Chapter Seven: Japan

June 10, 2026

April 22- June 8

I have no idea how to adequately capture and document our time in Japan, which was just about 7 weeks. We dodged umbrellas, rode the bullet train, and biked around a volcano. We went on a million hikes. We had a million fights. We stood gobsmacked before a treasure trove of cultural sites. We sometimes reconciled after our fights. We took a time machine to 2012 and met over 30 people who knew Rocky during his first tender years in Japan as a budding professional, working for Honda.

To start, I’m going to share a map of highlights and a list of curiosities. But I’ll be back to add more.

My Curiosities

Yes, SO CLEAN: This country is sparkling and it’s a cocktail of personal responsibility, national pride, and morality training that keeps things tidy. Unfortunately, loud plastic does cover everything: bananas, strawberries, and individually wrapped packets of coffee.
Public infrastructure: As I’ve mentioned, we’ve been traveling. We tunneled through mountains and pirouetted on the Kawazu Nanadaru Loop Bridge. We ferried to islands. The massive investment in transportation mechanisms in Japan never failed to shock me. It’s totally incredible. Over 10,000 tunnel roads! I will say, however, someone decided to put alarmingly deep drainage channels an inch from the road, so exercise extreme caution while driving.
Why is it so cute tho: Still researching this one, but everything is seriously cute. Please browse my collection of signs below. Also throwing in a bonus here: Thematic manhole covers.
Luks in Tokyo: Y’all, people are putting outfits together. There is such a delightful amalgamation of humans buzzing about the subway. Elderly women wearing yukatas (the casual kimono), kids in bright yellow bucket hats, girls with tube socks up to the hither-most heights. Cosplay all day, lookin’ fly. I saw tiny heels on elegant women and a jean jacket with three-tiered fringe. I saw organza drench coats. Imagine a middle school student decked in black with a mid-length pleated skirt, please. I saw that. Imagine a herd of fuzzy animal keychains knocking their eyeballs on the hard shell of her backpack. Also true.
Salary Men: This was a term Rocky often evoked which filled him with shivers and jitters, but truly there were so many men wearing suites. We talked a lot about the work culture, the financial strain and burden of performance that has characterized this subgroup. From discussions with various folks throughout our trip, it seemed like some of those pressures were lessening, which I hope proves to be true.
Fram Kitagawa: I was totally floored by this man. Now in his 80s, he helped initiate a program of festivals in rural Japan to honor aging agricultural workers and drive revitalization. We got to see several permanent installations of the festival: Echigo-Tsumari in Niigata Prefecture. He’s a legend and I loved reading his reflection on the process to starting this enterprise:
“The opposition was daunting. They said using public funds for art was unthinkable. They asked what use art could possibly be in such a rural area. In the space of four and a half years we held 2,000 meetings to explain our purposes to different groups. Despite those efforts it wasn’t until June 15th that authorization was finally received for the July 25th opening of the first festival. We had gone on with the preparations determined to go ahead even if public funding was not received, but it was indeed a hard fight.”
Since its start in 2000, more than 2.64 million visitors traveled to the rural Echigo-Tsumari region and the festival has generated over ¥57 billion. Go Fram Go!

This may look like an anti-bot test to verify your humanity… but actually, it’s my collection of cute or funny signage. It’s everywhere - I missed gobs due to sheer laziness.

Some bonuses.

Every city seems to have custom manhole covers. Is that normal?

Elementary art displayed outside a train station in ‎⁨Kasukabe⁩, ⁨Saitama⁩.

Student historical documentation project, ‎⁨Shimoda⁩, ⁨Shizuoka⁩.

Tokyo, dressing up

You can't tell, but we are all queuing up - for the bus, at the stop light. We queue.

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A Sushi chef ‎⁨in Tokamachi,⁩ showed us a manga based on his grandfather, who had passed the family business down to him.

