Final day's troubles - 1

I left New York last Sunday and I came back to Japan last Monday. Last Sunday was very hard day for me. First, I forgot my important bag in my room. Second, the train had a trouble while going to the airport, JFK. I want to describe this day’s story here.

Last Saturday night, it was my last night in New York, I went to Jazz club and I spent there until 2:30 a.m. After that, I came back to my apartment, and then I started to prepare for going back to Japan. I prepared that until 4 a.m., and I took a short sleeping.

I wake up at 7 a.m. on Sunday. I had to continue to pack my stuff and I had to clean my room. I had estimated one hour for that at the previous night, but in reality I had needed two hours for this. I got upset, because I thought I needed to get on the subway at 8 a.m. for my plain at 12 o’clock, but it had been 9 a.m. already.

After the preparing and cleaning, I went out my room with my luggage, and locked the door and I put the keys into the room through under the door, but then I realized that I forgot one of my important bag in the room. There were my cell phone, digital compact camera and some electronics equipment that I need for my job in this bag. However, I couldn’t take this. I had locked out.

I got upset, and then I called this apartment’s caretaker that is Japanese agency. However, this is Sunday. They were in a day off. I couldn’t reach them, but I remembered that they gave me another phone number for emergency. I searched the paper on which this number was printed in my bag that I had, and I found it. I called to this number. It was a cell phone that the chief of the agency had. I told him about my situation and I had to go to JFK immediately. He said that he couldn’t open the room for me at this day. Therefore, I had to ask him to send this bag to Japan by international mail after.

I regretted that I should have checked my room again before locking the door, and if I had not spent deeply in the Jazz club at the previous night, I might have had spare time and I might not have made such a mistake by lack of sleep, but it was 9:30 a.m. already. I had to go to JFK as soon as possible. I didn’t have any minutes to regret something. I went to the subway station in a hurry. I estimated one hour to arrive at JFK by the subway and the Air Train, so I thought that maybe I could arrive there between 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. However …

I will write about my next trouble, a train trouble, at the next time. To be continue.

Visiting to Washington, D.C.

I went to Washington, D.C. last weekend. I visited to Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, National Gallery of Art and American History Museum. Of cause, I walked through the National Mall and I saw the Capital Hill, Washington Monument and Lincoln Monument. I went up to an observation room of Washington Monument and looked down to the city from there.

I had stayed in Washington, D.C. for three days. When I was walking to subway station from my hotel to get on the train that I would go back to New York last day, I found a new museum named “NEWSEUM”. I had three hours to get on my train, so I stopped to visit at this museum.

NEWSEUM exhibits the history about Journalism in the U.S. I found here that the modern journalism was one of the most important “inventions” by the U.S.

American journalists started the movement that they were reporting their own article by themselves’ getting stories. They write articles with their own experience and their own responsibility. They try to reveal the facts that government or powerful people hide for their interests. For example, Vietnam War was finished by New York Time’s releasing a government’s classified document. The Watergate scandals that led to the resignation of former President Richard Nixon were released by Washington Post’s reporter. Their activities affected the government and politics.

I think that Japanese journalists were influenced by this movement in 1970s. For example, former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was forced to quit by revealing his illegal money politics by a Japanese journalist. After that, many journalists reported many case of political corruptions.

On the other hand, this kind of journalism has dark side. Some journalists want to sell their articles, so some of them make untrue sensational stories. Therefore, American schools educate media literacy for children. Media literacy is an ability of objective and logical thinking for all kinds of media.

These days, a lot of journalist activate on the Internet. They are called “blogger”. This is a new type of journalism. I think American people leads this movement also, and this movement is spread out all over the world.

Why can the journalism be improved in the U.S? I think that the reason relates to their splits of state's founding. It means liberal democracy. They are very proud of it and they think the important thing is civilian power. Journalism is an aspect of this in the U.S. I thought about that while visiting at this museum.