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It was time to leave. After many friends made, many experiences
enjoyed, and many memories engrained in my head, it was finally time to
pack up and head out of Mutsu, probably never to see our new friends again.
As I packed my carryon (our main luggage had traveled to Narita on the
16th), I was filled with tranquil moodiness. I was not sad, or depressed,
but somehow displeased with the fact that I was only allowed such a short
time to share a part of my life with such wonderful people, who lived so
far across the ocean from the place I call home. I ate my final interesting
meal with my host family, including their son, Hideyuki. It was only the
second time I'd seen him. (Akira, his father, said he liked to stay out
late and leave early - "such a playboy." :) We had toast and eggs along
with the usual rice and soup and sashimi, which was a subtle, but nice,
touch. I was reluctant to finally drag my stuff outside for the final time,
but there was no turning back - after a few last pictures, Soga-san and
his wife drove me to Shimokita Cultural Center, where the same large group
from the party the night before had gathered to cry and say goodbye. We
all came together for one final enormous group picture. Everyone seemed
to be crying - everyone, that is, but me. I was somehow in a state of emotional
deadness, unable to accept our departure from such hospitality and sense
of "family." The busses arrived, and it was time to go. Our inevitable
departure loomed over us as we hugged and waved for the final time. My
emotions came back to me right as I was being rushed onto the bus, and
I waved frantically at my host family, who smiled and waved back, and at
Sayuko, who did the same, and at all of the students and families and friends.
I was ushered into a seat as the bus pulled away, and we all waved until
we could see them no more.
And it was then, as everyone else was recovering from
their tears, that mine attacked me. I did a good job of concealing it,
but inside I felt awful. The bus rushed away from Mutsu, but a piece of
me stayed with it.
It was impossible to brood over it - we needed to move
on, to finish the trip, and so we put our minds on the things to come -
our final night in Japan. As the bus careened down the narrow roads towards
the train station, we opened the little gifts that had been given to us
- bags of various Japanese candy. It was fun trading and tasting different
kinds, or at least, it took our minds off the city we'd left behind.
At the train station, we said goodbye to Senoe, which
was cause for another round of hugs and well-wishes. She'd been a great
source of entertainment, answeing our incessant questions when we were
going to and from something. We boarded the train and waved goodbye to
yet another face we'd very likely never see again.
On this date in my journal, on Monday, I had not yet written
the events that took place in Mutsu, but I did write the following:
"10:20 am, JST (6:20 pm Sun., PST): I will need to reconstruct
from memory the events that took place in Mutsu, Japan, from the evening
of May 14 (Thursday) to this morning,
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because I did not have time to write
while I was there. It was very busy and extremely exciting. As I said at
the farewell party, "I had a lot of fun, I made a lot of friends, and I'd
love to come back someday." At the moment we are on a train headed for
Narita. We will have to switch to the shinkansen somewhere around here.
I'm sitting next to a nice Japanese man and Dan-san.
"I had a kind of 'conversation' with the nice guy beside me. About where we're from, where we're going, etc. 11:30 am JST." When we arrived at the shinkansen station, we had a little less than an hour to burn, so I scouted out all the vending machines and "Let's Kiosk" stores for interesting candy and pop. I found some more yogurt candy to add to my collection, and a PEPSI machine! Gasp! (Coke seems to be the berverage of choice in Japan - you hardly ever see a Pepsi machine, but we did spot one at Osorezan, which was kind of weird.) So I bought a little skinny Pepsi and Mountain Dew to bring home. Lindsey, Dan and I also looked for some new interesting drink, as we did whenever we were around a vending machine. The particular machine we spent most our time at offered selctions like "Drink it Black" (coffee), "Pocari Sweat" (a sports drink... tastes like sweat), and other such things. (Coffee and tea, I should mention, come out of the machines hot, in their cans.) Dan bought some sort of milk drink that he said was fairly disgusting, but saved because he wanted the can. After we got on the shinkansen I went to the bathroom to find myself staring at... a squat toilet. (The shinkansen we'd took on the way over had heated Western-style toilets.) I'd used a couple squat toilets already, and they weren't really that bad, but I was wary of using one on a moving object, let alone an object traveling at speeds in excess of 150 mph. It was then that I noticed the handle located directly in front of the toilet, to hang onto as the train lurched around. I should have taken a picture. ^_^ We arrived at Narita and hauled our luggage to the Hotel Centraza, which was to be our abode for our last night in Japan. Lindsey and I crammed ourselves into the teeny room (OK, not that small, but quite a step down from the Takanawa Prince Hotel) and then ran to the Daiei department store, which was connected right onto the hotel. Our first sight upon entereing the store was the Hello Kitty Emporium (well, I don't know what it was really called, but it might as well have been called that!) Pink! Pink! And more pink! Although we both had to admit that the Kitty-chan stuff was quite kawaii. I indulged, and bought a few highly expensive (and small) things. Most of the stores were starting to close, so we went outside and found ourselves at the "Book off" store across the street. I immidiately went in search of Sailormoon manga, and was not dissapointed. I found #13, which completed my collection, and also the anime comic books, which I'd never expected to find! They were fairly cheap, but I only bought four - I now wish I'd bought more. I'm too sticky with my money. Afterwards we went back to the hotel for our final night in the land of the rising sun. |
