7:15am Up and out to train station
2 hours and three trains later, breakfast with my lovely Fiona at Ikebukuro station. So nice to see her again after saying our goodbyes and thinking the next time we see each other would be in Europe in Twentysixteen!
Finally bought two of Haruki Murukami’s books; his IQ84 trilogy plus Norwegian Wood. Started Haruki is an internationally famous Japanese author who my Australian and Japanese friends have highly recommended for almost the entire time I have been here. I have been talking about wanting to read him for ages. So happy to start on my first novel of his in central Tokyo where the story is actually set! And continue reading on my most of my bullet train ride (nothing but the number one Nozomi N700 – 300kms an hour) home to Okayama.
5pm Walked through the exit gates at Okayama for the last time, this is the final “home to Okayama” train trip for me. Next train will be bound for Osaka to board my plane home next Tuesday night! It always feels so good to return home after even a short time away to Okayama, seeing the familiar shops and buildings and signs. I can’t even imagine what seeing Sydney Harbour from the sky Saturday week is going to feel like! And then driving back into Richmond after more than thirteen months away – my longest ever time away from my hometown! I am pretty sure it is going to be the most comforting ecstasy I have even known. Oh my god, words just cannot describe how excited I am to come home.
I can’t be fucked to write the Can’t Waits and Gonna Miss sections anymore. I just can’t wait to get home, be with my people, speak English normally everyday, do any task I want by myself without needing translation or language assistance and I am surely going to miss a lot of things over time, many I probably won’t even know until I am not here but for now I just want to leave this country and return to my own!
Though today I am saying that feeling happy, not resentful or irritated or angry. More than 4 hours of consecutive sleep and deliberate positive thinking does wonders for one’s mood and the feelings of those around them. I am glad I didn’t lose it yesterday. I was teetering so close to the edge I was actually terrified. Managed not to fall. I just hope I can stay relatively upright for the long term. Or at least if I hit the ground, I can quickly get up and brush off just like I did coming down good old Mount Fuji.
Just weighed all my ‘to check in’ baggage and I am almost 14kg over! Grrr, I knew I would be, going to have spend another 15,000 yen posting one bag home by surface mail in addition to the gift I have to send back at 7,000 yen. Damn it, after the Fuji trip and my last week here plus Cairns and Brisbane (even only buying food out etc) I am going to be dead broke.
“I am going to get a job before I leave Japan”. “I have got a new job already”. I hope the all powerful and might Fuji-san grants the wishes I made as I passed through the torii gates on his magnificent and grand slopes. Onegai shimasu/ Please do this for me.
Going to skype my friend, then shower, then early night. Yes, a room by myself with no disturbances!!
same frog, new pond 