With a few hours to spare after my visit to the Basilica, I spotted a pair of travelers toiling up the mountainside. I determined to track the same path skyward, towards the minute stony structure perched up there in the hills.
The journey delighted at least as much as the destination: over a sprawling river by bridge, threading my way through vineyards, and emerging at last into the sparkling air.
The nearer I advanced, the more the stony church in the sky grew in size — while down below the Basilica shrank.
A modest town in the shadow of the Alps: Tirano attracts visitors, one must admit, mainly because there the Bernina Express terminates.
An afternoon spent exploring the surrounds did not disappoint, however. One main restaurant manfully acts as the tourism center: steps from the train station, it promises hot meals prepared fast all day (“no break in the afternoon!” – a marketing strategy revealing of the local customs), plus luggage storage and, naturally, wi-fi.
I dropped off my backpack and turned my steps towards the town’s true attraction: la Basilica Madonna di Tirano, a church founded more than half a millennium ago.
You must see the Castello, the hotel receptionist said, shaking his head sorrowfully. You can’t come to Milan without seeing the Castello.
The cultural contrast after crossing the Alps struck me forcefully at moments like this. In Liechtenstein’s little corner between Switzerland and Austria, a restaurant dinner cost triple (10 EUR, say, for a plate of pasta in Tirano — 30 CHF if you were lucky at a sit-down restaurant in Liechtenstein). On the other hand, the sun-swept cities of Italy couldn’t quite match, it must be admitted, that same sparkle of care and cleanliness.
Above all, the German-speaking staff had regarded me with polite distance, making themselves more invisible than not. In Milan, my newfound friend fetched out a map and planned my itinerary, suggesting enough sites to occupy me for several days.
The next morning, after I tore myself away from Il Duomo, I went to see the Castello.
The Bernina Express deposited me in northern Italy, where a bevy of airports offered flights back to London.
Some internet sleuthing decided me on Milan, a city too glorious for the meagre half day my itinerary afforded it — but too marvelous to pass up the chance of visiting either, however brief.
I determined to brush off my Italian and attend an early mass at the Duomo, Milan’s crown jewel: a Gothic cathedral of dazzling proportions.
While I was attending a vespers concert at New College last week, in honor of the great Italian composer Palestrina, it struck me anew how the chapel architect had carved the Gospel into the very stones.
Yes, I thought to myself, gazing from rows of wooden-sided homes to the sheer blue drop below. This is where I would retire.
The tourism office had patiently instructed me the day before in the route for a morning hike.
I would tackle a fraction of the marked trail, which spanned the length of the country, for the intrepid and committed. My jaunt would cover a single leg, from the town center up into the mountains.
Forests, views, something of everything, he promised me.
After my day cruising Halong Bay, I opted to stick to the dense Old Quarter surrounding my hotel for a deeper dive into its chaotic energy.
On the packed streets of Hanoi, the traffic lights and crosswalks are there for decoration. Hordes of motor bikes swarm the roads; pedestrians must clamber over restaurant seating (plastic stools and tables) if they want to use the sidewalks. Walking three blocks exhausted me.
The higgledy-piggledy view from my hotel window encapsulated the hive of human activity.
After the dearth of English-speaking churches on Japan’s remote southern islands, I determined to steer my Indochina circuit around Sunday services. Thus I dedicated the weekend after my Thailand tour to Christ Church Bangkok: a lofty Anglican establishment with a promising website. Once the 7:30am “traditional service” concluded, I would venture forth to sample more of the city’s attractions.
As soon as I parted from my guide in Kho Pha-Ngan, though, the logistics tangled. My cushy airport bus broke down on the highway, relegating us to a dusty half hour under an overpass before a van pulled up. I landed uneventfully in the capital, but then the route from the airport to my hotel cowed me with a labyrinth of transfers. I resorted to taxis – turned down a VIP service asking triple the going rate, passed on an opportunistic haggler just outside the official taxi stand, and at last entrusted myself to a driver with a meter and receipt book.
He deposited me on my hotel doorstep, where I discovered that the fare exceeded my supply of cash.
