To South America! (or somewhere in the general hemisphere)

After my 3 day odyssey to Kyoto I thought I would retire from my traveling ways and settle down with a small patch of land and a plow and live out my days in peace and tranquility. If Fumiko has anything to do with it though it might not work out that way. Fumiko has what appears to be a decent job as a radiologist. Who knows what it pays but I think gets about 40 vacation days a year. The funny thing about being a Japanese working in Japan is that when you "get" 40 days vacation, you don't actually "get" 40 days vacation. You get approximately four and a half-rounded down. The idea is that you "get" the vacation days, you just can't "take" the vacation days. And the "taking" is really the most important part of the whole thing. I'm sure there's a Seinfeld comedy routine in there somewhere.

Anyways apparently there have been a boatload of new hirings at the hospital meaning that the more senior staff actually get to "take" some vacation days before they all disappear at the end of the hospital year in March some time. This little tidbit led to the following conversation (not verbatim for the sake of grammar and due to my poor memory):

"Ne ne, do you have any more vacation days?"
"Uhh...yes-why?"
"Because I can use my vacation days now-but didn't you use your vacation days for Canada?"
"No I mostly used swaps"
"Swaps??"
"When you work for someone else and then they work for you"
"??"
"Nevermind-where do you want to go?"
"Ano ne, I was thinking...South... South Ah..."
"South America!???"
"YES! I want to go to Cancun"
"Cancun's in Mexico"

At this point I am thinking, I did not come all the way to Japan just to go to Mexico. In fact, I didn't come to Japan to go anywhere! Where's my plow? I must have left it around here somewhere. Anyways, as unlikely as it is unfortunate, this situation is probably not going to go away. Stay tuned for future updates.