Japan - Change of Scope

It was getting closer and closer to departure day.

After a couple of semi-traumatic Skype phone calls to Japan - with Shigeru acting as my translator "Mr. Tanaka" - and a letter fired off into the void of the Japanese postal system, I was feeling less and less hopeful about digging up anything meaningful. Instead of resovling anything with my "research," I was even more confused. Was this whole thing pointless? Just some wild goose chase?

We'd at least nailed down the day we were to find all these loosely connected people, with a gruff confirmation from one family, a confusing message left on the answering machine of another, and an almost semi-anonymous letter mailed to a third. I was also armed with their street addresses, which were fearfully cryptic (Japanese addresses are known for being confusing to even natives), and the hope that we'd just be able to somehow ask for directions at the local koban of the tiny towns somewhere outside Sendai.

After staying up all night to print out ticket and hotel confirmations, organize omiyage, pare down the pile of tops and pants going into the duffel, and driving to Evan's house to bring him his keys, the sun began to pinken the sky, as I started re-typing (in Japanese) the family tree org chart Evan had helped me lay-out. It literally dawned on me - this romantic notion of finding the suit of armor wasn't realistic, at least this time around. And that was ok. It was dusty metal, very patiently sitting wherever it was sitting, and probably wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. But the relatives we were trying to connect with might be. Finding and trying to start a dialog with them - that was a big enough challenge, and probably more important, and would be a good start in any case.

At 11:30am, Brian, Evan and I got into Aunty Alice's van and sleepily headed to LAX.