![\"Reona\"](\"http:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/reona.jpg\")
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Well, the title should explain most of it.\u00a0 In 2007, in July, Reona Kobayashi came to Alaska, and hitchhiked out into the Matanuska Valley by way of the Old Glenn.\u00a0 Someone recommended that he camp at Jim Creek.\u00a0 So he did.\u00a0 He set up camp, walked away for a few minutes, and returned to find everything gone.\u00a0 He reported it to the State Troopers, one of which was kind enough to let Reona stay with him.\u00a0 He contacted his parents back in Tokyo, who sent him more money.\u00a0 He bought new equipment.\u00a0 A few days later, he was walking down the road when approached by a man in a truck.\u00a0 The man said he had found the person who stole his camping equipment.\u00a0 Reona trusted him and went off into the woods on a four wheeler to find the equipment.\u00a0 He was then hit in the back of the head with a log and his money stolen.\u00a0 By the same guy who robbed him in the first place.<\/p>\n
Talk about shitty luck.<\/p>\n
But what experiences would he have missed out on without this violent and meaningless initiation into the lawless Alaskan Frontier?\u00a0 Apparently, a lot, because I hung out with him last weekend, and he’s the funniest, coolest guy, with the most positive and happy attitude toward his experience in Alaska.<\/p>\n
Natsuko, another friend who I met through a spiderweb of connections and coincidences, traveled in Alaska last August.\u00a0 She met Reona and another Japanese man, Senbongi (lit. one thousand trees, and he’s a forestry major) in Denali National Park.\u00a0 While she visited me here in Saroma two weeks ago, she showed me these pictures, and as she described how this guy she met had been robbed, I began to remember a story that my friend Sabrena Jackson had told that summer, and found incredibly funny, about some poor Japanese sucker who got bad advice and met bad people.\u00a0 I couldn’t believe it.\u00a0 “Oh yeah, he goes to college near Sapporo.\u00a0 I was gonna meet him next weekend.”\u00a0 I really couldn’t believe it!\u00a0 So, on Saturday night, we met him in Sapporo and had a nice night out.<\/p>\n
He is a student in veterinary medicine.\u00a0 His English is good.\u00a0 And he loves Alaska.\u00a0 He was a real traveler, who did some really cool things.\u00a0 He went out to Beaver, Alaska, to help with the celebration of Frank Yasuda’s life there, a Japanese who basically started that town.\u00a0 He walked and biked around most of Southcentral and Interior Alaska, while wearing only one pair of (according to Natsuko) very very dirty jeans.\u00a0 Now he works part time at a bread factory, goes to school, and lives in an incredibly cheap apartment that has no hot water.<\/p>\n
![\"Reona](\"http:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/reona2.jpg\")
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