Elizabeth in Japan

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, February 9, 2022

By Elizabeth Graeme

This week I arrived in Japan. I’m here because my Dad has a lot of jobs. He is the office manager for the US Ambassador to Japan and before that other places. I have traveled overseas many times but this time is different because of COVID!

The first difference is that Japan is closed. We had to get special permission just to go. Before we could even fly we had to take a COVID test. Then we had a positive test and we had to delay our trip until we had a good test result!

Once we were ready to fly we went to the Forks airport (where the drag racing happens) and loaded all our bags onto the little Cessna plane from Rite Bros. in Port Angeles. I got to sit in the co-pilot seat on the way to Seattle. In Seattle, we took a big plane to Tokyo. I got to pick out my own toy and the stewardess gave me snacks whenever I wanted one.

Once we arrived we were told to stay in our seats in small groups. Then they escorted all military and embassy Americans through the airport. It was a long walk, there were many checkpoints and places we had to do COVID tests, places where they asked us about countries we had visited and checked our paperwork. We were told to download a tracker application (which we could not do because of our Diplomatic status) and THEN after all that we had to go through immigration and customs before we could go to our new home.

Next time I will tell you all about our new home and where we are!!

Elizabeth Graeme technically lives in Forks but is currently stationed in Japan with her family. She misses Sully’s French fries and visiting the Shell station for snacks very much.