夏のかけら

Even disembarking on the plane I hardly felt like this was a real experience-I kept believing I would wake up, ready to go back to school the next day, no promise of a summer trip to Japan waiting on the horizon. But it is real. As ethereal as it felt on the 10 hour flight, it couldn't compare to coming into Tokyo on the Narita express line, ferrying us from the Narita airport into the mean streets of Tokyo.

My name is Hadrian, and this is just a brief glimpse of what the first day of George Washington High School's 2011 Japan trip has been like.

Everything we've encountered so far seems geared towards convenience. The flight itself didn't feel like a 10 hour flight. It couldn't have been. I was too comfortable, I had too much leg room. But the simple fact that I managed to watch three in-flight movies and still catch a quick nap reminded me just how long I had been flying. The train itself was shocking in its efficiency. When the train stopped briefly before we got on, a team of attendants rushed through the car cleaning, straightening, and perfecting the car for the next lap on its tracks. The seats themselves could rotate so that we could face each other, or ride against the inertia of the train [if we felt so inclined].

The train ride itself was beautiful, reminding me of old New York of the industrial age. On the far outskirts of the city, people lived in rural and semi-suburban homes and could easily get to their urban hub by convenient public rail lines. Tokyo has kept this old pattern of urban and rural transit, making for beautiful scenery juxtaposed against stunning modern cityscape. America could learn a bit from Japan in this regard, but unfortunately we have carved up our countryside in favor of inter-state highways. Just the first of many differences I look forward to seeing in this Japanese trip and exploration.