Alternate plans?

Alternate option to consider – instead of taking three days to wander around Tokyo, maybe I can go straight to Gifu and move in early?  That would solve the “ohgodwheredoIputmystuff” problem. 

Hm.

Enter the whirlwind!

Plans are finalized, but somehow this has failed to resolve anything.  I know where I’ll be on each successive travel pivot point, but not where my luggage (read – clean clothes) will be.  This would be less of a problem if the timespan in question wasn’t ten days, with four of those days being training and one being a meeting with my future Board of Education.

  Traveling in Japan with luggage is an unappealing prospect.  Japan agrees with me on this, offering five or six different luggage shipping companies conveniently located right outside of customs.  These companies, for a nominal fee of around ￥5000 ($50), will ship your bulky, heavy, absolutely unmanageable luggage to anywhere in Japan. 

“But I travel light,” you say. 

“I don’t mind dragging around suitcases,” you say.

<—not exaggerated, nor unusual.

You will.

 

My getting-to-Japan schedule currently looks like this:

• 8/18 – Portland to Seattle, leaving at 9:30 am
• 8/18 – Seattle to Dallas, leaving at 12:15
• Overnight in Dallas
• 8/19 - leaving Dallas for Narita at 12:10 (first class!)
• 8/20 - arrive at Narita at 3:05PM (Japan time)
• 8/20-8/22 – Tokyo!  With Lauren and my host family, hopefully.
• 8/23 – off to Gifu, to meet with Gifu’s BOE
• 8/24 – ?
• 8/25-8/28-ish – teacher training in Nagoya with the company
• 8/28(9?)-ish – back to Gifu and the beginning of work!

Looks busy but manageable, right?  Except.

1. I cannot carry my luggage with me throughout Tokyo.  Normally, what would happen is that I would ship it from the airport to my final destination, except:
2. There are ten-ish days between the day I would ship it and the day I would have access to it again.  Normally, I’d stuff a backpack full of easily mixable and matchable clothes, like jeans and tshirts, except:
3. Meeting with Gifu’s BOE and training in Nagoya are business formal and business casual, respectively.  While my suit might survive ten days in a backpack if it was by itself, I’m pretty sure stuffing in jeans too would be a disaster.
4. I am not wearing a suit for ten days.

And I haven’t even thought about lodging for all this. 

In sum,

Help?

Momentous choices

Gifu City or Aisho Town, created by merging two smaller towns?

The difference?

380,000 more people, 22 other new-arriving ALTs, and a rich history and cultural tradition, on the one hand - and $2700 more a year, plus a taste of non-city Japanese life on the other. (I'd add Japanese friends to the list for the latter, but I know the realistic chances of developing close Japanese friends in the - relatively - short time I'm there.)