Today was Wednesday, May 24th – my last day in Japan! I awoke early to finish packing the last of my stuff. Since there was class with Shiraishi sensei this morning, I had to leave some training items out and the things that I would need to clean up after training. Once the majority of my things were away, I readied for training and walked over to Honbu. Paul was there this morning and we worked together for the majority of the session. Shiraishi sensei was nice enough to let me get video of the class, so I captured most of it using my digital camera. I was quite happy when he seemed to give a nice “overview” of the things he had taught in the previous week’s time that I was in town as well as some additional points about walking. Once class was over, I took a few last minute photos of the doujou and bid my farewell to the people I had met and to the space itself.<\/p>\n
I hurried back to the inn and quickly showered and packed away the last of my gear. After paying my bill and thanking the staff for their hospitality, I met up with Lauren and Roger to say my goodbyes. They walked me to the train station and soon I was headed back towards the airport.<\/p>\n
I was a bit confused by some of the signs at Abiko station, but I managed to catch the express train to Narita with the help of one of the station attendants. These guys are great. They’ll actually run with you to the train if you don’t seem to understand their directions!<\/p>\n
I really enjoyed the ride from Abiko to Narita. As I mentioned in my Day 1 description, the scenery was really beautiful. I wish I had gotten some photos, but much of my attention was drawn to the twelve or thirteen year old kid sitting a few seats down from me on the train. <\/p>\n
There were maybe a dozen people in the car in which I was sitting. To my right was the kid I mentioned above and across from him was a woman in her early 30s or so. This kid, who I will henceforth refer to as “Sleepy”, was dressed in his school uniform and looked like he had pulled an all nighter or was just a very relaxed person. When I first noticed him, he was slowly “falling” to his left side. He got to the point that his head was quite literally hovering an inch or so away from the seat next to him. At this point, he awoke and jerked back upright. Adjusting his glasses, he looked around sleepily and then closed his eyes. Within a minute, he was slowly slumping in the other direction until his face was again just above the seat next to him. Wake up…look around…close eyes…slump forward this time…. This continued for almost the entire ride. About half way to Narita, Sleepy got up and moved to the seat next to the door so that he wasn’t slumping to his right anymore, but that didn’t stop him from falling to the other directions. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched this display. The woman across from him appeared to be entranced, too and we shared a laugh about the whole thing. On one hand, it was a funny thing to watch, but I felt a little sad, too. Maybe this kid had been up all night studying and was really struggling under the demands of his school work. Of course, it’s more likely that he was up all night playing video games or chatting with friends or “texting” on his [url=http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Japanese_mobile_phone_culture]keitai[\/url].<\/p>\n
At Narita station, I hopped the local train to the airport and followed the signs to check-in. Things went quite smoothly from there and I was at the gate before I knew it with about 45 minutes to spare.<\/p>\n
Most of the flight was quite unremarkable. I watched two of the Harry Potter films and a Japanese film about a group of high school girls who form a band to play in their school’s variety show. By the end of the flight, I was tired and my ass was killing me from sitting even though I had gotten up several times to walk around and hit the restroom. As we neared Newark and began our descent the air was a bit rough although the skies were perfectly clear, and I started to feel a little sick. A few passengers that I could see sitting towards the front of the cabin required their air sickness bags and I think that started a small chain reaction….<\/p>\n
I didn’t throw up and we were soon safely on the ground. After claiming my baggage, I made my way through customs and the security checks and out to the passenger pickup area. It was good to be back where everyone was speaking English! Not long after, George and Drew showed up and we piled my luggage into the trunk and off we went.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was Wednesday, May 24th – my last day in Japan! I awoke early to finish packing the last of my stuff. Since there was class with Shiraishi sensei this morning, I had to leave some training items out and … Continue reading