Day One. July 10, 2012

By Author: Stephen Wickline
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Well! It's finally the day. Later this afternoon I am off to Japan for twelve days to speak regarding "Thunder Ddog", blindness, and no matter else my hosts needed me to discuss. This trip has been within the creating nearly from the time that "Thunder Dog" was revealed in the US. Japan is one in every of many countries in which my and Susy Flory's book has been printed. However, the owner of the Japanese publishing company, Mr. Shirai, wished me to return to Japan to assist publicize the book. Mr. Shirai conjointly encompasses a physical incapacity. He has worked with Thomas Nelson Publishing Company to bring alternative books to promote in Japan.While I am not acquainted with all of the behind the scenes work that Mr. Shirai and others did so as to create this trip doable, concerning a year ago I learned that "Team Africa" had been fashioned. A number of folks are part of the team together with the four businessmen who orchestrated the endeavor. They came to go to Karen and me last October in order to finalize arrangements and to urge my commitment to come to Japan. I will speak a lot of regarding a number of the ...
... preparations during these blog entries.Now I have to travel end packing and build final preparations to go away. Karen's and my personal assistant and business manager, Tony Vucci can be driving me to San Francisco airport. This was a final minute modification because the gentleman who sometimes dries me, Ari Silva, had an unexpected medical appointment. A lot of later.July eleven, 2012.This is often part of my July 10 entry because I need to complete up the day before moving onto the events of July 11. Over the past eight months I have been working with Mr. Shirai and Yoshie Inoue to urge Africa cleared for our visit. Yoshie is the lady who translated "Thunder Dog" into Japanese for Mr. Shirai. Yoshie and I actually have communicated much right from the beginning. She has served as the e-mail voice of Mr. Shirai as well as being the bidirectional translator for all documents as we have proceeded.It was a long and arduous struggle to get Africa cleared for our visit. It should not have been, but, as a result of of bureaucracies we had to face several challenges. The biggest was that Africa had a three-year rabies vaccination on July seventeen, 2008 and had her next one on July nineteen, 201one. As a result of of the additional 2 days over the 3-year vaccination period, Japanese government officers had a little bit of a conniption which caused us to have to conduct a pair of rabies titers tests on Africa, the primary one in August of 201one and then a second one to prove that Africa still had rabies immunity in June of 2012. Moreover, though Africa had a rabies vaccination in July of 2011 she had to undergo another one in June of 2012.During the primary [*fr1] of 2012 the scanned and e-mailed documents flew back-and-forth between Japan and Novato. Africa was scheduled to possess her final official certification by a USDA veterinarian on July 2, 2012. Africa did not should be gift, however the documents did have to be signed officially. Whereas I was at the NFB convention in Dallas, Tony went to the USDA office in San Francisco and got the appropriate signatures. The Japanese government insisted on seeing all signed documents before we left the US. This past Sunday we have a tendency to scan and e-mail the documents to the govt through Yoshie and eventually they blessed the trip.Even with all the challenges and the assumed blessing of the government in Japan Africa and that i fell upon the airport at about 530 yesterday, July 10, and whizzed through all check-in procedures. I brought two massive suitcases, a massive flat box with gifts for Mr. Shirai and Yoshie, and a small carry-on case and my usual briefcase. This is more than I sometimes take, however hey, were going to be gone for 2 weeks and that i would like to bring gifts home also. I ought to additionally say that we brought a number of other little gifts to use along the way. These gifts were in half requested by Yoshie. Yoshie asked that I bring twenty copies of the GDB Soulmates video. I wished to produce more than this and since my publicist, Celia Black, and her cohort in crime,, Gwen Jones, had simply completed our own new Michael Hingson intro video. So Tony, Karen, and i created a bunch of folders which included each videos, our new one sheet speaking brochure, our new Braille business cards, and a "Thunder Dog" bookmark. Speaking of bookmarks, I carried a bunch in my shirt pocket and distributed them liberally to JAL personnel, the flight crew, and others. I was shocked at how abundant of a success they're and how many individuals were excited simply to receive that small strip of paper. It should be Ron Burns' image on the bookmark that creates them thus exciting. If individuals need to see and obtain their own copy of Ron's image, please visit www.RonBurns.com/Roselle.We tend to left San Francisco ten min. early at seven:15 PM and landed roughly 11 hours later in Tokyo's Haneda airport at 10:15 PM July 11, 2012. I negotiated business category for this trip, thus I should say that the ride was comfy. The food was great, and therefore the flight crew was tremendous. We have a tendency to flew on a Boeing 77seven aircraft. One thing I noticed was that the in-flight entertainment system was fairly usable. On most US flights you'll solely control the system through a touchscreen. On this airplane everything was controlled with buttons. Therefore, I might scroll through the films, the music, and TV channels. I did not grasp what all of them were and there was no method for me to read the titles, but at least I might bear the channels myself which to me was a good issue.When we have a tendency to landed with some assistance I visited customs and presented my forms. One in all the flight attendants help me complete the forms on the airplane before we tend to landed. Going through customs was a breeze.Next we have a tendency to ought to animal quarantine. No matter all the muss and fuss and challenges we had over the past eight months, this half of our entry into Japan involved me. Was I stunned once we had fully no problem and shot all the way through the process!Finally I got my checked luggage, went through immigration, and came out the opposite aspect where most of Team Africa was waiting with cameras in hand and smiles on their faces. Nobody could've been smiling larger than I especially with all of the quarantine fears.We have a tendency to stood there in the middle of the airport and chatted for some minutes. We tend to then all got loaded into a van and commenced our trek to the Rose Hotel in Yokohama. Along the approach we stopped and let Ms. Africa take her 1st shot at relieving herself on Japanese soil. She did herself proud all around.We tend to need to the hotel a very little after midnight and checked in while not problem. By one o'clock I was prepared for bed. I had slept a very little on the flight over with Africa lying on high of me after I reclined my seat to create a mostly flat bed. Never let it's said that Africa does not seek for comfort when she will find it. Since it had been still a touch early to strive to contact Karen I went to sleep at one AM. I'll cover July 11 in my next entry. (Michael Hingson|The Michael Hingson Group}