Old Friends

Not all of my time has been as boring as I described in my last post, the best thing has been seeing old friends.

When I first got to Japan I stayed in Tokyo for 3 days with 1200 other new JETs from the US, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Ireland, Jamaica, Australia and the UK. We had 2 long full days of orientation that will hopefully prove useful for teaching and living in Japan. I skipped out on the evening events to meet up with friends.

On the first evening I met 5 people I've known since 1996 when they came to Eugene for a short homestay. That was the last year of a program in which the City of Kiyose in Tokyo Prefecture sent about 14 middle school students to Oregon for English study and cultural exchange. My family hosted all five years that the program was in existence and I have stayed in contact with several of the students. We found a macrobiotic restaurant near my hotel, which is vegan except for clearly labeled fish dishes. They even have vegan desserts! We reminisced about the times that we have seen each other over the years and how long we've know each other and talked about how old we are getting. As always it was fun to see them, and natural, like we hang out all the time.

The next night I met 5 other friends. They are from Ishigaki Island in Okinawa Prefecture but now live in or near Tokyo for various reasons. My high school and their high school have an exchange program in which every year a group of students from each goes to the other for 3 or 4 weeks and stays with host families. My family hosted students from Ishigaki for two years and my first trip to Japan was with that program in 1998. I couldn't resist going to that delicious macrobiotic restaurant again, not to mention I already knew it was safe. We updated each other on mutual friends and my host brother offered to have his mom send me pineapple from Ishigaki. For those of you who have not heard me mention this pineapple, let me just tell you that it is the best pineapple anywhere. It is so sweet! So that got me excited.

Although I studied in Kyoto for a semester, I don’t really have any friends here, but another friend from Ishigaki lives in Osaka, which is about an hour away on the train. He is very busy with work, but I've been able to see him twice. It’s so nice to see an old friend in the midst of this new life.