Monday Afternoon Road Trip

In Japan it was completely normal for me to commute hours to spend some quality time with friends. (I once travelled approximately two hours by train and bus to catch Sex and the City 2 when it first came out).

Today I snuck out of the office after lunch, hopped in my car, and drove two and a half hours to Chattanooga, TN to see my friend Tye, who was home on break from University.

The last time I saw Tye was in Japan when I met him and his male co-workers for drinks. I walked through rice fields to find the tiny restaurant where they sat eating edamame and sipping beer.

The afternoon drive through Tennessee was gorgeous.


I snapped this picture at a rest stop along the way.

He drove me around his hometown, and I was surprised by it's charming qualities. We ate Barbeque at the most famous spot in town where I, for the first time ever, drank a cup of good ol' southern sweet tea. The woman behind the counter who I ordered from was so shocked that I had never had real sweet tea before, so she insisted that it was on the house.


She and I quickly bonded over the cultural difference in beverages.

After much needed catching up over the most delicious food, Tye drove us back to his house where we played with his dogs, unsuccessfully attempted to skype some of our friends from Japan, and looked up ticket prices for me to visit him and his lovely girlfriend in Vancouver.


As I drove back to Nashville in the darkness, listening to country music on the radio, I didn't think about waking up and going to work in the morning. I thought about the importance of not letting friendships fall apart over time and distance.