GOODBYE USA, KONNICHIWA (HELLO) JAPAN

Goodbye USA, Konnichiwa (Hello) JAPAN

The fifteen hour flight from D.C. to Tokyo’s Narita Airport was without incident, but it was long and tiring.  While it took a little over 15 hours Tokyo is 12 or 13 hours ahead of us, so I arrived the next day after I had left.  You lose a day going there, but coming back you arrive the same day you left. Yes, it is confusing.  First class had been very nice, but solid ground was going to be a lot better.  The next thing I knew I was in the Keio Plaza Hotel in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world.

There were so many new arrivals for the JET Program we were spread out over 3 hotels, all first class.  I was lucky and probably due to my more respected older age, assigned to the hotel where all the meetings would be held.  The arrival at the hotel was after 9:00 p.m. and since I had been nervous about the flight, I hadn’t eaten much.  My inner clock told me it was time for breakfast.  I went to the restaurant and when I saw the prices ordered a cup of clear broth, for about $7.00.   That scared me, but I knew the meals would be provided for 3 days while we attended orientation.

My age was going to be apparent but I figured I knew lots of college age students and I would get along with everyone.  Also, I didn’t expect to run around announcing that I was probably old enough to be a mother to most of them.  At the first meeting in the morning, I met Mr. Tanaka, who was responsible for my region, Kagoshima Ken, (province).  He kindly and rather loudly announced that I was even older than he was.  And he could speak English.  Well, it was good to get that over with. 

The meetings were informative but a little long.  I noticed the meeting room was expensively and tastefully decorated, and it even had crystal chandeliers. If you check the website you will see an amazing lobby with huge chandeliers in the slide show of photos at the top. http://www.keioplaza.com/  Food was served American-style buffet so nothing was too surprising so far.

My first acquaintance was a pretty young lady from San Francisco and we agreed our first chance we would get out of the hotel and explore whatever was nearby.  I had a break between meetings and went immediately to find the Sky Pool.  http://www.keioplaza.com/facilities/index.html  It was on the 7^rd floor, and I jumped in and enjoyed it all by myself.  That little voice about the country girl always comes back to me.  I was totally amazed to find myself swimming in the Sky Pool at the Keio Plaza.

The Keio Plaza Hotel Sky Pool, Tokyo

After the next meeting Maria and I headed out to the streets, which were very busy.  We were not going to try and conquer the subway system, just walk to a very famous shrine, Meiji Jingu, nearby.  We pulled out our very new maps and tried to orient ourselves.  Before we could attempt to get them right side up, at least 3 people had descended upon us, all ready to help us find our way, but not speaking English.  Eventually we had a total of 5 or 6 helpers, all chiming in. We could all point, to the map, to the corner and get the general idea of what they were trying to tell us.  Our first encounter as gaijin (foreigners) was VERY successful.  And we all parted ways happy with each other.  For very pretty photos check here:   https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEVxL_EVhTyAQAaWdXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0Yjkwb3VoBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDM

 

                                                     Meiji Jingu (Shrine)
 

The shrine was beautiful and serene.  I watched some others go up and offer some claps and prayers.  I took a turn and copied them, asking my God to protect my family at home and offered thanks for taking good care of me.  It would be one of hundreds or more shrines I stood in front of, learned to do two claps to let Him know I was there, and with head bowed and hands together in prayer, would repeat the same petitions and thankfulness.  My message was left all over Japan in this way, and I sometimes stopped to think I was praying to a different God than the shrine represented, but He was getting my message.   Do we all pray to the same God in different ways and give Him a different name?  I believe so, because I met some of the best people on this journey and I have to believe they will go to heaven.

We went back to the hotel after checking out the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building that had been built in 1991.  It was the building that I could see from my room.  In the plaza out in front of this building were large sculptures, very impressive.  We returned to a dress up affair for a formal welcome reception and then went to bed.  The next day we had breakfast and lunch with more meetings and were free to explore for the evening.  I followed along with the others and went to a real must see, Tokyo’s Hard Rock Café and a couple of other places.  I was feeling like 30 again. 

It had been a great couple of first days but the reality of the contract was going to hit the next day.  We all left the hotels on shuttles and found our way to various gates to head to our local airports.  I had bought a Fodor’s “JAPAN” which I expected would come in handy throughout my stay, (and it did), but mainly I bought it to find out about Kagoshima. 

It was listed in my contract but I had never heard of it.  Well, Fodor’s had a big surprise for me.  Tokyo, of course, had about 50 pages or more.  Kagoshima, which was a province as well as the city there, had one page.  My hometown of Kaseda wasn’t even listed.  But it did tell me that Kagoshima was 900 miles from Tokyo.  I thought of Japan as a small country and was very surprised that I would be so far away.  I would find out later it wasn’t just in distance.