From Tokyo, we caught a Pokemon-themed plane to the southernmost tip of the main islands: Kagoshima-shi, the city center of my home prefecture. We checked in to JR Kyushu, a suave business hotel set inside the train station itself.
Then I conducted my sister on a twenty-four hour tour of Kagoshima’s culinary champions: tonkatsu (the Japanese version of schnitzel, or breaded pork), cherry blossom pastries, chestnut cakes, and – of course – shirokuma: the iconic shaved ice of the region. Drenched in sweetened condensed milk, studded with fruit, it had topped my list since November 2021 for treats to delight guests. My sister opted for the red beans variation, while I bought the classic.
We scooted downtown for a late night stint at the nearest onsen, a public bath with piping hot mineral waters, powered by the city’s neighboring volcano. On the way home, we paused to purchase a bulk pack of frozen dumplings from a vending machine (a vending machine!) before retiring for a long-awaited rest.
Sunday morning brought us amidst a relentless downpour to my first English church home in Japan, the dauntless Calvary Chapel. As ever, the congregation welcomed us warmly – with a hearty brunch and many invitations to return soon. The assistant pastor’s wife even accompanied us back to the station, where she saw us safely aboard the bus to the airport for our final flight of the week: home to Tokunoshima.
In my 18 months of island hopping and jetting all over Japan, I have dropped in on half a dozen different churches here. Invariably, the congregations have showered me with affection and hospitality — inviting me to lunch, offering to guide my sightseeing, urging me to come again.
Our friend’s family church fit the pattern in all respects except one: it dwarfed every other Japanese church I have attended. Multiple services, Sunday school divided by age group, even a bookshop — we marveled at the ministry built up over the decades. During the service, we sang hymns accompanied by organ and pored over an English transcript of the sermon. Afterwards, I rejoiced at joining an English Bible study in person, for the first time in months.
I was determined to visit Korea before I left Japan. The chance was too good to pass up — a space traversed in a breath from the eastern side of the globe, versus leagues and hours of travel from the west.
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this place to my family. Our time there spanned my formative years between nine and eleven years old, when I first understood myself as a world traveler, with all the stories on this blog to attest to the consequences of that … but still more importantly, Korea is where my father first laid eyes on my mother. As he hails from Virginia and she from New Mexico, they might never have met if their paths hadn’t intersected there.
My friends Petra and Eloise transformed a four hour trek from Vleesbaai to the airport, from a chore to a bonus. We set out early in the morning, bidding the beach farewell as the highway unwound across plains and mountains, carrying us west towards the city of Cape Town.
Our road trip ranged from a rest stop petting farm to a local farmer’s market. The enterprising rest stop featured a picnic area, obstacle course, and selfie stations. I sampled a ‘roosterkoek‘ – a pastry whose baffling name initially led me to tentatively inquire why only male chickens featured.
“Did you make it back home?” a friend from the Christian retreat asked me.
“Well…”
My secondary school had asked me to teach the week immediately following the holidays — so instead of taking a 15 hour ferry home, I sailed for 20 hours to Yoron Island. Thankfully, my itinerary allowed for one night’s stopover in Kagoshima City, where the international Calvary Church welcomed me warmly as ever.
Welcome to “Golden Week”: a succession of national holidays that free most of Japan to travel en masse. You must book your tickets months in advance or forget about traveling on a budget. I decided to spend my allotment on Tokyo, aiming to rectify the fourteen days I passed here in mandatory isolation, forbidden from leaving the hotel property let alone poke my nose into a sushi restaurant.
The trip began with an unexpected detour: JET’s Christian society threw open the doors for me to join their weekend retreat in Nagano — with only 24 hours notice. I hastily abbreviated my hotel stay in Tokyo and bought my shinkansen (bullet train) tickets at Tokyo Station for a 2+ hour trek northwest to join them.
Gabrielle and I had talked all year of her visiting me in England, but in the last-minute rush to finagle my quarantine-free entry to the conference, she obliged me by redirecting to Rome. Joy squeezed my heart at the sight of her – a little piece of home, arriving in a blaze of sunlight. Five days of freedom beckoned, a generous allowance for exploring the city at our leisure.
