This is shaping up to be the year of international travel for me. At the end of March, I had the opportunity to travel to Jordan. Today in about an hour, I'll be on a plane to Japan-- well at least on route to Japan. Unfortunately, unlike my trip to Jordan in March, my flight is not direct. Rather I will have two connections before I arrive at my final destination of Matsuyama, Japan. I will almost completely skip Monday, due to the time change and transatlantic flight from L.A to Tokyo. It will be mid-day on Tuesday, May 21 in Japan before I arrive to my final destination.
As I consider this trip to Japan in comparison to my trip to Jordan, I am feeling much more relaxed. As I shared with a colleague, I am much more familiar with Japanese culture than I was with Arabic culture when I left for Jordan. I owe this in part to having roomed with a Japanese student during my first year of college and then several summers during college working with exchange students from Japan. Much of the Japanese I know (which isn't a lot), comes from those experiences over 15 (gasp!) years ago! Actually, as I think about it, I'm surprised it has taken me that long to get to Japan. I nearly took a job teaching English in Japan after college, but turned it down. It was the first professional job offer i got after i graduated from college. I still marvel a bit that given the practical person I am, I turned the job down. But at the time I felt that going overseas and adjusting to life after college would be too much. Thankfully God had other wonderful things in store for me in northern Virginia. And little did I know that I would be blessed with another chance to visit Japan after all. I am expecting it to be wonderful! I only regret that my husband won't be able to share in my experiences personally. Hopefully this blog will allow he (and everyone else reading this blog) a little taste of my adventures.
Japan, here I come! Iki ma show! (That's my poor spelling of the Japanese phrase, "Let's go!)
No comments:
Post a Comment