Japan 12 - The End

Edit: My homeboy Fizz brought something to my attention I thought I should address. I loved Japan, but had a lot of trouble getting around, and plenty of things didn't go exactly my way. Don't get me wrong, though, I may sound fairly negative, but I had a great time and it was more than worth it! With that, here's the last entry!

I woke up with a little time to spare in the morning, bought my self a decent meal at the convenience store (bento, red bean bun, orange juice AND coffee) and scarfed it down while watching some morning television. Here in Japan, it seems that everyone on the morning news simply reads the newspaper to you, which felt odd to me. After making out some of the words to get a tiny handle on the news, I packed my things and left the hotel. Checking out, I took a sheet of paper with the time table for Narita Airport Express Train and, with a quick glance at the clock, saw that I could make the 10:30 train if I hurried.

Too bad I got lost searching for the damn station. Perhaps they forgot to put signs up for it on my side of the station, but I walked around looking for information, and even asked someone at the desk although I could hardly understand what her reply was. I eventually found it while forcing my way through crowds of people and accidentall,y karate chopping some old guy who walked way to close to me. Turns out the train was extra far away, and I missed the 10:30 which forced me to sit around on the platform for another hour while I waited to take the 1:30 hour trip to the airport, where it turned out that there was a massive line of people waiting to check in with Delta Airlines, and then the little self-check in computer screwed me so I had to get help from an actual person, which took more time. This felt like a final sort of "fuck you" from the country but at least I made it to the terminal with 10 minutes before my flight.

The flight itself was a rather long 10 hours, and the little girl in the seat in front of me enjoyed putting her seat back the entire way during the whole flight, so that was neat. This meant that, thanks to lack of space, I couldn't use my laptop or write in my notebook, so I just read or watched the in-flight movies which weren't half bad, I'd suggest seeing The Ghost Writer some time. Landing at 8 a.m. on the 31st (which is technically earlier than when I left Japan), I met my dad at the airport in the grey light of early morning Oregon the way I'll always remember the weather being. It was a welcome change to the humid, sunny heat of Japan that was both relentless and horrible. The drive home went pretty fast, and my Dad and I talked a lot about what went down both in Japan and at home while I was away while I downed a giant coffee from Starbucks (a place I'd normally never go to). A short while later, I was home, doing my laundry and getting back into normal life mode. Sure, I'm still pretty damn exhausted and my clock is way off, but oh well, it's nice to be somewhere that is both familiar and where everyone speaks the same language I do. This concludes my travels in Japan, and what follows are quick thoughts about the country and my trip. Thanks again for reading, and I hope you've at least somewhat enjoyed my paragraphs of babble.

Afterthoughts:

- I had always planned on going to Japan after finishing at the University of Oregon to teach English for a year, but now I'm not sure. I got the sense that all the American people I met were sort of stranded in the country, somehow managing to not really be at home in Nihon or back home anymore, and the strange sense of limbo I got from a couple people disturbed me. I'll have to spend a lot of time thinking about my plans for the future.

- Traveling alone isn't as fun. Period. I can think of a hundred different ways that this trip would have been leagues better if I had even had 1 more person with me. Sure, it would have cut into my arcade time, but who cares? I would have been able to experience more nightlife and would have had a shoulder to lean on when I got absolutely and horribly lost, which happened incredibly frequently. If I could do it again, I'd go with someone who either spoke the language or was real good at maps.

- Do what you want to do, not what you think you should do. I spent a lot of my trip seeing sights just because I thought that it was some kind of mandatory thing one must always do when visiting. Next time, more research into things I'm actually interested in will be done in order to experience Japan the way I should. Can't always fit the mold, I suppose.

- Japanese women are too passive and shy.

- Japanese men are nice but apologize too much. It's insane how much everyone apologizes and bows.

- So much rice.

I think that covers it. I had a great experience, but it was certainly trying at times. Again, thanks for reading and I hope you stay extra gentlemanly in the future.

GT-Japan OUT!

Next entry will mark the return to normal Trash mode. Sorry to disappoint.