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The penguin story:

When I was about two years old, I ran away from home while we were living in Tokyo. It was raining and my mother and I were at the laundromat next door. I offered to go home to get an umbrella and my mother said, "Sure!"

This led to me deciding not to go home and to walk to my grandparent's house located in another town that was three hours away BY TRAIN.

I still have vivid memories of this experience, one of them was passing a fire station about ten times, thinking to myself, "I was JUST HERE!"

I guess I had been walking around the block.

A few hours later, I met two old ladies who took me to their home to take a nap (I was exhausted). When they asked me my name, I mumbled it so they thought I had said, "Penguin."

"Penguin-chan? What a strange name!"

I didn't bother to correct them. I was returned to my parents EIGHT HOURS after I had run away. The entire police force in Tokyo had been out looking for me. That's how little crime they have in that city. It was probably the most exciting police action all year.

To this day my mother can't look at a penguin without thinking about this incident.