to do as the locals and order way too much food so as to sample more of the goodness.
Food, however, isn't the only reason we came. We also came because we are both big fans of Won Kar Wai's atmospheric movies that take place in 1960's Hong Kong. Unfortunately a lot of the old is gone here, replaced by the ultra modern. We're staying at the notorious Chungking Mansions, a 17 story apartment complex that has been divided into dozens of seedy guesthouses. The rooms are incredibly small, but cheap. The shower in our bathroom can clean both you and the toilet at the same time. The lobby is filled with legal and not so legal businesses run mostly run Indians and Africans. Wong Kar Wai filmed part of Chungking Express here in the lobby when one of the characters needed a fake passport.
Yesterday I took the tram up to the top of Victoria Peak. It was incredible to look down on one of the largest, most densely populated cities in the world. Imagine if there was a two thousand foot mountain right smack dab in the middle of Central Park in Manhattan. This is what what the view would be like. I can think of no where else in the world where a mountain rises up so steeply from such a large city.
Tomorrow morning we fly to Japan, our last stop, where we will visit Yo's family.
-Shawn