Giant kitty in ‎⁨Shizuoka⁩

Chapter Six: My Nana

April 22, 2026

March 22 - April 22

In April, my grandmother passed away. Knowing the time was near, we booked seventeen hours of flights and just like that, I was home. Somewhere along the highway, my sister and I passed one another. She had spent a month alongside my mom and uncle through a difficult transition in our Nana’s care and now it was my turn. Three weeks later, our Nana said goodbye after ninety-two years. She had spent 11.5 months battling breast cancer.

How does one become a great Nana? The job requires wit, cunning, and at least one pivotal day at the salon in which your hair turns either purple or permed. You must strike fear into the hearts of babes. You must produce biscuits and force us to bathe. You must have drawers full of tin foil but your offspring don’t judge; you lived through the great depression.

In that magical moment when a woman transforms from a mere mother into a grandmother, there should be a holy rite or a sacred text to lead the way. Surely they aren’t just winging it. All I know is that in my eyes, our Nana was three quarters to sainthood. Sure, she often said she wanted to skin our heads (or skin us alive?! Not sure which is worse). She could be impatient, anxious, and negative as all get out. But, if I could be merely half, or a quarter, or one fifth of our Nana, it would be a miracle.

Throughout my elementary years, my siblings and I would signal to one another as Nana approached in her faithful chariot (a Honda Odyssey with a quilt in the trunk inexplicably covered in wrestlers). Up the stairs and into the house she would march, with her long skirts, collared shirts, and one billion tote bags. She would regale us with her journey to 3-5 grocery stores, wayfinding with her atlas of coupons and an almanac of savings from the newspaper. She would tell our mom, “Robbin, Cheerios are half off this week at Food Lion, don’t forget. I can pick some up for you.” Satisfied, she turned her laser eyes on us. It was time for school. After teaching for over 30 years, she still had an unmatched zeal for learning (or intimidating children with spelling bees).

If I wasn’t already sitting in timeout when she arrived, we’d end up at the piano bench. She would dazzle me with an accompaniment and then grimly endure my excruciating scales, which I had only practiced once before her arrival. Where I’d flopped around like a dying fish, she would swim over the keys with ease. She was full of grace and patience for this music - one of her great loves. Turning the pages she was caught up in careful concentration that looked effortless. Her elegant fingers moving like magic, her rings mirroring the sparkle in her ocean blue eyes.

I loved sassing my Nana. Hanging clothes to dry behind the rhododendrons, picking blueberries, savoring black coffee in her angel mug with the funnies from the paper, we always found something to be sassy about. There will never be another Nana, just like my Nana.

This April, walking around the hospice house, my mom described those last few weeks of Nana’s life like the process of accompanying a woman in childbirth. If anyone knows, it’s my Mom. She is an expert in endurance - suffering no less than six pregnancies. The weariness, the pain, and anxious expectation endured again. At the very end. There was fretting over Nana’s medication (was the dose adequate? Was she in pain? When will the doctor give his update?). There was a battery of regular tasks: Was the catheter full? Does she really need another bowel movement or is this a control thing? Brushing her teeth and watching The Price Is Right made me want to weep and laugh all at once.

Across all the Abuelas and Nonnas and Paattis of the world, I think my Nana could hold her own. I only regret that she didn’t leave us with an orientation guide. I will be sassing her about this the next time we meet. If I could do my homework, I’d likely find her guide right there between the tin foil and the biscuit batter, the clothing line and early morning coffee with the funnies. Maybe we’ll meet again at the piano bench, and I’ll get a chance to ask her about it.

Juanita (left) as a girl, holding a rabbit with Beth Lou, right

Juanita's childhood home

Juanita in eighth grade (fourth row, fourth from the left)

Juanita's High school graduation

Letter from Gene, Juanita’s future husband of sixty-two years.

H. Gene Epley, that handsome devil.

Juanita and Gene married in 1956

From the Wedding Album of Juanita and Gene Epley

Juanita started teaching "Commercial Studies" at Drexel high school in 1961

Starting in 1968, Juanita taught Stenography at Western Piedmont Community College

I don't have much detail about this photos - it was on a roll of film my mother found

Juanita stands on the property she and Gene purchased, that would become their forever home.

