Going to London!

I'm going to London for my cousin Wanyu's wedding. She and her sister have been living in London off and on for the past few years, and both want to make it their home.

I haven't mentioned them much to my friends because these cousins were born and raised in Taiwan, so I was never close with them.

I'd see them for a day or two whenever I visited Taiwan, but that was six times in my entire life. I got to see them this past May, when I went to see my grandma, who was really sick. My grandma got better, and I got to see my cousins, some of whom I hadn't seen in 15 years.

I'm honored that WanYu even invited me to her wedding because we were never close, and maybe she did so only because of family obligation. But we've been messaging each other on Facebook a few times a week to plan to accommodations and other details of my stay in London. She's so helpful and patient. I think I'd be really annoyed if someone had a million questions when it was so near my wedding; I'd be super stressed out.

I'm grateful for this opportunity to become close to her. I hope our friendship grows even more, and that I'll be able to do the same with her sister, brother, and my other cousins.

I'd always envied those people who had big family reunions and got to see each other at least once or twice a year, for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I'd had a big family in the form of the SGI members in NYC, but since I've been moving around so much these past few years and some of my closest SGI friends had moved back to their native countries.

Or things had changed between my NY-SGI friends and me because I had been away for so long, and was no longer in that routine of going to activities with them, eating with them afterward, and hanging out together.

I don't usually handle change well, especially when it comes to my relationships. But I guess that's life.

I'm very appreciative of the fact that I could see my cousin Shirley and our very good friend Amy when I was in NY, even if it required me to drive two hours to NJ or Philly to do so. I kind of got used to the drive.

Anyway, I'm excited about going to London. I'd never been there before, and this will be the first time I'm seeing my relatives outside of Taiwan and the US.

I was a little worried about the flight, though, since he only ones that the travel agency and I could find were either a direct flight with Virgin Atlantic for ¥195,000 (just take off the last two zeros for USD equivalent), or the cheapest indirect flight for ¥30,000 less with Singapore Air, but which would more than double the travel time, from 12 to 26 hours *each way.* (There were some other flights, but the prices and times weren't much better).

I'd seriously considered the latter, because Koko said that when he'd had a long layover at Singapore airport a few years ago, they had all these free amenities like video games, massage chairs, etc. They even have a special bus tour for transit passengers (is that the right word?), where they drive you around the city but don't let you off because you don't have a visa. I hope they have bathrooms on those buses.

But then I remembered having to sit on a 12-hour flight for a week-long trip (NY-Hawaii in 2005), and it was really torture.

I decided I was going to bite the bullet and take the Virgin Atlantic flight, but when I called to the travel agency today, they said that flight was gone. I was kind of pissed because they told me I could wait until two days before departure to book it.

I went to the travel agency's office later and got a better option: an indirect flight with Air France with a 45-min layover going and 50-min returning for almost ¥20,000 less than Virgin's direct flight. And it's only ¥16,000 more than the Singapore Air flight with the 6- and 2-hr layovers. The flight times are better too. I'd avoid rush hour when I arrive and leave London. I'd probably be squished on the trains when I arrive back in Tokyo, though, because my flight arrives around 9 am. But that's ok. At least I'm not hurrying to catch a flight at that point.

Whew! What a load off my back. There was a Travelex near the travel agency so I even exchanged some yen for pounds. I hope I have enough.

Sigh. I feel exhausted already, and my workday hasn't even begun yet. I'm starting work in a little less than 20 minutes, so I hope this local train gets me there on time. I'm starting to work at the Fujimino school on Fridays, taking over the classes of a teacher who left recently.

I hope I can teach at schools closer to me. I want to get home early enough to make and eat dinner, instead of skipping it altogether, as I have been doing for most of the past four months that I've been working. But I've been trying to eat dinner more regularly, and packing fruit in my lunch bag to munch on a few hours after lunch. I feel a lot better mentally and physically after that. I wish there were more fruit smoothie places; I'm sick of eating bananas and don't have time to blend this and that every morning. I need to find a better way.

Well, I guess these are things I can chant about--especially about being assigned to closer schools. I'm so envious of my colleague, Cynthia. She lives within walking distance from a school where she teaches twice a week, and she only spends ¥3,000/month on transportation. Remember that in Japan, the amount of money you spend is a factor of distance (generally), so the father it is, the more money you'll spend. I usually spend ¥23,000/month on the train.

Anyway...London!