So the journey begins: Iceland

 We chose an over-night flight for the method of transportation to Iceland. As it would save accommodation expense, we will likely travel in future by night trains/ships/planes/buses, and this was our first. The flight is 5 hours long and the time difference is +4hours to Iceland. We will arrive International Airport at 07:00 which will give us a whole day to explore, but as long as we are traveling east-ward we will have to face some harsh jet lag.

We take the shuttle bus from the airport, and arrive Reykjavik 45 minutes later. The first impression of the city as well as the airport is clean, and quiet. Sahe's friend, Oscar, came to pick us up and took us to his home. His family, Anna and 2 year old Andri-Mateo are our first host. Over a breakfast on a balcony, they tell us a about Iceland and things we can do. Temprature is about 5c (40f) and is unusual for this time of season, but the sunlight warms up the air and is very comfortable, unless there is wind. Apparently Iceland is known for its strong and constant wind, and so having a decent jacket even in May is important. Good thing we did not take it for granted.

We rested for a few hours, and went to the art festival in the center of the city. There were many people out in the square, and when the entire population is 300,000 people and most of them living near the capital, it is common to run into people you know. Oscar and Anna must have introduced us to dozen of people, and we even see people we saw at the airport a several hours ago. We took a stroll around the city; cozy and not intimidating like other cities, as there are almost no tall buildings surrounded.

Anna prepared special hamburgers with flavorful spices for dinner, and was delicious. Sahe and I took a walk after the dinner around 23:00 in the neighborhood. While suffering jet lag, seeing the sunset-like view certainly throws your sense of time off. Of course, the sun never really set, and was visible for the rest of the night until around 3 o'clock when it started to get brighter.

What's your favorite colour?

she was an exception

Through the New York's famous Friday evening traffic , we arrived Newark Airport, and are already lost. Our airline, Icelandic Express does not seem to be in the area of where major airline counters are, And realize it is on a different floor. Behind the counter people have the most white skin with most blond hair. Their color scheme in their facial feature are so light, that they share a similar softness as a pencil dessign with thin watercolor paint lightly applied to bring out the subtle rosy cheeks.

Known for their sense of color scheme, I have always admired Northern Europeans' combination and balance in their use of color, as well as their great sense of design. When waiting in line to check in our bags, I started to wonder if they have achieved this visually advanced sense as a result of lacking vivid color and distinct contrast in their feature and in the landscape, and wanted to find the missing piece of non-monochrome life. But again, it may just be the result of time they spend indoors during long winters, thinking about beautiful color for sweaters and roof tops.

Speaking of spending time indoors, I read an article somewhere that Iceland is one of the leading countries in average number of books read per person, and has the highest percentage of people who has published books. I don't know who would have an actual answer for something like this, but I will be sure to ask about it  while we are in town.

Our plane to Reykjavik; rock n' roll!!

Beer: USA

Brooklyn Lager, 5.2%, New York

Dead Poet Epic IPA, 7.5%, New York

Porkslap Farmhouse Ale, N/A, New York

Three Philosophers, 9.8%, New York

 

Coming to America

I Have been behind on updating the blog entries, but I will begin by summarizing our 9-day stay in the States.

11th (Wed.):
The flight arrived JFK on time, 15 minutes before the departure time of the same day, and it is our first time to enter the States together through the American Citizen/Permanent Resident lane. As always, nervousness does not go away until finishing the procedure; possibly due to my previous traumatizing experience. After handing in documents, finger prints, and answers, we are escorted to the room in the back where they run further search on our background. Although this is a common procedure for me, Sahe does not seem at ease. After 15 minutes later, we were out of the room and I have become the permanent resident of the United States... well, with conditions for now.
 

12th(Thur) - 14th(Sat):
We begin preparing for our new life in a new town, and start opening various accounts in between naps and seeing old friends. Sahe has a tendency to break down and catch cold when she returns home, and it was no exception this time. Maybe it is her way of giving her mother a chance to feel motherly again.

15th(Sun) -16th(Mon):
With Sahe's brother who is in town for a few days, we drove down to DC, which for me is the first visit to the capital since in a grade school. Visits to great museums such as the Natural History, the Air and Space, and the National Gallery, ground me back memories of 23 years ago, and was once again mesmerized by their scale of collections and size of exhibition halls. After dinner we took a beautiful and warm 3-mile stroll from the Washington Monument to Lincoln Memorial. Sahe and I also spent the next day sightseeing, and left her brother with a car and took Amtrak back to New York.



 




18th(Wed):
An old friend made his way down from Boston, and we spent a full day walking around the city. It has been a year and a half, so more than 100 blocks of walking was necessary to catch up with each others lives. Whether in Boston, Amsterdam, or Yokohama, we have always exchanged thoughts during our aimless walks. The rain in Central Park added a bit more excitement. We ended up with few more guys and had a few things to drink.

We spent rest of days packing and prepping for the journey, and ended up running around everywhere. It was certainly more relaxing than when we were leaving Japan, but we were not packed until an hour before the departure...

Quality of Service; JPN vs. USA

Our flight out of Japan was arranged through an established travel agency, "H",  but booking one-way tickets were harder than expected. First, none of Japanese airlines allowed one-way tickets nor to purchase round-trip and waste return tix without penalty. There was one American airline, "D" that provided one-way tix and another, "A" who would let us waste the return ticket. Our agent at H had done a great deal of research to find the most inexpensive ticket, and we ended up selecting the airline A due to its cost, not realizing this was a mistake. 