Valdese Elementary School

One of one million school year photos of Juanita

Class of 1993

Collage of photos from Juanita's archives

Derek and Robbin

Juanita with her first grandkids, Kirksey and Kathryn

Nancy Drew where are you

Nana's piano

In July, 2025, I tried on my mom's wedding dress, which had been stored at Nana's house, just for fun. It was too small!

My Nana’s Obituary
Juanita’s husband of 62 years, Gene, passed away in 2018. His obituary is here.
Sweet comments from her students on Facebook: First post; Second post

Chapter Five: Gym Bros and Indigo in Vietnam

March 21, 2026

March 11-21

In Vietnam, we fell into a whirlpool of tourists. Descending the steep stairs of Dragon Hill, surrounded by limestone spires and caves, we also marveled at the bare-chested gym boys, Instagram queens, and mother-daughter duos in matching dresses. Five decades after "Across Asia on the Cheap" launched Lonely Planet Publications, Southeast Asia is an epicenter of tourism. If I was more disciplined, a close analysis of the digital nomads and the gap-year travelers would be on your desk. Alas, here are just a few notes from the field:

49% of Europeans smoke in stylish athletic apparel (girls, we are wearing mocha, sage, or terracotta; blends, unclear, but I suspect a 90% polyester + 10% spandex mix for optimal wicking and shape retention).
15% Instagram couples from the US will be in your way at some point.
10% of Israelis travel after conscription (they are a little rowdy in the cafes = easy to identify).
2% Russian soldiers are on holiday (this is a shockingly cheerful bunch generally in a jacuzzi cruising Halong Bay).

We joined this migratory highway and glimpse ourselves in the sideview mirror. We too, were searching for transformation while spending the least amount of money possible. (Where else can you find an opulent tasting menu for $20 except in the Old Quarter?) We too want a selfie in Halong Bay.

Amid the pandemonium, other choreographies are at work. In Hanoi, scooters lined up in perfect harmony and neighbors danced in synchrony in the park. Elders, working class men, and commuters sat shoulder to shoulder on small stools, smoking, drinking tea, getting breakfast. I remember seeing a couple on a motorcycle weaving their way through town, maybe a long workday ahead. She was asleep, her head draped over his shoulder, her arms around him in an easy embrace. Meanwhile tourists jostled through the streets toward banh mi and egg coffee while we sped past in a sleeper bus.

Throughout this trip I keep returning to the same questions about tourism. Is it a shallow, exploitative spectacle or does it bring meaningful development to a region? Does it amplify the texture of local culture or slowly dissolve it into performance?

Probably both.

We traveled north of the capital to the mountain town of Sa Pa. Forty minutes from town, in Ta Van, a local Hmong woman led us through a Batik workshop. I asked her about the availability of healthcare for women in remote regions. She said in her lifetime better roads have made the hospital easier to access. More women survive complications in childbearing than in her mother’s generation but pregnancy was still a serious peril for women in more remote areas.

While our mini tapestries luxuriated in the indigo bath, we walked with our guide around the village. She pointed out traditional tools of hemp production and rubbed indigo leaves across my palm. She told us about the local schools and we hopped across the stream by a fish hatchery. Gliders spiraled above and tour groups hustled by on spongy paths between the rice fields. I wondered what she hoped for her children? Was all this tourism going to improve their quality of life? Her daughter wants to be a trekking guide; her son wants to move to Hanoi. She said he was too lazy for trekking and I don’t blame him.

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Highlights

Meeting up with Daria! A close friend to Rocky during his Asheville dayz, we really loved spending more time with her as our travel plans overlapped in Vietnam.
The most delicious coffee at Hanoi Coffee Station
Boat ride through caves (!!!) via Trang An Eco-Tourism Complex
Bai dinh Temple complex
A floor made of pebbles at Su Vegetarian restaurant
A strawberry crocheted caked at Em O Day Bakery
Pavi Garden Restaurant- pizza among the rice fields on our way down into Ta Van