Skimashta! (We have arrived!)

We bring you greetings form the land of the rising sun -- and yes, the sun rose indeed this morning, bright and cheerful at 4:30 AM! The students held up beyond admirably through a particularly grueling journey. After we left you at CCHS at 6:00 AM we drove first to Logan Airport where we ticketed, went through security, and took a small commuter plane to a rather bumpy landing at JFK, delayed slightly due to a mysterious "ground hold", the reason for which we were never given (the leading theory among the kids was a ninja infestation).

Our JFK layover allowed time for a quick breakfast and then we were off again, on a 14-hour long haul to Tokyo. Students played cards and video games, watched movies and read, and showed remarkable energy even as the hours rolled by and took their toll. By the time we landed in Tokyo, spirits were high, even as eyelids drooped low. However, here, as I warned the students, was where the REAL work began. We had to clear customs and immigration, get our bags, get halfway across the city, reticket and go through security, and get on our next flight, all (thanks to our unforeseen delay at JFK) within 2 hours and 45 minutes. It was a challenge worthy of a samurai.

Jetlagged as we were, we got through immigration and customs after just a few holdups (including the near loss and then miraculous last-minute recovery of the suitcase with all of the gifts for dignitaries in it!) Then we had to catch a cross-city bus that took us from Narita, Tokyo's suburban international airport, to Haneda, an hour away in the heart of the city proper. The kids got their first real look at Japan out the bus windows, on the "British" side of the road no less. From Pachinko parlors to a quick glimpse of Tokyo Disney, it was a rather brief vision...and yet seeing all the road signs in Japanese was a definite cue that we were not in Massachusetts anymore.

Upon our arrival at Haneda, we hit a bump - the ticket counter had a computer error processing the school nurse's ticket. We nervously checked our watches as we got passed from supervisor to supervisor, and managed to get it sorted out JUST in time to reach the gate as boarding began. Alas, we had lost our planned supper time! But we made it aboard, every one of us, and arrived thoroughly fatigued, dehydrated and hungry at Sapporo New Chitose airport...almost 27 hours after we left CCHS! Exhausted as we were, we put on our best face as the Director of the Massachusetts-Hokkaido Society himself, Masafumi Nakagaki, came out to greet us. The students responded with a hearty and pre-rehearsed "Hajememashte!" ("nice to meet you") and then we were off for one more bus ride, an hour to the youth hostel.

One of the few students still awake at this point told me that she didn't really "feel" as if she were in Japan yet - that aside from the street signs, it felt kind of like America. I told her to look a little more carefully...the sidewalks, for example, all had a raised yellow platform, so that blind people could better negotiate them. Every trash can had accompanying bins to separate two kinds of recyclable bottles, paper, combustibles, and non-combustibles. The Japanese passengers on our buses were almost silent during the ride. These were all subtle clues to a society with slightly different values, priorities, and behaviors.

And we could always take for example Mr. Nakagaki. His daughter was getting married in Hawaii, an occasion for which he was leaving tomorrow morning. Yet he came out tonight to meet us personally. Then, when he discovered he had forgotten to give us some promotional guidebooks he was carrying, he came BACK an hour later to the youth hostel to deliver them to us personally.

What everyone noticed immediately, however, was the quality of the Japanese ramen noodle soup! A few of us did a late-night dinner run to bring back steaming hot bowls of famous Sapporo Ramen, thick greasy soups full of fish, pork, chicken, and Chinese-style noodles. After much grateful slurping, the students reached a consensus that even "authentic" Japanese food in the States couldn't compare.

We are just about to wake up the kids for our first full day in Japan, complete with a tour of downtown Sapporo, a meeting with the Hokkaido state government, and, best of all, meeting the host families tonight. Onward we go!

Arrigato gozaimas,

David Nurenberg