別の外人

Leaving Utsunomiya and travelling

Today was my last day with Mayumi. Last night, I said goodbye and thank you to Mr. Toyoda, and Kotaro came to see me, he really hasn't changed a bit, except a tad taller and facial hair now, since 2002. I woke up fairly late as Tuesday involved a lot of walking around Nikkou, and the others were awake by the time I came downstairs. Mayumi was doing her work at the table, making fuses, and Kotaro was slouched across the very low sofa watching the television. I had yaki-onigiri with something mysterious for breakfast, which was still tasty :) I chatted with Mayumi for about 2 hours about my experiences in Japan, when she told me that I would always be welcome to come back to see her and stay with her, a room would always be available for me, and she now considers me like an honourary daughter :) She said that if I had time at Christmas, I could come and stay and we could go to Disneyland Tokyo together, which was very sweet :) I was pleased my Japanese was sufficient to be able to communicate with her without too many problems. I then showed her an old Japanese song that a TV gameshow about recognising song artists/titles had reminded me of: Kawa no nagare no youni. It's a beautiful song :) She then showed me her favourite song, a Kyushu folk song, from the area which she comes from. We then somehow go onto the topic of X Factor and Britain's Got Talent, as there apparently isn't anything like that in Japan. I showed her Susan Boyle, a few really awful auditions from this year's X Factor, Danyl from this year's X Factor, Diversity from BGT and George Sampson. I think she was impressed, she certainly seemed to like it.

Kotaro then came downstairs, and we all went to dinner at a small local restaurant around the corner from them. I'm still in shock at the fact that people are still allowed to smoke indoors here, even on public transport :O

After dinner, which was sashimi bento, and delicious to boot, we chatted to the chef and the hostess who had never had a gaijin in their restaurant before. Wahay.

Kotaro then drove me and Mayumi to the station, where we said some sad goodbyes before I got on the Shinkansen.

In the youth hostel today, I have had a very strange multilingual experience, where there was a Japanese girl who only spoke Japanese, Japanese who were learning French, a Japanese guy who spoke English, a French guy who spoke some Japanese, a French guy who only spoke French, and me. I seemed to be the only person capable of acting as interpreter if needed... it was so surreally amusing xD

I will not have internet again now until I arrive in Shanghai. Thank you Japan for treating me so well, ja ne :D <3 <3