Shoestring Soul Searching #9: Japan and Mongolia

Plot twist, I’m back in Asia. We planned a Japan trip with Tiff’s siblings a long time ago, so I packed my bags and flew to the other end of the hemisphere. But not before an 8-hour layover in Rome in which I managed to see the entirety of Vatican City. I figure if you have a few hours the world’s smallest country is a feasible goal.

Munching on my suppli on a sunny day in the Piazza Navona I thought to myself, “Maybe it’s not so bad traveling to places other people also visit...” But then I immediately snapped out of it and started daydreaming about my future trip to the Federated States of Micronesia. Coming 2027.

Emptiness: just what the Buddha ordered

In Japan we stopped for a while in the northern city of Hakodate. Now Hakodate is lovely but whatever image you have of Japan, that’s not what Hakodate looks like. Its heyday was over a century ago when it was one of the few ports open to foreign trade. Today it’s a sleepy place with faded 19th-century architecture where the cats outnumber the pedestrians. There’s a pervasive emptiness with many of the old houses abandoned. There’s no one inside but you can almost hear the echo of long-lost stories contained within the walls.

My next stop was Mongolia, and let’s just say Mongolia takes emptiness to another level. In Hakodate the emptiness was within confined spaces. In Mongolia there’s no such thing as a confined space. In fact, it’s rumored Genghis Khan only built one structure in his lifetime - a simple warehouse to store his loot. Say what you will about the guy, there’s something fascinating about a man who conquered the world but felt no need to leave so much as a plaque in his memory.

This much emptiness takes getting used to. For starters, seeing to the edge of the horizon in every direction. So rarely have my eyes been able to look that far that they lost all frame of reference. Was I seeing one mile ahead? Five miles? Ten miles? There’s no trees so your eyes notice everything. If a horse scratches itself in the next valley over, you’ll see it. But it’ll also see you. I learned “excuse me” in Mongolian is “uuchlaarai” but never had to use it because well…who are you really going to run into.

Maybe you consider emptiness a bad thing. The Oxford English Dictionary certainly seems to think so. It calls emptiness “the quality of lacking meaning or sincerity,” but I would argue there’s nowhere more sincere than the empty Mongolian steppe. We’ve filled our world with high-rises, highways, and LEDs and it exudes an illusion of permanence, but nothing is built to last. Even mountains and rivers over a long enough timeline will erode and dry up. With those gone you realize emptiness has been around you all along. The true form of the universe starts to present itself in Mongolia.

Is this depressing? No, it’s a huge relief. We spend all day with our minds full of racing thoughts. Walking down a busy city street only adds to the noise. But walk in any direction in the open Mongolian expanse and those thoughts dissipate into the emptiness. My normally hyperactive mind has rarely been so serene as it was staring into the distance for hours in the Gobi Desert.

There aren’t zero buildings in Mongolia, of course. Some of the oldest buildings are Buddhist monasteries and it doesn’t surprise me that this is a majority Buddhist country. I imagine when the first devotee of Buddha came to Mongolia teaching the emptiness at the core of existence, the nomads replied “yes, we know already.”

Bro-mads on the steppe

I went to Mongolia with my undergrad friend Kevin. After so much time on the road with Tiff, it was a shock to spend a full week in the presence of someone else. Every time I finished my dinner, I looked up expecting to eat half of Tiff’s and instead I saw Kevin who already finished his food five minutes earlier. Even with an old friend, you learn new weird things when you spend a week together. Kevin probably wondered whether I truly lost it during those aforementioned hours spent staring at nothing in the Gobi.

More perspectives mean more ways of experiencing, so I was glad to have Kevin’s perspective on this trip. I was more comfortable riding a horse. He was more comfortable riding a camel. Compared to any self-respecting Mongolian we sucked at both, so we learned not to take ourselves too seriously.

Where was Tiff during this trip, you ask? She went to Beijing. Yes, I went to Mongolia while she took pictures at the Great Wall, a structure built specifically to keep out Mongolians. Is my girlfriend trying to tell me something with her travel choices?

6 months in: a report card

It’s been six months since we started this journey, so a self-assessment is in order. What have I accomplished?

• For life experiences, I’m giving myself an A+. I saw a bunch of new places, saw old places in a new light, and learned a little about myself at each step of the way. Who knew I liked pottery?

• For figuring out my next career step, I’m giving myself a B. I thought I’d be further along, honestly. Will I prioritize this more in the coming months? Yes. But do I believe the process of knowing myself and what I want can only go so fast? Also yes.

• For living on a “shoestring” budget, I’m giving myself an A-. I don’t feel an impending financial crisis yet. Being in the right countries helps. We do enjoy ourselves every now and then. Ask us about our overnight onsen with the all-you-can-drink highballs sometime…

Dreaming of the desert,

Bryan