Departure was at 12:30 pm on April 13th. Many hours and time zones later I found myself in Okayama.
I am almost twenty-four hours into this trip, and in some ways I don’t quite feel like I’m really here. I think it was Gibson who described jet lag in “Pattern Recognition” as a sense of having your soul attached to you on a tether that drifts lazily behind you as you cross time zones and can only be reeled in at a fixed rate. So while there’s no doubt I’m in Japan, my mind hasn’t quite gotten around that fact yet. Maybe that’s attributable to the fact that it took so long to get here. Sometimes it seemed like I would never go to Japan, so now that I’m here it’s a bit surreal.
The flight here was long—-much too long to be on a plane, but that’s one of the costs of admission. It went well until I had to retrieve my bags at Okayama International Airport. One of my bags didn’t show up, but the airport staff were very helpful (and patient with my limited Japanese) and were able to find out that the missing bag didn’t make the hop from Korea to Japan. Hopefully when David Sedlacek takes me back to the airport tonight it will have been delivered.
For the time being I am rooming with Jeremy Otten in a small (very small) apartment close to the Sedlacek’s home in Tsushima-minami. Jeremy is scheduled to leave on the 29th of April, so until then it will be somewhat cramped, but I think we can manage.
Despite my best attempts to stay awake as late as possible Friday so I could sleep as long as possible into the morning, my body refused to allow any sleep beyond 3:45. I left the apartment before sunrise and went for a long walk down to the castle and back—-over an hour each way. Saturday began (and stayed) overcast, with a lazy, indecisive rain keeping the pavement wet. The schedule for the day has been packed, with all sorts of things to do. I actually completely forgot about lunch in the middle of everything.
Easter tomorrow should be very interesting, with an outdoor worship service, baptism, picnic, and egg hunt. Please pray for good weather for the events. Most of the next week for me will be filled with observing classes and getting used to my schedule so I can transition into super-sensei mode the following week.