Several months ago, I wrote about my son’s high school graduation and how shocked my wife and I were when we learned that he had told the entire graduating class that he was headed for Japan once his senior year ended. We discovered his intentions after the valedictorian mentioned it during his speech.
“I even have one classmate who plans to backpack across Japan in the fall,” said the speaker (to which the entire crowd gasped in disbelief).
My wife and I were aghast to hear this announcement. Had our child’s off-handed dinnertime remark about backpacking through Japan actually made it outside of our home?
When our smiling son approached us after receiving his diploma, the first thing I said was, “You do realize that you’re going to look really bad now if you don’t go to Japan?”
He confidently replied, “Don’t worry, Dad, I got this.”
And then, somehow, my seemingly disinterested-in-the-future child found a way to earn thousands of dollars over the summer break while planning a trip abroad. In September, he joined several other like-minded travelers for a three-month tour of Australia, Thailand, and Japan.
Well, I’m happy to report that, as of this week, he has officially set foot in Japan, fulfilling his graduation promise and thoroughly shocking his parents in the process.
His first stop was Australia. While there, he traveled from Melbourne on the lower east side of the country up to Cairns on the northeast side, stopping in the bustling city of Sydney along the way. He and his friends goofed around with kangaroos, danced in nightclubs, snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, and even climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
He loved Australia and was sad to leave, but he was excited for his next adventure in Thailand. They started their journey in the jungles of northern Thailand, where they visited countless Buddhist temples that were too beautiful to describe. Then, they wandered south to Bangkok to investigate the city and its unique food and culture. Finally, they roamed about the beaches in southern Thailand to bask in the warm, tropical sun.
And now he’s in Tokyo. And even though he’s only been there a couple of days, he’s convinced it’s where he wants to spend the rest of his life (my wife and I find this distressing, given how far away it is from our home base).
We’ve learned about most of our son’s experiences during this trip, not from his communication (we’re lucky to get a text once a week) but from the photo-sharing site that someone in the group set up. This has been helpful and also enlightening because the photos are not curated by our son prior to being uploaded.
Thankfully, one of the guys in the group is a bit of a shutterbug, so he constantly uploads photos of the group’s activities. After the first few weeks, my keen eye started to notice that our son was often standing near the same young woman. I pointed this out to my wife, who scoffed at the idea that he was romantically attached to another traveler (because, you know, that never happens).
While I was reading one night, my phone’s alert went off. It was the familiar tone signaling that content had been uploaded to the photo-sharing site. I quickly logged in and began to peruse the new images. My eyes darted about each photo to see if my son was present.
After I swiped three or four times, an image appeared of my son and the aforementioned young woman nuzzled together in a rickshaw on the streets of Bangkok. I copied the photo and texted it to my son with the caption, “Anything you want to tell us?”
It took about 24 hours before he finally replied that yes, indeed, he was smitten and that the young woman in question was someone he was greatly interested in. “You would love her, Dad,” he stated. “She’s the best travel companion I’ve ever had.”
This week’s film, “Brothers,” also involves travel companions, but in this case, it involves two degenerate brothers on a road trip looking for that one final score of a lifetime.
Starring Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage, and Brendan Fraser, “Brothers” unfortunately takes top-tier actors and hands them a bottom-shelf script that relies on tired and formulaic gags. I wanted to like this film, but it wasn’t unique enough to command my attention.
Check this one out if you’re bored and have nothing else to watch. It has a few quality laughs, but not enough to make it a winner.
A short-sighted “C” for “Brothers” is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Got a question or comment for Dom? You can email him at moviediary@att.net.
