The Arrival

I made it.  Well, almost.  Right now I’m looking out the window of my sixth floor room of the Narita Crowne Plaza Hotel.  After breakfast we still have a three and a half hour drive to get to Tamura, but that’s not so bad.  Sunday morning I woke up around 7am EST, hastily shoveled some oatmeal down the gullet, and was driven to Cleveland Hopkins International by dad and sister.  There we met Adam and Hannah Hange, coordinators for the US side of operations for the program, at the Delta ticket desk.  After checking my luggage it was time for my final goodbye before heading through security.  But not so fast – I quickly realized I had left my phone in my pocket.  It’s not going to do me much good overseas, so I gave dad one last call; he came back and I got one more chance at goodbye, but then we were off and through security without a problem.  

I don’t understand why they tell you to get to the airport so early.  Three hours for international flights, is what they tell you.  So we were there three hours early, and we spent two hours sitting around waiting at the gate.  At least we didn’t have to worry about missing our flight.  The jump from Cleveland to Detroit went smoothly.  I sat next to a friendly veteran who spent four months in Japan back in the 70’s and was jealous of the adventure I was just beginning.  At Detroit we had a couple more hours before the next leg of the journey commenced so we took our time finding some lunch.  Adam and Hannah asked me what I wanted my last meal in the US and all I could think of was a burrito.  I don’t know why I thought Mexican would be a good idea before getting on a 747 for 13 hours, but we went anyway.  The burrito was really good, though, and I didn’t suffer too many adverse effects on the subsequent flight.  

Waiting to board the 747 in Detroit

Before boarding the flight I started to get excited about my journey.  Up till this point there had been a lot of nervousness – I was so focused on saying goodbye it was hard for me to look ahead and get excited about where I was going.  But being in front of the gate, seeing a crowd of Japanese all eager to get home, it gave me an image of something to look forward to, what I’m going to be seeing and living with for the next couple of years.  There was a large group of Japanese students returning from a rowing competition, if I read their matching t-shirts correctly, about the same age as the students I’ll be working with.  I think the hardest thing about this trip has been the sense of stepping out into the foreign, the unknown, but by shedding some light on what things will look like I’m able to get excited about what is coming. 

Our 3:30 flight began boarding around 2:45.  It takes some time to get 400 people situated on an airplane.  But then they realized that one of the light bulbs on the plane’s exterior was burnt out, so we all had to sit and wait while they replaced it.  How many flight mechanics does it take to change a light bulb?  I don’t know, but we obviously didn’t have enough of them – the repair took almost an hour.  I just felt bad for all the folks who missed their connecting flights in Tokyo just because of a light bulb. 

After the light bulb was fixed we were underway.  Two rows behind us was an American mom and her three small children.  You can imagine how that went.  I let you know it was an American family, because there were other children on the plane as well, but they weren’t nearly as loud and rowdy.  Other than that, there wasn’t much special about the flight.  We were flying west, so the sun was up the whole time, only just starting to set when we landed just after 6pm in Tokyo. 

Driving from Tokyo to Tamura, feeling "Happy Refresh!" with a Calpus I got at a rest stop.

Upon arrival we were met with a couple of small surprises.  First was immigration.  Adam and Hannah went through first just fine, but when I went through they pulled me aside into a small room with benches, took my documents, and told me to wait.  It wasn’t a big deal; they were simply making my gaijin (foreigner) identification card, something I was planning on doing later this week in Tamura.  After the machine spit out the card, they let me go through to baggage claim and customs.  I found Adam there pretty quickly, but Hannah was nowhere around.  I guess they got a little worried when they saw me pulled aside at immigration, and Hannah had gone looking for me.  She came back soon enough, so we got our bags through customs and met Okubo-sensei outside.  Normally they drive straight back to Tamura after picking up teachers at the airport, but since it was so late they decided to put us up in a hotel at the airport.  We got situated in our rooms in the hotel and freshened up before going down to dinner.  A quick word about the room, though.  The toilet was one of the most advanced pieces of technology I’ve ever sat on before.  It took a little guesswork and experimentation to figure out how it worked.  After a quick shower we met downstairs at the hotel restaurant for dinner.  I could get used to the food over here: Shrimp tempura with udon.  Oishi!  Sleep was next on the schedule (I think I almost nodded off once or twice during dinner).  I roomed with Okubo-sensei, and he showed me the complimentary Japanese pajamas provided in the room, so I had to try them out.  They worked great.  I only woke up once during the night wide awake, but luckily I had trusty David Copperfield next to my bed, and I was snoozing again in no time.  Now it’s 7:25 and almost time to rendezvous for breakfast before making the final leg of my journey and arrive at my new home.