Our incredible Japan trip crammed into one blog post

Day 1 that went into Day 2, which totally confused me, so I'll just title this-

Traveling:

We left home early so that we wouldn't have to leave right when the boys were waking up, so we got to the airport quite early, but I know it saved a lot of tears. We had a yummy breakfast and I downed a cup of coffee (Sorry sweet Sadie girl, Mama was tired) while we waited around to board. We only had one layover and that was in Detroit. Was it 4 hours? I don't remember. Then we got on our plane bound for Nagoya, Japan- 12.5 hours and I felt every hour of it. Ha! We watched 3 TV shows, 4 movies, talked, ate 2 meals, a snack (ok, a lot of snacks), and slept- probably, a total of 15 minutes. Tim may have slept more like 30 minutes if it weren't for me needing to go to the bathroom and stretch my 80-year old varicose vein-legs so much.

Here we are flying over Alaska. Snow caps as far as you could see. It was beautiful.

About to land. We're so excited to get off the plane :)

When we arrived at the airport, we were greeted by Mr. Kumagawa (the teacher at Nanzan School who invited us), our translator (who's name has slipped my mind/difficult to pronounce), and Kinue (the lady who truely made this possible by translating Tim's grandfather's story and helping Tim get it in the media). On our way to the hotel, we went over the next day's plans with the teacher and our translator. I felt pretty emotional during this subway ride. I tried to act like my over-emotionalness of tears was just "sleepy eyes." They just couldn't have been more kind and polite. Tim descibes our experience well, in this blog posting, titled "Jet Lag."

We were so exhausted that we thought we'd completely crash out as soon as we got to the hotel, but we ended up being so excited to be there and so happy to see his brother, Steve, that we ended up making it a late night. We had the most incredible view. We were on the 38th floor, overlooking the beautiful city of Nagoya, with the mountains in the distance. We slept every night with the curtains wide open. The view was to pretty to close up. We took a ton of pictures of our view.

Here are some pictures of our hotel:
First thing's first- I NEED one of these. It has every bell and whistle you could ever imagine a toilet having. I absolutely love the heated seat! Pregnant women everywhere wouldn't mind getting up eight times every night if you had this to look foward to-

Here's our soaking tub. I could lay down completely in it. It was huge.

Newspapers!!!

Day 2 in Japan:

Our sleeping was so off while we were there. I woke up the first morning to camera clicks.

And here we are in the cleanest, most snazzy cab I've ever been in. (So is the city itself- everything looked freshly vacuumed). We're off to Nanzan School to meet the boys who invited us and for Tim to speak. Very exciting!

Having lived in DC, where you see a lot of people riding bikes, this struck me as funny- No one locks up there bikes.

Infront of Nanzan School

Media rush after Tim's first speech

The high school boys who invited us (The Cherry Bloosom Group), a man who saw the POWs at the train station after they were liberated, Steve, Tim, Me, & Kinue

Such mature young men. It was a real honor to meet them.

This is our first authentic Japanese meal! Not only was it beautiful, but (most of it) was yummy too! :)

The 4 leaders of the junior high group, and us.

The gifts in our laps were given to us during the last ceremony. The fabric is a gorgeous Kimona and under that is gorgeous, fabric-like wrapping paper. (We'll be framing some of the paper to use as art in Sadie's room).

After the last ceremony, we had tea and dessert with the leaders of the Nanzan School and the 10 boys.

Saying "bye"

Here is Tim on the news that evening!!! It was so crazy!

Day 3:

Steve and Tim at a coffee shop, waiting for Tim's interview with a newspaper.

News crew that followd us to Ishihara Sangyo (the factory Tim's grandfather was forced to work at as a POW)

Again, a bike picture. This one made me laugh though. It was as if a toddler rode here to work. I hope you can see as much humor in this as I still can...

Ishihara Sangyo

The executives of the company branch going over maps with Tim and Steve.

This is a memorial for those who died here during WWII

This is the oldest standing building on the grounds- sure to have been here when Tim's grandfather was there- maybe even worked in by him. Really neat to see this.

A shrine on the grounds.

That afternoon we had a late lunch at the hotel with the mothers of The Cherry Bloosom Group of boys. We had such a nice time visiting with them. We learned a lot about their families, their religions or lack there of, and some of their traditions. They were such sweet ladies. (In the middle is Mr. Kumagawa).

Day 4:

We spent the majority of it site-seeing in Nagoya. We were in their "Chinatown," to put it more descriptively for you. For lunch we found a miracle- Italian! We had real pizza. It was so good.

Here we are infront of a temple-

There were several shrines in this area.

This looked like a bar to me. I'm sure this person didn't appreciate my picture taking during their prayer, but I couldn't pass it up.

I don't understand-

Here are some extra pictures I found on our camera when we got home. They're a little bad, but it helps explain how weird their English translation goes for some things. Some of it totally doesn't make sense or does make sense and is just funny-

After site-seeing, we came back to the room and realized that there was a new development. Read here on Tim's blog for the full summary of this incredible last night in Japan! This was another one of those times where I was just overcome with such emotion.

Day 5:

It was bittersweet to say goodbye to all of our new friends, but we were anxious to get home to our little guys.

Flying over Japan

It's hard for me to sum up the meaning and experience of our trip to Japan. I'm so thankful to have been able to share the experience with Tim and his brother Steve. I think, the conclusion, I've come to is it was just one of those experiences you have so rarely in a lifetime where words just don't do it justice.