TOKYO - A NEW ADVENTURE

I am married to a beautiful Japanese woman, Reiko. We met in New York City, my home town. We had an interesting relationship for the first few years, and for a while she was traveling back and forth from Tokyo to NY. It wasn´t easy. In my mind, this relationship was not going anywhere. Long distance relationships were not my thing. Then, in the summer of 2010, once I had decided to change my life and become a writer and I knew I would end up moving back to Colombia, South America (I was born there), Reiko came to visit. We met, we talked and we had a very serious conversation about our future. I knew what I wanted to do and that was to give my self the time and space to become a real writer, and to accomplish this I knew I had to get away from what had been the norm for a big chunk of my life; NY.

To my surprise ( I really didn´t expect this), Reiko suggested that she would like to join me, to come with me. ¨To Colombia?¨ I asked a bit confused, fully aware of the negative perception that most people have of my beautiful, misunderstood and misconstrued country. She was dead serious. I was 43. I was beginning my second half of life´s adventure. Everything that was going to happen was an unknown to me, but I knew that I had to do it. There I was, staring at those beautiful, sincere, loving eyes and I asked, ¨Are you sure?¨ She nodded, smiled and said, ¨I want to be with you.¨ That was it! ¨Let´s do it, then.¨ I said, realizing at that moment that I would be spending the rest of my life with her, my future wife. And so it was. 8 months later we were living in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. 2,300 meters high. My God, the height sickness kicked our ass, but a few days later we had adjusted. Nothing that a warm coca tea couldn´t handle.

That adventure lasted 12 wonderful and incredible years. During that time we got married, rented our first tiny apartment in the big city, got our first jobs, we traveled, visited my family. When they first met her, they were so surprised and excited to meet a Japanese person for the first time. I´m sure my wife felt the same way. During all this time I kept on writing and reading and learning my Spanish again. A couple of years later we bought our first apartment and then our first child was born. My God THAT was a life changing event. What an incredible moment, what an exciting feeling, what a magnificent time to be alive and to share with my wife our existence. 3 years later, our beautiful daughter came to this world. Blessed twice. Quickly we moved into a larger but older apartment. How lucky can one get. A beautiful family, a new apartment, a new car, new incredible and wonderful memories. Was I happy? Yes! Was it everything that I expected? No! It was better than what I expected! Was I accomplishing my dream? Absolutely. At that moment, I was more of a writer that I had ever been.

And better things did come. One of them, the most glorious of them all - in terms of my job - as I mentioned in my previous blog, was the moment I shared with my kids my first animated TV series, BASIC.

Like everyone else, we were affected by the Covid pandemic, and by the beginning of 2022 we had decided to go to live in Japan. The story of how this decision was made is very simple. On December 2021, I had just finished re-writing for the Nth time a Bible for a project called Special Unit - X.

It was late at night when I came out of my office, prepared myself an incredible cup of specialty Colombian coffee (Oh man, on another post I will talk only about my experience and what I learned about coffee in Colombia. For those of you coffee lovers, you will love it!), and as I was savoring the aroma, and tasting the notes from it, I stared at my wife as she leaned back on the sofa and played her favorite videogame on her cellphone. I had been thinking about something which I wanted to talk to her about, and in that moment it seemed to be the best time to do it. So I asked her, ¨Baby, what do you think of the family going to Tokyo, to live?¨ The most incredible thing happened at that moment. Her eyes lit up and a huge smile appeared as she wondered, ¨For real? Do you want to?¨ It was then that I realized that I had never asked her that question before or even had made a comment about the possibility of someday us moving to Japan. I said, ¨yes, we could talk about it.¨ She was so happy. At once she said, ¨I want to be with my parents, my mom. You know she´s gonna be 80 next year?¨ I knew that, but it was how her face shined at the possibility of returning home, that I realized how much she had given up for me. She changed her entire life to be with me, to follow me and be a part of this crazy dream of mine of becoming a writer. So I knew that she deserved to be home with her parents, with her mom.

2022 was a year of major changes. We had to start selling everything; car, apartment, furniture. We decided to rent an apartment for the rest of our stay. The kids; we placed them that last year into the Nihon Gakko (The Japanese School) in Bogotá. The idea was for them to get a heads up on what school would be like when they arrived to Japan. My wife was counting the days, month after month. Me? I was mentally preparing for the life that was coming. Because in the end, I was - and still am - the odd number in this equation. It´s funny to remember when my wife stared at me silently. ¨What?¨I asked. She said, ¨You.¨ ¨You what?¨ ¨What are you going to do in Tokyo?¨ She was right. I really didn´t know. In Bogotá I knew people in the industry and they knew me. It was common for me to get phone calls from directors, other writers, actors who needed my help to check a script, translate, edit, new ideas, anything. But in Tokyo. Who did I know? What did I know of the local TV or movie industry? Relatively nothing. Maybe I could open up a specialty coffee shop selling Colombian coffee? That´s a possibility. But if I want to be able to sell and present my coffee, I better be capable of saying it in Japanese, and that is not easy. Teach English? Ok, but is there enough money in that? Continue to write? Of course! That will never change. And so I wondered, what was to become of me?

We landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on April, 2023. It´s been 7 months now. My kids are attending school, my wife is working with her family and within the first two 2 months I found a job teaching English. It doesn´t pay enough, but I do consider it a positive step forward. Regarding my writing, well, let me tell you a story. One day, as I was walking around getting to know the neighborhood with my kids, about two blocks from our apartment we found a specialty coffee shop, but not one that specializes in coffee. No, not at all. It´s focus was on giving its customers the experience of being around exotic bird; owls, parrots, toucans and right at the entrance, inside a large white cage, a beautiful but lonely Guacamaya (Macaw).

I was surprised. The kids were very surprised. They asked me, ¨What is she doing here, dad?¨ ¨Isn´t she supposed to be in the Amazon Rain Forest?¨ What a strange situation. Allow me to clarify, a few months before our flight to Japan, we went for a week to the Colombian Amazon region. What an incredible place! I really wanted my kids to experience real nature, to ride on a boat on the Amazon river, to see the pink dolphins, to fish a piranha. We did it all. And the birds! Thousands of them, beautiful species of all kinds. But the one that attracted them the most was an incredible macaw that used to come to eat bananas at several trees surrounding the hotel´s large garden. What an impressive sight to see this magnificent bird landing on the tree. My kids learned these birds are a species that live only in Central and south America. So, why is she here in Tokyo? They asked me. I knew what was going on. She was the result of the horrible illegal traffic of wildlife.

• On the way back home, I explained to them what was going on. They really didn´t get it. All they wanted me to do was to walk into that store, buy it from the owner and let it go free. Can you imagine? That night, as I was sleeping, it came to me. This is a great story to write. A children´s book focused on this problem. So, two months into our new lives in Tokyo I had found my first writing project. And what a great story it is! I decided to make it a family project. My kids helped me write it. An old friend of mine now living in Canada, is working on the illustrations. I have hired a professional translator to turn the story into Japanese. Once I get it ready, I will start knocking at several publisher´s doors. We´ll see what happens.

(Below: 1st draft of an idea for the book cover)

This is what I mean, as a writer, of always being aware of one´s surroundings, one´s environment. Because we never know when the next story will appear. Our new adventure in Tokyo is just beginning. We all are opening and finding new roads to follow, new challenges to overcome.

Tokyo = Adventure = Experiences = Life. We are ready to learn from this new life. I am ready to let it inspire me to write. And I think this children´s book is a great way to start.

Thanks for coming.