About a year ago, I went to Cancun, Mexico by myself.

Don’t ask me why I went there alone, but it wasn’t too bad being there by myself. I took a lot of flights to go to Cancun and then Japan for this trip. I went from Grand Forks to Minneapolis to Atlanta and finally Cancun. Then I went from Cancun to Atlanta to Narita to Yonago, which is near my hometown in Japan.

I spent that summer at home and then traveled from Yonago to Haneda, took a bus from Haneda to Narita, then flew from Narita to Seattle, then to Minneapolis and then back to Grand Forks. I took the total of 10 flights with eight different kinds of airplanes. As an aviation nerd, it was so much fun. I went inside the cockpit after we landed in Narita to talk to the pilots and some of them were UND alumni. I hope I will be like them in the future.

What was funny is that when I was at the gate and about to board the aircraft going to Cancun, they were doing the final security check and I was asked questions such as “Are you going to Cancun by yourself?”, “What are you doing in Cancun?”, and so on. I am sure they thought I might be a drug smuggler. The same thing happened once I entered the U.S. again in Atlanta.

I guess it is really unusual to go to Cancun by yourself. Anyway, I did. I stayed there for only a few days. The original plan was to relax and enjoy the vacation because I was extremely stressed due to flight training and school.

However, as a photographer, I always carried a heavy camera with multiple lenses and took a lot of photos. I went to the beach only twice during the vacation. Isn’t it funny? I was too busy looking for cool places to take photos.

When I went to the beach, I saw a happy couple. I guess they just had their wedding and I wanted to take their photos. I asked them if it were OK if I take photos, but they didn’t understand English at all. I then spoke to them in Spanish, but they still didn’t understand. I think they were Russian. Anyway, it seemed OK to take photos, so I did it. They asked me to send the photos and told me their e-mail addresses, so I e-mailed them the photos, but I haven’t got any reply from them. I hope they got them.

I took the last photo from the airplane bound for Atlanta. It was so beautiful there. It makes me want to go back to Cancun sometime.