The Mistakes I Made on My First Trip to Japan
How a Would-Be Ingénue Learns Not to Overpack
Overheated, overdressed, and definitely over the idea of traveling with my parents, I plopped down on my suitcase right there on the platform of Ueno Station in Tokyo, Japan.
My suitcase was a bright red hard vinyl rectangle. It was part of a matching set that I’d gotten when I graduated from high school in 1974. It came with a smaller version as well as a “train case.”
It would have made more sense to have had the “train case” with me, since I was waiting to board a train. But my mother had told me to leave it behind in America. We’d have enough to carry as it was.
“You and your brother can only bring two suitcases each,” she had told me repeatedly. “You can’t bring any more than you can carry.”
How unreasonable it all seemed to me.
I was planning to spend an entire year in Fukuoka, Japan with her and my father. How on earth was I supposed to survive on only two suitcases worth of clothing?
As it was, I couldn’t even fit my shoes into the smaller red case. (You know me and…
