Flat Stanley

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Stanley who became flat, allowing his parents to send him in the mail to visit his friend in California. That was a long time ago, but the story of "Flat Stanley" still lives on today in a little first grade class in Lake in the Hills, Illinois. My cousin, Jack, is a student in this very class, and their project was to make their own Flat Stanley and send him to someone they know who lives the farthest away from them - and that would be us! When my Aunt contacted me about Jack's school project, we were excited to help by having Stanley come visit us in Japan. We thought it was such a cool idea - I sure wish I would have had this project when I was in first grade! Once he arrived, we spent about a week together, taking him with us where ever we went (except work - I doubted Stanley would find the bank at all interesting).

The project entailed us to take Stanley to interesting areas of our city (or country in this case!) and take photos of him with local landmarks here. So, in the beginning of the week, we took him around to places like Araha Beach, a Japanese garden, our favorite sushi restaurant, and even got a photo of him in front of the Japanese flag. Near the end of his trip, we decided to take Stanley to the place we both agreed was the best representation of Japan - Shuri Castle. We drove down to Naha, took a tour of the castle grounds, and got photos of Stanley in all different parts, including one of him overlooking all of Okinawa. Matt really wanted to take him scuba diving with us (in a sealed water-proof bag of course!) which I thought would have been awesome! However, the weather didn't permit us to do any water activities that week, and Stanley needed to make it back to Illinois by April 7th, so we had to forget about the diving:(

Other than the diving, Stanley had a very educational trip to Okinawa, Japan. And he didn't leave empty handed either - his souvenirs included some Japanese Chinsuko cookies for Jack to share with his classmates and an adorable "I LOVE JAPAN" T-shirt! I'm so happy we were able to help my cousin Jack out with his school project as I'm pretty sure his Flat Stanley went the farthest - you can't get much farther away than the other side of the world!

Happy Travels Flat Stanley!

-C