24 August 2024.
So that finishing the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge would not leave me burnt out,
a friend set this up the moment I got home — and the first celebration was held, on a grand scale.
First, greetings from the volunteers who put it on. I wanted everyone to see the Peking to Paris clothing, so I more or less forced the organisers into it — and then the punchline, that I had left one set behind. And the heckling: it suits them better than it does me.
It sold out within two weeks of being announced, and even after raising the capacity to its maximum, people came from all over the country for a large event across two days.
The toast and the closing words were given by the men who were the first in Japan to take on the Paris–Dakar.
Without their advice and encouragement, drawn from having done it, my Peking to Paris would not have succeeded.Different category or not, the energy of people who have driven across the world filled the room.
The venue, Trattoria La Puglia, is an Italian restaurant belonging to someone my organiser friend knows, and it laid on carefully chosen ingredients and wonderful food.
The energy in the room was more than I expected, with the smiles of people meeting for the first time and friends seeing each other again, and it stayed lively from beginning to end.
While everyone ate and drank, I told the stories from behind those 37 days with some heat — questions from the floor, a conversation, the whole room in it together.
People were kind enough to say they wanted to hear more.
As a surprise present, we unveiled an original ponzu made specially for the celebration by the head of Sanpaha, a famous Japanese restaurant in Wakayama: Ikiteru.
I named it myself, for the sense of being alive after coming through the difficulties of the challenge and the fight with cancer.
What I gained from the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge does not go into one phrase, but above all it is human love that is written into me.
At the celebration we showed photographs and video from the adventure, and I could tell everyone the stories of the human love I met around the world.
And through everyone who cheered me on in Japan, and everyone who came to the celebration, I felt againthat I am kept alive asKomochan, the one who charms people.
My life: born ill, into school through the back door, unfit for society once I was out in it, with no education and no particular ability — and now the first Japanese woman to have driven the world.
Carrying illness, then cancer, a life rather like a large bucket tipped over all at once — and now, held up by a great many people, I am genuinely happy.
The celebration really was a kind of finale in my life, and wonderful hours of slowly taking in what the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge
had taught me.
The next celebration is on 31 August, with friends coming from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south. I will report on that too.
To everyone who celebrated this adventure with us — thank you.