Bring you up to the present

Two days ago, I was up very late talking with friends, and only got two hours of sleep. Yesterday, I was up very late because we had a closing JTW dinner, and then I had to finish packing, so I again got only two hours of sleep. I woke up at 5 AM so that I could catch a 5:30 AM taxi to the airport (and have my room completely cleared out -- sorry Mack!) for a 7 AM flight to Tokyo. My host mother and father were there to see me off, and my conversation partner meant to be, but he accidentally slept in.

When I got on the plane, I immediately fell asleep, and didn't wake up until it landed around 9 AM. I then bought train tickets to my friend's house, slept for most of the express train trip (until around 11:30 AM), and navigated the local trains until 2 PM when I finally found my destination. I should have been there at 12:30 PM, but I took the wrong train, then I didn't get off when the train turned around, and carrying around 4 bags was a huge pain. But I finally made it.

After that we tried to go to Mr. Donuts, but there wasn't enough room for my bags, so we waited an hour for a bus to his house, rode the bus for about an hour, then rode the bus back and had some とんかつ (tonkatsu) for dinner instead. Then we walked around for a bit and eventually wandered into a book store where he bought a joke book and I bought Harry Potter (!!) and a tiny English comic that had Japanese translations. Then, after stopping for some breakfast bread, we came back and, of all things, Facebooked until 11 PM. Then I couldn't take the lack of sleep and more and collapsed. I slept for 12 hours, and now I feel pretty refreshed.

I took a bath here, which means sitting on a stool and pouring water over yourself, which was a rather unique experience for me. Life in a traditional Japanese setting is still awkward for me.

There you go, you've made it to the present.

Well, you will be after seeing this: goodbyes from JTWers after the closing ceremony.