I went to Japan near the end of November for about 2 weeks ending in December. It was just a classic visit for me. Visit my in-laws (whom I get along very well with), visit my wife's friends in Kyoto, Okayama, Osaka, then finish my trip by staying @ my friends house in Shibuya to get my Akihabara binge. I actually two things that needed to be done in Okayama, one was to meet my wife's friend and the other was to change my hometown address to my wife's address.
My address in Japan was originally set by my dad when I was born to my grandparents address. Needless to say, I've only met my grandmother and relatives when I was a baby. Anyway, I've never seen or remembered seeing my grandparents house, so we figured since the paperwork of changing my address went so quickly that we would take a cab to see the house.
The address ended up being very old and the whole district had change addressing numbers. Our taxi driver took us up to a certain point where we pretty much just looked around to see the area. I was just happy to see the area where my father grew up in, but the taxi driver felt we should @ least see the house while we were here. So he drove us to a Koban to find out what the new address would be. The first officer we talked to did not know where the address would be, but the other officer who had been there a long time decided to look up in an old book of address translations. There it was, Nakagaki and the translated address w/ the new owners name of Kawamura.
At this point I was so stunned and happy to see my Grandma's name in the book. The taxi driver then drove us to the point of where the house should be. We looked around on foot for a few minutes, but could not find the address. The taxi driver had disappeared, but the taxi car was still parked. We started to look for the driver when we found him a little further down the hill talking to someone.
He was asking one of the local residents if they knew where the address was and for directions. Even more amazing, he decided to call on his own cell phone the current resident Kawamura to see if he was home. Amazing, Mr. Kawamura picked up and confirmed that he was home and the directions were correct. We climbed some stairs to the house, but the house looked fairly new so I was kind of disappointed that I never got to see the old house.
Mr. Kawamura stepped outside wondering who we were. I began to explaing that my father's name was Nakagaki and that I was his son just wanting to see the house he grew up in. Mr. Kawamura then began to inquire me about my father. To my disbelief, Mr. Kawamura was my uncle who had married one of my father's sisters.
He then realized who I was and explained to me that I had met him when I was much younger once before. Mr. Kawamura began to explain to me that my aunt was out of town @ the moment, but provided me w/ her phone number to get in touch w/ her. He then began explaining to me about the Nakagaki family history and about my other aunt Nakagaki, Yoshiko.
She apparently is a very accomplished writer and artist. Anyway, he then explained to me the house we were in was in fact new and that the old house was demolished some 2-3 years ago. It was apparently too big for any one family to live in so they decided to divide up the land to make several other houses. We knew the taxi driver was waiting a long time for us @ this point so we decided to say our goodbyes. My uncle invited us to stay w/ them anytime we came to visit Japan. I was so incredibly moved @ this point, my eyes to began to water up from tremendous joy in finally meeting some of my Japanese family.
En route to Tokyo on the Shinkansen, I decided to call my aunt. She answered immediately was overjoyed to hear my voice. She apologized for not being home and that she was currently visiting my other Aunt.
I wanted to visit them, but @ this point I was under such a time constraint that it was just not possible. Instead she gave me the phone number of my cousin (her son) saying that he really wanted to meet me. So with that, I reached Tokyo, called my cousin, and setup a time to meet him a day before I had to leave to the US.
When I met my cousin, I was thrown aback as to how much he looked like my father (a slightly younger version). He also began talking about my family history, about how the Nakagaki family was a very intellectual group.
In times past, the Nakagaki family was also a noble samurai clan. My cousin then began talking about how my grandfather came from Hokaido and that my grandmother was from Okayama. My grandfather was a professor and my grandmother was from an incredibly rich family. How those two met, I do not know, but I would like to find out.
Anyway, this was my amazing trip to Japan 2005. I'll never forget it, and I plan on meeting the rest of my family the next time I visit. (^_^)
