...and here I am.

For the last month it seems that I have been in a fog of sorts. I have had a swell time of seeing friends and family prior to departure, but my knack for last minute preparation left me in a jumbled state. Where I would have loved to walk slow and take in every last bit of home, I instead found myself rushing to satisfy the needs of scrap paper lists.

To the thousand questions of “was I excited?”

I said, “Yes.”

I said this, knowing it to be the answer wanted of such a rhetorical question. In all actuality I was at a distance of any great emotion. Pulled too far in any direction to feel anything of merit. I say all of this, not to paint me a cold person, but to lay the scene of confusion that has escorted me here.


…and here I am. Three nights in Tokyo. From the Tokyo Tower, the city reaches the horizon in every direction. I have never seen a spread as that one. A week now in Shizuoka. My eyes are beginning to focus. Shizuoka is a squat city of ¾ million people. Buildings give up at about twenty stories, but the pavement reaches for the hills, and then some. As I hear it, Shizuoka is Japan’s second largest city in occupation of space.

It took about 1.5 hours upon the medium paced bullet train to arrive from Tokyo, keeping the metropolis within reach of weekend excursions. On the north end of my prefecture resides the local giant, Mount Fuji. As the air cools, I can expect to trade glances with the slope on a daily basis. For now, I can just trust Google Earth that it is in fact there. The city is coastal, but I will have to trek to find sand. Easier it will be to find ships and docks that make up the respectably sized port.

In the process of application, I gave no request for city, region, or even an urban/rural preference. I arrived having packed no expectations, and I could not imagine a better placement.


Please check back here, to see what I am up to…