Cooking in unlikely places.

The washing machine is on its third cycle - it's barely lain quiet since we heaved our backpacks and smelly, insect bitten selves back through my park and home to my little apartment and damp patio.

It's always bizarre to write a blog when you know that the people who were present might read it. Even more bizarre when some of the people who you think of in the back of your mind when you write your blog are stretched out asleep on your floor, as you try to keep your typing quiet and non-intrusive.

So yes, blogs have collided all of a sudden, and here in this archipelago Selmo (buddhawouldusethenet.blogspot.com) and Da Berg lie sleeping, and I lie in that beautiful stretch between waking and the beginning of this new semester - even as I contemplate the old.

Their first twenty four hours we didn't sleep, abandoned trips to airports, hunting down rent a car places that refused to rent to Germen International Drivers Licenses, we spent the night drinking beer by candlelight, before wandering some of the still open outdoor shack for a pork cutlet at four in the morning and on to Skiji Fish market for morning sushi. Since then we have re-established some form of ryhthm and have stretched our way to the furthest edge of Hokkaido. Traversing the country by boat, an illegally hired car and that glorious sense of adventure and familiarity that comes from being with some of your closest friends after long absence. Camping, skinny dipping and sake drinking our colliding madcapped way through national parks, our clothes all linger with bonfire smoke, my back peals with sunburn, da berg's computer is filled up with photos and my heart leaps just a bit to have reaffirmed friendships that allow discussions of our prejudice and patronising undertones when we use 'cute', or what loyalty should mean, or whether porn is wrong and where great wealth's potential can lead us. All whilst we are colliding round corners and worlds, as Selmo`s driving takes us into old farms, or through the hundreds of Japanese tourists photo shots, bizarre 50foot murals of European art, ciche and broken burnt out hotels, or chasing tractors to capture stupid photos and be told off for taking`illegal photos` of yellow trucks. The theme throughout seems to have been cooking in unusual and inappropriate places and times. Just before the thirty hour boat ride lands in port, or at the very top of the highest mountain in Shikoku as we fight against wind that seems able to knock anyone flying for example. Selmo's ever so efficient swiss camping stove/pot/pan/chopping board/spaghetti drainer/kettle and God knows what else, will come out, the look of creativity and planning begin to play across his face... our usual ingredients will be thumbed through, and suddenly out will come the photo canisters of spices and wherever we are, however rushed or hurried, or about to be blown off a mountain we are, his concentration will be absolute - and coriandar, mustard seeds and sesame oil will blend to create dishes that have never tasted so good, as they do all out of the same pot, our chopsticks nashing and occasionally shared by passing hikers. Most of the time we have managed to cook on open fires, the boys doing that masculine thing of needing to gather the largest pieces of drift or fire wood, only to spend forever banging them against other rocks until they break into more manageable pieces. The already manageable pieces everywhere around are ignored in favour of the most unwielding, heavy and downright difficult logs. We camped by lakes for most of the week. The three of us cramped into a two man tent, sharing two sleeping bags and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

Selmo has just risen to put up the rained out tent in the park.

It's easy to feel as though nothing's changed. Ten months absence and in many ways the three of us are still the same three who met five years ago. Da berg's sarcasm and ability to cut the romantic inklings of selmo and me down to some kind of logical, paletable and more considered outlook remains undisturbed. So too does Selmo and my enjoyment of teasing Berg and his smart alec replies that leave us giggling and smarting simultaneously. They are as honest, loveable and unpredictable as they have always been. Of course we've changed though. Somewhere along the lines. Selmo still does acrobatics on trains. Berg still has his ability to sum up in one line what it has taken me a whole discussion to reach.

And me, well I'm not sure I can answer that. I'm still me I suppose. And perhaps that has been what has been so wonderful to realise. Despite ten months of Japan, or maybe even because of it, I'm still me.