Derrick's "Complicated"

So… how’s Japan? It’s complicated, really complicated, and it’s complicated on more than one level, so you know it’s extra complicated. First of all they have many different numbering systems, for example lets say I want two hot dogs, two packets of catsup, two cans of pop, two straws, two paper plates, and two chopsticks; there are probably six different ways to say the word “two” in that sentence… someone prease help me. I guess we do the same thing in English… well sort of… ok not really.

Second of all, the alphabet… English has only one set of 26 characters, Dutch is the same, French is also the same, Greek has 24, and Spanish has 29. Japanese on the other hand has three different alphabets; two sets have 46 characters each, and the third has… well no one seems to know an exact number, somewhere around five thousand characters, so I guess you could say that it’s complicated.

Thirdly, there’s the paperwork, lots and lots of paperwork which is never in English and usually includes all three alphabets. Sometimes it even feels like I have to do paperwork just to use the restroom or to sit down at my desk.

Fourthly, everything here is complicated.

Through all of what I’ve said thus far I’m not saying that the last six months here in Japan have been a big mistake, far from it. The last six months have really been a blessing from God, one that I would not be willing to trade. The people here are so kind, hospitable, hard-working, funny, and complicated. I really do love it here. I guess I should say that we love it here even if it is really complicated.

~Written by Derrick Thomas Logwood~

What happened to Derrick's hand?

This is the question that has been asked and will now, after much waiting, be answered.


The story of the hand starts on our paradise island Langkawi. This was our first destination in Malaysia. It was so wonderful it felt like we were on our real honeymoon (since we didn't have enough money or time to have the honeymoon we wanted when we got married). The day after we arrived was awesome....and the worst day of the trip. The first 3/4ths of the day was our awesome snorkeling trip. Seriously, if you ever have the chance to do this....do it.....

After we got back, we went walking down the street from our hotel. On our walk, we decided to rent scooters/motorcycles for 24 hours so we could ride around the island the next day.

They were very cheap and we enjoyed having slightly bigger and more powerfull engines (150 cc instead of 50cc) than we are used to, without needing a motorcycle license.

So, after renting them, we took off on a practice run before we headed back to our hotel for dinner. About 10-20 minutes into our ride, we turned off onto this side road that went along field. It was quite an empty road with no traffic. Luck had it that we were on this road at the perfect time to see a beautiful sunset over the field to our right. Unfortunately, Derrick and I both had different reactions to the beauty of the sunset.

I turned my head slightly to take a look at the beautiful sunset, debating in my head whether it was worth stopping for.

As soon as I turned my head back... (really it went much faster than you reading this, but it was slow enough for something bad to happen....)...I noticed that Derrick had stopped right in front of me and I had no time to break before I hit him.

We were going quite fast, because I hit him hard enough to where even he flew over the front of his scooter and landed on the ground in front of it. I landed on the ground in between the scooters and the impact was so hard that the scooters fell to the ground with about 5 meters of space between the two.



For as fast as we were going and as hard as the impact must have been, we are two lucky birds. God had is hand on us AND a couple of guardian angels or something, because we got away with just minor scrapes. My knee and shoulder were scraped up and all down my arm was slightly scratched up, but nothing serious. Both of my hands landed on the road, so my palms were pretty scratched up, but it was only as deep as one layer of skin. Derrick actually got the worst of it because his palm was scratched up worse than mine....but again, nothing too serious. Just annoying because its the palm of the hand....an area of the body much used, very prone to dirtiness and difficult to put bandaids on. So we had to use some serious wrappings for our hands.



I carried a medical kit to Malaysia and that is what we used to fix ourselves up at the hotel before going to dinner. The next few days were quite painful...and the days after that were just annoying as we waited for our wounds to heal before we could fully enjoy the trip. But we made the most of it and did not let this ruin our awesome trip!



Just for the record....we are extra careful on our scooters in Japan now....and very greatful that they are only 50 cc and not huge 150cc!



For those of you who read through this whole story, I will now add the picture of the moneky stealing my waterbottle that I tried to post last time, but couldnt because the internet and/or laptop starting messing up: