One Week Out

Tonight I finished making arrangements for the trip.  It's been a long time coming!  Next week I'll finally be taking my daughter to Japan to show her where I grew up.  It's something I've been hoping to do for many years now.

I lived on the Island of Hokkaido, mostly in the city of Sapporo, from the time I was a baby until I was fourteen.  I spent 10th through 12th grades at a high school in Tokyo on the main island of Honshu.

I haven't been back to Japan in 23 years, and haven't been back to Hokkaido in 33 years.  I never dreamed I'd stay away so long.  And having been so estranged, as it were, I've had some trepidation about this trip with regard to my language abilities, how I would find my way around with so much having changed, whether it would be enjoyable or just painful to try to revisit...  But as I've done the planning, I've noticed myself having little conversations in my head in Japanese, suddenly accessing vocabulary I hadn't thought of in decades.  And in my dreams I see, hear and smell Hokkaido.  So I'm relaxing, feeling invited into the adventure.
My daughter, Julia, is 12 and we'll be celebrating her 13th birthday while we're in Japan.  She's been taking Japanese for a year at her middle school.  She can read hiragana and can carry on a simple conversation.  She can't wait for school to be out and to get on that plane!