Day One: In San Francisco
The day began early, 4:30AM, as I headed to Hartsfield Jackson International Airport for my 7:00AM flight to San Francisco. I arrived in San Francisco just after 9:00AM. Was the flight really only 2 hours long?
After checking in to the Sheraton near the airport, I took a walk around the hotel and snapped the pictures you see in this post: 2 pictures of the hotel and grounds, and a picture of the bay and San Francisco. San Francisco is not very close to the airport. In the distance, to the right, you can barely see the Golden Gate Bridge. From lunch until orientation time I had the opportunity to meet many people from all 50 states.
Our orientation program began at 2:15 with a welcome from Chris Powers, the Deputy Director of the Institute of International Education (IIE) in Washington, DC, followed by opening remarks from Deputy Consul General from the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco, Kazuyoshi Yamaguchi. He was very warm, friendly and humorous.
David Satterwhite, the Executive Director of the Japan-United States Educational Commission (JUSEC) then gave a 29 point overview of the program. After a few other brief meetings, we met together in our city group.
After a few days in Tokyo, I am going to Arao in the Kumamoto prefecture. Our Arao group consists of 20 educators from around the country: a superintendent, a couple of principals, and a number of teachers, including a couple of teachers that work in digital media arts and journalism. The group seems vivacious and very creative.
We had the opportunity to have three former JFMFer participants present to us about their trips. Their presentations were informative and very interesting. I'm excited to have this opportunity and can't wait to land in Japan.
The time change proved a bit difficult as dinner ended around midnight Atlanta time. Tomorrow I board the second flight out to Japan, at about 1:45PM. Flying over I will lose a day and experience a huge time difference!
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