Narative

Japan, a small Asian island, where I was born. I lived there when I was young, so I don't remember much about it. I lived on an air force base with my father who was in the military. I made two friends, we didn't talk much while I lived there, because we spoke different languages, but after I came home to America after my dad finished his service we became pen pals. Sadako, and Koji Takahashi. They are two years older than me. We then started talking a lot more, first we translated letters from each other to understand, but eventually they starting learning English and it became much easier to communicate. We also began using Facebook to keep in contact. Them and their "Okaa-san" (Mother) would come and visit us here in America every summer. However, do to financial issues they couldn't come anymore.

So in June of 2009 after my last year in middle school my grandmother offered to take me anywhere I want to celebrate. "Anywhere you want to go I'll take you, I'm proud that you did so well in middle school." She told me.

"Hmm... anywhere?" I asked.

"Anywhere you wanna go I'll take you." she replied.

So she said, I don't think she thought I would pick what I did, I think she'd figure I'd say Cedar Point, an amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. Nope, I picked to go to Japan to visit my friends who I hadn't seen in almost two years. After about two hours of her trying to persuade me, she finally gave in and told me she would need a few weeks to make arrangements for the trip.

We traveled from Ohio to California it took around five hours in flight, plus the one hour delay, because a dog got out of it's carrier. Then from California we took an eleven hour flight to Tokyo, Japan. At the airport, my friends along with their mother picked us up. Sadako, Koji, and Sayako-san (their mother) live towards the outskirts of town. I thought that the forms of transportation in Tokyo were amazing, of course it was my first time ever being in a ‘Big City.’ They had cars, taxis, buses, subways, and bullet trains it was exciting. The city was large and beautiful. It was slightly weird though, they drive on the left side of the street where we drive on the right side.

We arrived at the house, it was a nice house large but not too large, a very family oriented looking house. Sadako, and Koji showed us a tour of the house. After we’d seen everything it was almost 8pm in Tokyo, because of the time change my watch was off a few hours. We ate yakisoba, a type of Japanese noodle dish, for dinner. Trying to eat with chopsticks is a lot harder than they made it look, I eventually gave in a used a fork. After we ate, we talked for hours, until we were told to go to bed.

The next day, us three kids took off to view the city.Though I did not have my cell phone, they both had theirs’ so we took off to look at the city. With about 20,000 yen in my pocket (around $200 in American currency) we began our tour. We rode on the subway, got chased by a mean dog who got away from his owner, and looked in some stores at different things we could buy.

We kept walking and talking, as swarms of people wandered the street, like you’d see in a movie. Business men and women, teenagers, couples in love, even a few shady looking people. All different kinds of people walked the street. But before I knew it, I couldn't see Sadako or Koji anymore.

I Stopped in front of a manga store, because Koji likes to read them. So I peaked my head in the door, but I couldn't tell if they were in there. I wandered around the store, afraid yet mesmerized by all of these illustrated books, that were so popular even among adults. I stayed there for about twenty minutes when the manager came over to try and talk to me, of course I couldn't understand a word he was saying. I stood in front of him with a blank look on my face, then shuffled past him and left into the big sea of people again. I was lost and alone, Sadako and Koji told me that they teach English in school, but I couldn't seem to find anyone out here in this world who could speak it. I wandered for well over an hour, then I went back to where I had first lost them. The sea of people had died down, and there they were searching for me. “Are you alright, were you scared?” Sadako asked me as a tear flowed down her cheek.

I replied, “I was scared, but it was also a lot of fun. Thanks guys I really did enjoy myself today.”

And with smiles on our faces we strolled home, as our laughter filled the air.