Visiting old members of the YSD exchange

Today started out late again. I’ve been staying up late recently, I guess trying to get my sleeping habits off to match the U.S. but that’s not really working. I got up early enough to take care of my laundry today. I thought that was a great thing. That really needed to be taken care of. I was starting to run out of clean clothes. But I took care of that and didn’t realize I had estimated my time wrong to leave my house to get to Ishikawa cho station. I ended up leaving around 45 minutes late. But that didn’t matter since the person I was meeting was also late. I arrived to the station before she did and was looking for a bank to get some cash out of my account. I couldn’t find one near the station.

So me and KHma, decided to go to find the nearest Tokyo-Mitsubishi bank. The nearest one was about 2 kilometers away. Not that near, but we still walked there. We strolled down the street of Motomachi and walked on the cross bridge to Yamashita Park. It was through a way that I’ve never been on before. I found the Yokohama Doll Museum, which is right next door to the immigration office. We trekked through the park, and went past the Jonathon’s restaurant and then past a few more blocks to finally get to the bank. It didn’t feel like it was that long of a walk, but I really think that it was a distance to go. I got the money for my trip back to San Diego, so that was set. Then we just started walking back to Ishikawa cho station. But KHma wanted to get some coffee, so we did that. I got a nice cold drink since it was a nice warm day.

When we walked out of the café where the old YOKE office was, clouds came out of no where. And they weren’t the nice pretty ones either. It wasn’t too much time later that it started to sprinkle a little. We were in the middle of Yamashita Park when we decided to go somewhere and find shelter from the weird ass weather. Again, the temperature changed on me with a swiftness of that like a ninja. The temperature had dropped about 10 degrees Celsius. I was wearing a short sleeve shirt today, which was the first time I’ve done so since last summer. Imagine the look on everyone’s face, when they were all dressed up in winter wear. But in the morning, it was freaking hot, so hot in fact that I was sweating just sitting here. Anyways, we decided that we would go walk to Landmark Tower and wait there for the rest of the group to catch up with us later. We had walked back and forth many times today, which seemed like a waste of time, but it was fun talking. I think my Japanese isn’t good if I didn’t get enough sleep.

It was nice and warm in the Landmark Tower. That was a great thing that I believe. We just hung out in there for a little while and under the amusement of the new Pokemon Center that just opened there. We didn’t go in, but was amused with the long ass lines to go in. I mean this thing opened two weeks ago and there’s still a few hours wait to go inside. Talk about making bank. We found some seats on the bottom floor, but still had some time, so I mentioned that I wanted to pick up something at the YOKE office, not realizing what I had just done. We walked to the YOKE office so I could do that.

It took about 1.5 hours to get it. It wasn’t that it took a long time to prepare, but just that I was getting more and more things to do. I had been delegated to bring back gifts from the YOKE to give to the society members back in San Diego. I mean I had to carry many things and now must change my schedule to be able to fit all of it in my schedule. I didn’t realize that I would be asked to do so much. I only asked if there was anything I could do to help. But it was a very informative meeting with Miss Mu..i. I realized a lot of things and something that I need to do to help remedy things. I had gained a new perspective of things and I need to work on a way to help prevent things from happening. It was about the program and the purpose. The procedure for doing things had always been skipped and certain people weren’t involved with the decision making that should have been. So I need to be able to send the clear message to those who need to hear it. I would like to meet more people in order to get the clear message myself and then be the bridge between the older and younger generations of the organization. I actually see the purpose behind things and how exactly I am able to help too. It was an epiphany that I suddenly realized and have the idea of how to implement it as well.

It struck a cord with me and now I realize that I might have been part of the problem as well. I mean everything that was done by everyone was all in good spirit and the point of it was to bring the life and energy of young people and to corral them into bringing new blood to further the organization. Of course, being in its first year, there are bound to be some communication mix-ups as well as many innocent mistakes. We call this process “growing pains.” They are a nuisance, but are incredibly necessary to the learning and growth process. I am in a position where I can make a difference in the words that I speak as well as being able to give my interpretation of the process to those who need to hear it. All of this was dawning on me at this particular moment.

Afterwards, after receiving many gifts from the office to deliver back to San Diego, we all went to dinner together. We headed to the Landmark Tower and found a nice Italian restaurant on the B2 floor. It was actually pretty good and a decent meal. It was nice to finally see everyone again. I haven’t seen some of the people for years, so it was great to finally hang out. But it had a different feeling too. I mean, I really started to understand the situation that I was in and learned more about the people I was with. There was another American there; actually he didn’t grow up too far away from me in San Diego. I just realized today that he was American. I had always thought he was a Native Japanese, since his Japanese speaking and listening level are incredible. He found his way here through the JET program and it turned out to be something great for him. I realized that he is the second foreign friend that I have in Japan. Everyone else that I know and hang out with is a person who is from Japan.

I caught onto the characteristics of the people around me. It was a change in my paradigm because I had never seen these people in that light before. Only seeing them individually had really changed the way that I saw them when they were hanging out in a group. Some of those that are really talkative when they are just with me alone, tended to be a little quieter. But those who aren’t very talkative being alone with me were speaking up more. The focus and the attention of the people speaking during dinner really focused into two groups, the guys and the girls. But it was interesting when the conversations merged. It was extremely interesting for me to see it. Usually I’m either speaking or listening, but today I was more passive and just watching as others were speaking. I was able to get a better perspective on things, which was very educational for me. We left kinda late after everything was closed. Everyone went their separate ways and during the ride home I was thinking a lot. It had gotten incredibly cold again. Something that I didn’t appreciate either since I had to carry a lot of crap with me.