In the morning of the departure, I checked the flight status at home which is something I never do, only to find the status of our flight listed as Cancelled. Not knowing what that meant, I had called the A customer service, but the person answered, "what would you like to do instead?" without giving me options, nor an apology, nor explanation of cancellation. Frustrating. It is frustrating to get such unprofessional response from the second largest airline in the world with over 4,000 flights daily. The option within the same day was a Chicago connecting, so we decided on taking the morning flight on the next day which was a code-share flight with the Japanese airline, "J". We made no further big deal about it, but they made us feel like it was our fault the flight was canceled.

Since we had so many luggage, over-sized, over-weight, and outnumbered, we decided to arrive the airport early for the morning flight. We left before 7:00 with 2 backpacks, 3 suitcases, 1 duffel bag, and 3 hand-carry bags. Total weight was over 120kg (250lbs), and so we were ready to pay a large amount of charges, but J had a team of people working for us to make the charge as minimal as possible, and we ended up paying close to nothing. 

As we went to concourse and grabbed our breakfast hot dog, neatly wrapped in a paper, I thought to myself that these are the quality of service we are going to miss about Japan.

2 and a half more hours, and we are off.

I don't just take apart; sometimes I also abuild

Japanese version written on May 7th


Here was a small 3-day project I had prepared for myself in prior to departing Japan; building a queen-sized bed.

I chose Ash for most of head/food boards and side frames

Varnishing

fitting panels on the headboard

 

An old drill my father had given me. It turns out that it was my grand father's.

completed

Fish in a Pond

Japanese version posted on April 25^th, 2011

We have decided that Dai, our pet goldfish is to be enrolled to an elementary school in Tokyo. When purchased 6 years ago, she was only 6 cm (2 in.), but is now 24 cm (10 in.) and is ready to take over the pond. One problem is that she is not the best swimmer, as she has been kept in a small tank for all her life. Hunting for food is not her strength either, and has no friends. We now regret about spoiling her but it is too late.

The pond is located in a courtyard of an elementary school, and there are large Koi fish and goldfish swimming around. This school may not suit her… What if she is bullied around…

We pushed her out of the plastic bag, and she slowly floats into the pond. Her gold/red body is glowing and is easy to be spotted. She settled herself at the bottom of the pond, but in the next second, she was being chased by other fish, swimming as fast as she could for the first time.

We were later told by one of the faculties that she spends most of the day quietly by the wall of the pond. I guess getting use to a bigger world may not come in a day. 

Dust in the Wind

Japanese version posted on April 24th

I spent a decent amount of the week taking apart furniture. Desk, shelves, bed, all had to be cut into smaller than 50cm (a bit less than 2ft), so it was a demolition bash for the power tools. Snowing saw dust didn’t help Sahe's breathing, who is already suffering from pollen allergy, and so the door to my room had to be shut airtight. at all time When large furniture leaves the sight, it starts to have a feel of moving out. Our lifestyle is adjusted according to what we have left, and sleeping bags become our new futon.

When taken apart, these furniture look so small...

The Demolition Man

Japanese version posted on April 20^th, 2011

Taking apart furniture and appliances became my daily routine.

The courage to face challenges

Japanese version posted on Apr. 18th

“Man cannot discover a new land unless one has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” 

-André Paul Guillaume Gide

When I informed my former boss who now is in charge of the Beijing branch about leaving the work, he sent me the quote above by the Nobel literature award recipient, André Paul Guillaume Gide (1869-1951). Words of the French writer appeared fitting to our situation, and immediately became my favorite quote. Since I enjoyed it so much, I decided to look for similar quotes in other culture, and I came across following:

You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs  

-American proverb

It is very American to state such simple message through simple food. It also is very much macaroni-western to say that tearing down is necessary in order to build something new.

Only those who have the courage to take a penalty miss them  

-Roberto Baggio

The former Italian soccer player who has won both Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year, is often regarded as one of the finest soccer player of all time. After his retirement, he is now known to have devoted himself in various famine awarenesses, including the nominated role of Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. And in 2010, he received the World Peace Award, an annual award bestowed by Nobel Peace Prize laureates. However, the most memorable moment of Baggio for the soccer fan is moment after his missed penalty shot that cost Italian team the world cup of 1994. He still was a hero.

Step 2 (cont'd): Which Way to America?

Japanese version posted on April 15th

22 months after the initial discussion with a lawyer, all procedure has been completed for the permanent resident application. At the end of the interview at the embassy, they handed me a letter stating, “You have completed the interview portion of your application and you visa has been approved”, but this still does not put me at ease, as they still have my passport for the next 1 – 2 weeks. Anyway, following numbers are what it took for us to apply for the “green card”.

2            number of visit to the lawyer’s office

55          emails sent to and received from the lawyer

44          pages of documents prepared for the application

42          corrections on documents we requested to the lawyer

3            corrections the interviewer had pointed out to us

2            number of visit to the embassy

823        total of application fees in US dollars (lawyer fee not included)

7-8         number of questions asked to Sahe during the first interview

7-8         number of questions asked to Yoshi during the final interview

7            days took to receive my passport back from the embasy

2            years I will be considered as a conditional resident

45          minutes took to pass the customs at JFK without a green card

15          minutes likely to take to pass the customs at JFK with a green card

Upon completing the second step, we are finally able to move onto the final stage, which is to enter the US. The limit for the entry is within 6 months of physical examination, which gives us until mid-August. We wanted to make sure that this final procedure is taken care of before taking off for the journey, and so it will likely be after the “golden-week” holidays in mid-May. That gives us about 3 weeks before the departure, and we still have so much to take care of. Packing, applications to remove ourselves from the residency, pension and healthcare, choose the shipping agent, apply for visas for the countries to visit, vaccines...