Misha returned to Japan for almost two weeks to celebrate Halloween and attend the Marine Corps Birthday Ball. After a costume party for Halloween, we returned to Kyoto and Osaka to see some sights we missed the first time around, then tacked on two nights of glamping at an olive farm on Awaji Island. It required many train rides and schlepping our luggage and Mochi. It was a great, if not exhausting, trip across the Kansai region.
Following our stop in Kyoto, we hopped on another bullet train for Osaka. The trip made up over 55km in under 15 minutes, enough time to drink a beer but little else. The next day was all about the World Expo, an event that moves around the globe every five years. Nations are invited to join and showcase different innovations and cultural aspects around a central theme.
Misha recently stopped in Japan to visit me while reporting for duty at Embassy Hanoi. It was great seeing her after two months apart. We had a little down time in Tokyo as she tried getting over the jet lag, though it takes about a week to truly adjust (or three weeks according to Misha). On a day when the heat and humidity made the air as thick as pudding, we hopped aboard our first bullet train (shinkansen) to visit Kyoto and Osaka.Â
If you follow the Beer and Diplomacy Instagram, you may have been a bit confused about some of my recent content. Didn’t you say you were going to Vietnam next? What’s this about Flag Day? I have purposely delayed writing this blog for a variety of reasons, including the uncertainty surrounding my own employment and the typical delay for security reasons. Some answers to the above questions can also be found in my OMS post, but the main thing to know is: I finally accepted the offer!
Guatemala is now several months in the rearview mirror, which has given me plenty of time to reflect and reminisce. Our tour ended up being shortened by over seven months of cancer treatment to start and an early departure of ten weeks to accommodate Vietnamese language training and home leave. By the end, we spent only 14 of the 24 months we were originally assigned to the country physically in Guatemala. That left us with plenty of missed tourism opportunities, but we feel like we saw enough of the country to say that we got a full Guatemalan experience.Â
The last trip we made during our time in Guatemala was to Petén, the largest and northernmost department in Guatemala that borders Mexico and Belize. Our original trip was supposed to be in early July, but that ended up being delayed until just days before our departure due to a tropical storm. We knew we were taking a chance by booking a trip during rainy season, but we weren’t about to leave Guatemala without seeing the famous Mayan ruins of Tikal.
After a years’ worth of blogs about travel in and around Guatemala, I realized that I haven’t written anything about what we’re doing when we’re at work. It’s not all fun and games, you know.Â
When we first received our assignment to Guatemala and started thinking about regional travel, Misha said to me that if we were going to visit Mexico, she didn’t want to go anywhere she’d already been. Well, much like James Taylor, I’d never really been but I sure wanted to go. We haven’t been able to take advantage of the regional travel as much as we originally thought due to Misha’s cancer treatment, but after traveling to Mexico City on my own in February, I had to go back. Misha had never been to Oaxaca, widely considered one of the premiere culinary destinations of the Western Hemisphere, so that’s how we spent our extended Memorial Day Weekend.Â
When Misha was provided the opportunity to go to Bogota for a four-day training on atrocity prevention, we jumped at the chance to bundle it with some tourist activity. We flew down on a Friday in April, and I returned on Monday. Misha stayed for her training, which included one big tourist attraction outside of the city that I missed out on. Bogota is the third largest city in South America by population, home to over 8 million people. It’s also very high up in the mountains of Colombia, with an altitude of over 8600 feet.Â
We’ve gone on a number of trips around Guatemala since our first visit to Lake Atitlan in December. Most of these were limited to extended weekends or day trips and included trips with family and friends alike. Some stops along the way were new to us, while we returned to many others. Here is a recap of our Guatemala 2024 tour to date.
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