I have been kind of losing my mind recently. Planning my trip home, getting all my things packed (I absolutely SUCK at packing) , trying to take advantage of my last weeks here but trying to keep things within budget. Preparing to say all my good byes, while still meeting people and making connections that leave me wishing I had a bit more time to develop. All of these things and more have left me feeling completely turned upside down. I was stressed out just a few weeks before leaving the US to come here, but now I am just as stressed out, if not more, with only a few weeks left before I head out of here. This year has been a real challenge, and I am thankful for what I got out of it, but I am looking forward to getting back to my family and having someone to lean on again.
Even with all the distractions constantly floating around in my mind I was able to have a pretty good weekend with friends. Saturday night Koichi came over and we had some dinner and drinks at my place. We had planned to meet some of his friends on Sunday morning in Nara park and he lives much farther away than I do so he slept on my floor and then we headed to the park around 10am.
Koichi’s friends were from Germany. They live in Nagoya now and are working in a biology lab as part of their PhD program. Linda was working on something with fruit fly’s neural systems, and Julian was studying fish with insulin disorders. I didnt understand it really, but it seemed interesting.
Julian and Linda- whom I had met before- met another German guy at their hostel in Kyoto and he ended up joining us on our day’s adventure. Dominic, works for an education company in Shanghai. It was funny to hear him comment on the overwhelming politeness of the Japanese compared to the slightly (maybe not so slight) more abrasive nature of the Chinese.
We all met up around 10:30 and took a walk around Nara Park. It was a little rainy, but not too bad. We all had raincoats or umbrellas so no one seemed to mind. The park was probably the most crowded I had ever seen, other than the festival where the hill was set on fire a few weeks ago. These next 2 weeks are the chinese new year, and I had heard that the Japanese tourism department estimated that there would be over a half million Chinese tourists visiting Japan during this time. I am not so good at differentiating peoples nationalities by looks, but many of the people we saw in the park were not speaking Japanese. I can only assume they were some of the expected half million from China.
After walking around Nara park, we went to get some lunch at my favorite Indian curry restaurant. They have an awesome lunch special so we all went and pigged out before heading to our next destination.
Horoyu temple is supposed to be the oldest wooden structure in the world and I have been wanting to see it for a while now. Since we started our day in Nara park so early, we had plenty of time to make the half hour trip to Horoyuji in the afternoon. When we got to the temple we noticed that the entrance fee was 1,200¥ (About $10) so we decided to pass on going in. We just took a few photos from outside of the gates and headed back to Nara where we all parted ways. It was a really fun day. I had a great time meeting new people, and I always like showing people around Nara for their first time. Their reactions to the deer are always entertaining.
After the temple adventures. I went into Osaka for a little bit to meet up with another friend for some coffee and a bite to eat. I made it back home by last train and ended up falling asleep pretty easily after the long day.
Monday, I woke up and met my friend and student Yuki at the station. He had the day off since he worked over the weekend, and he wanted to show me his favorite ramen shop. We caught the 11:00am train to Osaka and made it to the ramen shop a bit before noon. The line was out the door and down the sidewalk. It was interesting, because instead of wrapping around the corner, the line stopped at the corner and then continued across the intersection, further down the same street. The lady who helped run the restaurant kept coming out to welcome the next people into the store and tell the people closest to the curb in line to cross the street and join the line on the closer side of the street.
Somehow the rest of this post was deleted so i will give you the abbrevaited version of what I had typed so I can go to bed.
The ramen was good, but it isnt my #1 shop. My #1 and #2 are within walking distance from my apartment.
After ramen i went home, took a nap and then met my friend Zenki for some yainiku and then ended up going to karaoke for a bit.
Yeterday was a good day at work. After work i met up with another friend and didnt get home until late, so I put off posting this until now.
I hope you all have. Nice day. Thanks for reading.