Getting to Japan

After over a year of speculating, planning, and paperwork, culminating in a long-ass flight (all in the face of COVID, no less) we finally arrived in Japan! What started with an email from Courtney to a researcher at OIST* in November 2019 got us to where we are today - looking out of our apartment window at the brilliant blue waters of the East China Sea. 

Fortunately for us, the scientist Courtney emailed, Dr. Filip Husnik, was interested in her Ph.D. research and supported her application for a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship from JSPS**. After months of writing and re-drafting her proposal, she submitted it in late March 2020. Upon review, Dr. Husnik said that whether or not Courtney got the fellowship, he wanted her to come to Okinawa to work in his lab. Just like that, we were in! After being in limbo for five months, it was such a relief to know that Courtney’s hard work and perseverance were being rewarded. She’d be continuing her research in Okinawa and I’d be going along for the ride. Now we just needed to figure out how to get there…

The first step was a pretty big one - we had to get married! Neither of us ever expected to or even wanted to get married, however, to join Courtney in Japan, I needed a Dependent Visa. There was only one way forward. It’s not that either of us morally opposed marriage, we just didn’t think our relationship needed it to be successful. That said, we figured if we had to get married we wanted to keep it low-key. On Friday, July 24th, we drove to Medford City Hall and got hitched by a nice old Italian lady named Sylvia in a disquietingly empty chamber room. No witnesses, no vows, no fanfare - all business. Truth be told, it was a bit anticlimactic when we walked back out of the building with our marriage license in hand. 

We made up for the lack of excitement a few weeks later when our friends Matt and Sara graciously let us use their backyard for a marriage / going away / graduation party. Having event management connections through DMSE came in handy with procuring all the party supplies we needed. To top it off, Matt, Sara, and our friend Liam surprised us by going above and beyond to decorate the yard and make it a proper celebration. It was a day of great food, plenty of beer and wine, and loved ones surrounding us. We couldn’t have asked for anything more, considering the circumstances. Leading up to the party, I’d grappled with the ethics of having a gathering during the pandemic, but we took all the necessary precautions and in the end, I’m so glad we did. It was the first time in months we spent an entire day with friends and family, many of whom we knew we wouldn’t see again for a few years.

From that point on, Courtney got right down to business filling out mountains of various forms and applications while I made myself “useful” by finding obscure and inconsequential tidbits on the r/okinawa and r/movingtojapan subreddits. I also made an extremely half-hearted attempt to “learn” Japanese using Duolingo. At the end of August, we moved out of our Medford apartment and into my parents’ house in Plymouth. From the get-go, the plan was for Courtney to go to Okinawa in late September, then I would follow with Chopper in early November. However, as the COVID pandemic continued to worsen by the day, Japan stopped giving out visas to any foreign travelers. As October crept into November, each week was an exercise in patience. 

While living with my parents wasn’t the most exciting time, I at least had plenty to keep myself occupied with. In July, I had picked up my old state epidemiologist job as a contractor and could continue that work remotely. It was great to be back in the public health field and support my old friends and colleagues as they tirelessly worked to support the Commonwealth through the challenges of COVID. When I wasn’t working, I spent most of my time running, biking, and hiking. In October I ran my first marathon distance with my dad and in early December I finished my 48th and final of the 4000-foot peaks in New Hampshire, despite suffering through a miserable case of IT band syndrome. At home, I made dinner nearly every night, frequently prompting my dad’s overstated but heartfelt line, “This is even better than a restaurant.” It was the least I could do to thank my parents for letting us stay rent-free for however long we needed. 

I’m endlessly grateful that I’ve always had a good relationship with my parents and that they’ve been there to support me unconditionally through every step of my life’s journey. Even as an adult, they’ve always propped me up without question and never asked for anything in return. While I appreciated the extra time I was able to spend with them, I was restless and ready to make our big move. 

FINALLY, after weeks of agonizingly slow back-and-forth emails detailing travel dates and accommodations, we booked our flights for December 15th, more than two months later than we had initially planned. We now had a date, but there were still some major hurdles to clear, the biggest of which was getting a negative COVID test within 72 hours of our flight. On December 12th, we got swabbed at two separate testing sites. Both facilities claimed they would have results back in 24 to 48 hours, but we resolved to leave nothing to chance at such a late stage. Fortunately, all of our tests returned negative and on time. A few days later we were on the way to the airport with visas, negative test results, and four giant suitcases worth of stuff in hand, not to mention our dog, Chopper. At that moment, the reality of what was about to happen still hadn’t sunk in yet. I was mere hours from moving halfway around the world, having never lived more than two hundred miles away from my childhood home, but all I could focus on were the next few hurdles we needed to clear to make it to Japan. 

Getting onto our flight at Logan Airport was a piece of cake, and luckily we could have Chopper sit up with us in the cabin. It was a smooth flight to Seattle, and we had a wonderfully helpful flight attendant that calmed our fears about our tight connection. She even showed us on a map how to get to a pet relief area for Chopper before boarding the next plane to Tokyo. We made it to our gate with minutes to spare and exhaled a collective sigh of relief as we strolled down the jetway. As soon as the plane taxied from the gate all I could think was, “Holy shit, we made it!” All the stress and anxiety that had been building up for the last year began to wash away as we sailed towards our future. Halfway across the Pacific, we passed over the international dateline and into December 16th - Courtney’s birthday - so a champagne toast was in order. 

Upon landing at Haneda Airport, we were scuttled to an empty terminal that served as a pre-check and COVID testing center. We dutifully submitted our saliva samples and found a row of empty chairs to hunker down and suffer through an agonizingly long wait for our results to come back. After what seemed like an eternity, we were cleared to proceed to customs to show more paperwork, gather our belongings, and get the hell out of there. A pre-arranged taxi took us to our Airbnb about 40 minutes north in Tokyo. We tried to soak in the new cityscape around us, but it was all a blur. After nearly 24 hours of travel, we finally arrived at our tiny home for the next two weeks. Without unpacking or speaking a word, we both climbed into bed and crashed hard. It wasn’t the most exciting first evening in a new country, but after months of planning, paperwork, and stress, we deserved some well-earned rest. The next morning would be the first of many to come in Japan!

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*Okinawa Institute for Science and Technology

**Japan Society for the Promotion of Science