HARA chan BLOG / VALENCIA Diary No.1
We had a great season with two big wins:
Toni Elias won the Moto2 first champion and Tatsuya Yamaguchi won the ST600
I was feeling the end of the season and they(the company) asked me if I wanted to go to Spain.
I said “I have lots of work to do” to decline the offer indirectly but they said.
“That phrase belongs to those who actually do work every day. We never happen to see you working, and nobody will care if you skip days of work.”
Thanks to those very nice words, I got to go to Valencia to see the last MotoGP race in 2010.
Packed quickly and departed from Kansai International Airport.
6 of us were supposed to go on this trip, but there was a very unfortunate person.
Mr. T was most excited about this Valencia trip, and he worked very hard even over time and weekends to take care of everything for the days he would be away.
But while he was packing he realized --------
His passport had expired in August. There wasn’t enough time to renew and no way he could go on the trip.
T is always a cheerful guy and said “it was much better knowing this now than finding it out at the airport and coming home alone.” But I knew he was very depressed.
So the rest of us- not even caring about the poor T- and Midori went to the airport and left for Europe following our mechanics who had left 2 days earlier. Midori came back from Portugal 3 days before, finished all the work which was waiting for her and did the last negotiations with the next year’s team.
The first flight was to Netherlands (Midori was on different flights because of the flight situation), and I wasn’t very excited about sitting in the middle seat of the middle block on this 12 hour plane ride. Our seats were all separated, and I felt uncomfortable, but when young ladies sat both sides of my seats it became a bit better.
We had the next flight smoothly and met up with Midori in Paris. It was just 14 hours I didn’t see her, but I somehow felt like I missed her so much. Maybe it was because we were in a foreign place, or maybe not.
I immediately felt at home when I saw well-traveled Midori and craved for some good beer. I asked her to take me somewhere I could drink, and three of us – Midori, another T (not the one who was left in Japan. we call him Bucchan), and I – were walking in the Paris airport.
How could she run into someone she knew at the huge airport in a foreign country? It would never happen to me even at a local bar in Suzuka.
Anyways, I finally got my beer and the beer I drink with my feet on the ground tasted delicious!
Thanks to the beer, I felt good and didn’t mind the tiny uncomfortable airplane until we landed on Valencia safely.
The mechanics that were there earlier came to pick us up from the airport in spite of their busy schedules before the race. Again, I felt it had been a long time since we became apart and was sure the airport atmosphere did it.
W e got on the car, and seeing a mechanic K driving left-hand drive car made me realize that I was in Europe.
It had been 27 years since the last time I was in Europe.
I don’t know why, but am I kind of an international individual, or am I not?
