Everyone is leaving! It is like a mass exodus out of Japan. I have had to say goodbye to so many really good friends this week! It is so sad to see them go but I am going to make a huge effort to stay in touch. It is like graduating from University all over again. Everyone is off to the four corners of the earth. I wish you all good luck and safe travels. People are leaving because their contracts have ended or they decided not to recontract for another year. It has been an emotionally charge week. I am coming home on Thursday and I don’t know what to think about that. It has been a year since I was last in Canada and I am not sure what to feel about coming home. When I live in a place, I decide from the very onset to make whatever place it is my home forsaking all others. Now I feel like I am going back to my strange English speaking other life on the other side of the planet. Trust me, I am happy to see you all when I come back but it feels more than a little strange. It is like feeling nostalgia for somehing that is still happening. Does that make sense? This past week has been intensely busy with Mom visiting and me trying to say goodbye to everyone. Our city festival was cancelled due to the extreme rains we had and the suffering in the community as a result of that. So I went down the valley to the festival in Agematsu. Myself and 8 others pulled a 400 kg log around the train station and later danced in the Kiso traditional circle dance at the end of the night. It was a rather hypnotic dance that involved walking very slowly in a circle for a long time with the old people of the community. I have never been involved in a culture like this before. Late that night, we all drove back up to my place so that everyone could catch their trains to Tokyo from Shiojiri so that they could get to the airport. We stayed up until 5am and then woke up 45 minutes later to go to the station to wish Dec and Dawn a safe journey. Dec is visiting home for a while and Dawn is leaving Japan.
Dave and I went back home a caught a few more z’s on my living room floor. I had to return my car the next day because I bought a new one. So Dave, myself and my mom all went down the valley again and stopped at Narai, a well preserved post town of the Edo period. We did a little sight seeing, went to the museum and had tea. Then we dropped Dave off, thus saying goodbye to him as he is now leaving Japan, and headed on down the valley to give back my car. I'll miss you David! While in Nagiso, we visited my favourite bridge and then returned home by train. It was the non express train so it took about 2 hours to get back to Shiojiri. I got home for about 45 minutes and then left again to go to another goodbye party in Matsumoto. I said goodbye to Louise and Pooja which was so sad because they are so much fun and great people to know. We had a great laugh at the restaurant though so it was a good note to end on. Then I headed back home with Rachael and the other Shio kids to have a little birthday party at my house. Tom and Gisela gave me some stellar gifts that I completely loved! They all threatened to give me horrible practical birthday gifts but I got some lovely books and treats instead. Rachael gave me some strange beans that will say "I love you" once they grow. I don't know exactly how they will do this but I will take a picture when it happens.
Yesterday morning, Mom and I forwarded our luggage to the airport and then headed for Kyoto for a 3 day backpacking trip around the city. Right now, Mom is having a nap at the hostel and I am thinking of having one shortly as well. I am sunburned and sleepy after two full days of pounding the pavement in Kyoto. We have been to see a load of great stuff that I didn’t see last time I was here. Loads of temples, shrines, beautiful gardens and the like. We spent my birthday mainly in transit on our way to Kyoto but we had a lovely dinner on the river and chatted to some people we met there. Then we went to the temple at night. It was a nice way to ring in another birthday. I barely remembered that it was my birthday because we had to get so much stuff done before leaving Shiojiri that day.
So, we will spend one more day in Kyoto and then go to Tokyo tomorrow afternoon and stay there one night. Thursday, I will be back in Canada. I can hardly believe it. I don’t know how I will feel when I get there. Probably very jet lagged. I look forward to seeing you all and seeing how things have changed in a year. The pictures are of the Agematsu festival, the cutest child I have seen at a festival this summer, Narai, my birthday cake and a pond in Kyoto that you can walk across in Heian Jingu. It has definitly been a highlight of Kyoto. Ok, time for a nap.