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1st of April and I'm sitting in the common room of the pal house on my own. Surrounded by a wall of futons and duvets. Outside its miserable and a mist has rolled in which combined with the rain makes it look almost tropical...that is until you step outside. I'm the last one of the Happoone gaijin left. I've said goodbye to some of the lads this morning and to the rest a few moments ago. They are all headed to Tokyo for the next few days and then go their separate ways. As for me I'm all packed up and just killing time until my bus. My luggage comes to a combined 64kg and I will be lugging that around Nagano until 10:30 tonight and then for a little while after I arrive in Osaka Tomorrow. That's the start of the next act of my trip. Back to Osaka for a month and then off to Tokyo. I've not planned more than that. Cat will be visiting on the 3rd and will be here for two weeks. We have a lot of sightseeing to do and I'm really excited to see cat and show her around Osaka, Nara and Kyoto. We're also going to go to a few places I've not been. When I head off to Tokyo in May it's to meet my family who are coming to Japan for a fortnight. So I'm really looking forward to that too. As for what comes after I don't know. As long as my money holds out I will stay in Japan. I will grab some bar work as soon as I get to Tokyo and then look into maybe some summer resort work in Okinawa. Just need to be careful with the cash. I'm half way through my trip and have about half the money I came with. I planned to save so much when I was here but I didn't get paid as much as I thought and also I didn't come here to sit in my room counting my pennies. So I drank and boarded and had a great time.
The last 3 and half months have been different to anything I've done before. When I arrived here I was really nervous and had no expectations. I'd never been on a snow board in my life or ever seen this much snow before. But in my time I've become quite a good snowboarder and even managed to pull a few jumps and tricks. I loved the board home from work each day. (A job I admit I hated) What kept me here waste people. I've made some great friends here, people I hope I will know for the rest of my life. We have lived in each other's pockets for the whole season. And never got bored of each other's company. We all looked forward to meeting back at the dining room for lunch so we could gossip and b**** about our day and plan what the evening would entail. Whether it was going to a party or to the pub or just chilling out in the common room drinking or watching a film. I will miss the friends I made here and hope that we all keep in touch. Two of the guys are from the UK and no doubt we will meet up when I get home. As for the rest of the guys I'm eager to go to Australia and see them all again. I suppose when I said I wanted to travel to Japan for a year most people expected it to be a chain of sightseeing trips and buying souvenirs. But I didn't come here for that. I could visit all the sites and take a hundred photos and id just have the same story and the same pictures as the million people that came before me. I do hope to do these things. But being here means so much more. Rather than see Japanese culture I've been part of it. I've worked and lived Japanese culture and experienced in some part what it's like to live in Japan rather than just visit. I'm actually sad to move on but excited as well to see what comes next.
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