COMING TO ISAS AND EXPERIENCING JAPAN

Suzanne Murray

　Four years ago when Bruce and I, and our then fourteen year old son Jonathan, first arrived it was still June and cool. We were welcomed warmly and made to feel very much at ease. Professors Kawaguchi, Uesugi, Matogawa and Mizutani and their office staffs were wonderful. To counter homesickness I had brought family pictures and some personal items to help make our family apartment at ISAS feel more like home. I still do, along with various household items and foods that are not available around ISAS.

　We already enjoyed Japanese food like sushi when we first arrived. But we couldn't read or speak a word of Japanese, so shopping for food at the local 7-11 and COOP was a great adventure. We made many mistakes, but we learned, and wrote home to tell family and friends about our adventures.. Every day brought new challenges like trying to figure out the apartment air conditioner or stove or washing machine or dryer all with entirely Japanese labels, or opening a bank account, or struggling with trains - which side of the platform and which direction are we really trying to go?

　A special benefit of our repeated visits to ISAS has been the opportunity to travel widely in Japan. ( But be sure to buy a JR rail pass before coming!). Bruce and I especially enjoy the beautiful temples and shrines. We visited Kyoto five times and have taken six day trips to Kamakura during our four summers! I am still amazed by the number of travel connections that are necessary. Earlier this summer Professor Yajima and his charming wife escorted us on a weekend visit to the ISAS balloon launch facility in beautiful Sanriku. We used 11 and three or four taxicabs! There was also another first for me. Bruce and I eat almost all the raw fish and seafood we are served. This time the challenge was raw sea urchin. I was OK ... until it moved!.

　We had been in Japan barely a week on our first summer when we were taken to Nagasaki, in part to see a Mitsubishi space facility there, but also for sightseeing. The atomic bomb memorial was extremely emotional, especially through the eyes of our fourteen year old. But he ended up asking a question for which we have not been able to find a satisfactory answer, "Why don't they discuss the reasons for the war that ended with the atom bomb?"

　Later that summer we spent five days in Ofunato participating in a "Jamboree" of the Young Astronauts of Japan. It was also Tanabata festival time with wonderful fireworks, dances and musket firing from decorated ships. Best of all, we were invited to participate in the festival of a little town nearby. We pulled the ropes of one of the wooden carts in the "battle"! And we were invited for dinner in a traditional Japanese household with some wonderful people from that area.

　During our second summer we visited Kobe University and Professor Tadashi Mukai. He and his wife were warm hosts. But the devastation from the great earthquake there six months before was depressing--empty lots where apartments had stood and large darkened areas of the city at night where electricity hadn't been restored. We also managed to get to beautiful Hakone for a day.

　We love Yokohama. It is much easier to get to and less crowded than Tokyo, and is full of life.

　Through all these opportunities that ISAS has made possible for us as a family we have learned a lot about Japan , its culture and wonderful people. I look forward each year to returning. ISAS and its wonderful people has become my summer home away from home.