DFJ Family Blog

So this is one of the way long overdue post from the BYUH Chior Japan Concert Tour 2016. And it's been a little over a month since then 😅
I couldn't post the full length of videos so here I am in the blog.

The Choir came to Japan for two weeks: June 15th to June 30.
The concerts were held at Okinawa, Hiroshima, Osaka, Sapporo, Sendai (fireside), and Tokyo.
President Tanner, President of BYUH, and Sister Tanner joined us from Sapporo to Tokyo.

It was a very fun and fulfilling temp job I got from my former boss in the church office in Tokyo. This probably was my last time to do this again, ever. For one, I am not sure if I could really cope with jet lag to do the job as it is very hectic, and the person who would give me an opportunity is no longer there. My former boss now is the Mission President in Sendai.
This was my second time to take a group of about 50 (it was 55, I think, including President and Sister Tanner). I got to travel Japan with BYU Provo Wind Symphony in 2015. I found the tour this time was harder with me still having jet lag. I arrived Japan a week before they came from Hawaii so that I thought I'd be somewhat be more adjusted to the time and be ready for them. I was busy with my own things in addition to the tour preparation, so I was running all over -- to my hometown, places in Tokyo to check so I could lead the group during the tour, shop for myself, etc.
I was meeting the Chior at Haneda Airport on "Wednesday" night when they flew in. Arrived at the hotel in the airport to check in. There was no reservation even under the name of BYUH that day. I was not speaking loudly or anything but I somehow made a scene to all the staff in the front desk by asking to check under BYUH as there would be 50+ people checking in later that night. Then one of the nice hotel staff told me that it was not until "tomorrow". I went outside to regroup myself -- "First of all, today was Tuesday, NOT Wednesday!" All this time, I had thought that they would be arriving on "Tuesday".... even when I would look at the schedule!!! Well, I was too tired to head back to town so I decided to stay in the same hotel even if that meant I had to pay for the night on my own (luckily, my boss took care of it. I was very grateful for that).
It actually gave me enough time for me to be well-oriented at the airport (where the convenience stores, etc. for the students).

The next morning, my boss and his assistant (Yuumi) came to seem me with the concert programs that I/the Choir had to take with us to Okinawa where the first concert was. We were just trying to decide what to eat for lunch then. Then we had a phone call from Hawaii, from Jarek, the tour director. They were all checking in at the airport (Honolulu). We were so relaxed (my head was all about lunch then) and asked Jarek, "What's up?" He sounded more tense than normal; one of them did not realize that his passport had been expired until he actually got to the airport. The airline would let him be on board but there would be a possibility that he could be denied to enter once he arrived to Japan because of his passport, so Jarek was desperate if we could do something about it with the connection my boss had to the U.S. Embassy..... (we really could not do anything about it as we knew the lines of the authorities there at the embassy and we totally respected that) but we said OK and hang up the phone. We knew that we would have to expect "some kind of " accidents/happening would always come with this size of the group and we had two weeks with them. But the expired passport????? So first had to laugh our heads off, and we really did.