Here I am, heading back to Toronto!
I can’t believe the month in New Brunswick/Japan ended so quickly, it
literally went by in a blink of an eye!
The twelve of us spent our final week in Japan working on our final
projects and preparing for the presentations (good thing we did, because the
past Vice President of Panasonic came in as a panel member and questioned some
of us to death!). There’s still a load
of work we have to do after we get back, so we’re not finished the course quite
yet, but everything feels pretty final now that we’ve all said our
goodbyes.
Right after our final presentation, we were taken to a really really
good restaurant where we had our farewell party with all our professors. Afterwards, we packed our bags and headed off
to a baseball game – Hanshin Tigers verses the Carps (sounds terrifying
right?). It was a sad game, the Tigers played worse than the Blue Jays (say what!!?), but it was
amusing to watch anyways. In Toronto,
people cheer...but never the way the Japanese cheer! The Japanese fans had full on songs for each
player which they sang in unison and echoed through the stadium. Then the carp’s fan section had an actual
dance that they did in unison, it was literally one of the coolest things I’ve
ever seen. The fans varied from
extremely old people, to men who clearly came straight from their job and were
eating dinner in the stands. Afterwards
we had our own final farewell in the 24 hour pub we spent some time in over the
past two weeks. Afterwards I tried to
catch some zzzzs before seeing off my roommate at 5am, while others chose to
YOLO it and pull an all nighter doing crazy stuff like climbing mountains
(literally) while they still had the opportunity. It was a pretty fun night with all of us no
longer scared of the crazy rules – we snuck out like pros (without setting off
the alarm this time) and we didn’t give a hoot about getting
caught...yup...pretty badass.
The next day we all went our separate ways and said our final goodbyes
which was bittersweet. After a full month
of seeing each other literally every second of the day, it was hard to say
goodbye and even harder knowing there almost definitely won’t be an opportunity
to see everyone all together again. Some
Canadians stayed in Japan while others took direct flights to the states. I headed to Tokyo where I caught a bus from
one airport to the other. Then I checked
into the airport hotel for the night and headed back to the airport bright and
early this morning. Check in literally took 22 minutes and I got to go home on
Japan Airlines (I’m loving it – new movies and really good food...it’s as close
as you’ll get to 1st class without being first class!)!
This trip has been so much fun – it’s had the
ups and downs, but I’m so grateful to have experienced an exchange trip before
graduating. Making the personal
connections, and meeting 11 really close and amazing friends is something which
would probably be much harder during your typical traveling adventures.
Overall, I think the hardest part about being in Japan was the language barrier
– in some ways I think it would be easier if I looked western as most people
assumed I was Japanese. I’m so sad this
summer ended so quickly, but I can definitely say this has by far been one of
the best summers of my life. From
Toronto to China, New Brunswick to Japan, I’ve seen so much and learned even
more along the way. To whoever has been reading this blog, thank you for coming
along on my adventures with me and I hope it hasn’t been too boring. I will of course continue blogging (this
thing addicting...and a wonderful procrastination tool) but I don’t expect
anything exciting enough to happen anytime soon...so until then have a good one
xD
-M
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