Heading home!

As I type we are in the lobby of the Sakura Hostel in Tokyo preparing for our journey home! It has felt as if we have spent far, far longer than 11 days here, and we have many memories and experiences to process...we spent our last full day in Nikko, after a 2 hour train ride outside of Tokyo that brought us to an arboreal realm of giant redwoods and trees decked with cherry blossoms. Here in this serene wilderness on a mountainside lay the tombs of the Tokugawa Shogun and his family, who brought the longest period of stability to Japan in its pre-modern days. We had some time to visit temples, meditate, and contemplate all we have learned and experienced on our journeys. When Tokugawa's monks and laborers came to this mountain in the 1600s, they planted seeds for redwoods that they would never live to see grow...and those seeds, today, had provided the towering forests all around us. So too has this trip planted seeds in all of us, and who knows what they will develop into.

In the evening we took a cab ride all through downtown Tokyo, the neon city of the future, in all of its Friday-rush-hour-traffic-glory. We ate at third-story restaurant with a lovely view of the city streets, and concluded with a poignant and powerful group meeting, with the surprise attendance of the wife of the former US Consult General to Japan.

I want to let you know how very proud I am of your sons and daughters - I challenged them to be ambassadors for their school, state, and country, and they have discharged those duties above and beyond my expectations. They have been mature and brave, fearlessly trying new foods, a new language, and all manner of new experiences in a responsible manner. They have grown a remarkable amount as a result, even in such a short time...and we reminded them that these experiences are a part of them now, that this is a take-away, the most valuable "souvenir" of all -- it will help them in all they do. They have proved to themselves that they can DO this sort of thing, that they can face the unknown and come out stronger for it. That they can weather everything from getting lost on streets whose signs they can't read, presenting themselves before political potentates, making friends even through a language barrier, eating raw squid, and putting out the fires of all kinds of social tension that arise when you pack 22 people together in a small space for a long time. At our final meeting the kids spoke most movingly about the discoveries they made among each other, making friends with kids they might never have hung out with back home, supporting one another through times of crisis, and partying together in a safe and appropriate way.

The Superintendent would like to personally thank all of you for this opportunity to spend time with your children and see the best in them, a gratitude that I and the rest of the chaperones echo. This is hands-down the best trip I have chaperoned, and I have chaperoned some very, very rewarding trips. Think good thoughts as you imagine us winding our way home on the air, and we hope to see you before too long.

It has been an honor.

Sincerely,

- David Nurenberg

(more pictures will be posted soon)