Well, this will be my last entry in Hakodate. Tomorrow morning, I fly to Tokyo. I've been packing for 2 or 3 hours and am rather worried about my luggage being too heavy. Also, I put my videotapes and cameras in a separate bag, which makes me have 4 pieces altogether. You can check in 3 pieces of luggage and 1 carry on item. I don't want to have to put my backpack into the cargo items. It's really heavy and probably will put me over the weight limit. I guess we will see.
I nearly couldn't fit everything into my bags. My suitcase, my extra bag, and my backpack are all full and heavy, and there are still a few items that need packing. Not good.
Today is going to be really slow. Slower than a normal weekend. I was awaken around 9 by some asshole hammering something outside my window far before I was ready. My host mom wasn't home and still hasn't come back.
I did laundry last night and can't finish packing my suitcase because the crap won't get dry. Certainly looking forward to using a dryer again.
Where the fuck is my host family! I'm hungry! All I've had to eat today is Frosted Flakes and pretzels. I didn't know she was gonna be gone all day or I would have made myself food. I don't like messing with the kitchen anyway. I don't know where anything is or how it works. Whenever I try to help her, I always feel like I'm just in the way.
Well, what did I last write about? It's been an awfully long time since I last wrote an entry. Looks like the last one was on 8/12. 5 days ago, that's gonna be tough to recall.
Tuesday. Tuesday was rain and brats. I *think* I stayed at school until late afternoon, came home and attempted to study for the final exam, which was Thursday. The brats made it impossible. Since it was Obon (I later found out), Keiko's husband (father of the brats) and host family's other son, Hideki came to our house, for a grand total of 10 people in our house.
Wednesday, the rain sort of stopped. I had lunch with Bren at Lucky Pierrot one last time and said a pre-emptive goodbye to him. I didn't expect to be able to say much to him on Thursday, and I was right. After I left him, I went back to HIF to study a bit before going back home to the hell that my house had turned into. By the time I got home, I'd walked 5 miles, or something like that.
Host dad was helping out with yet another festival and they tried to make me go. I had the exam to worry about, so I said I couldn't. Host mom took me to have a look around. It turned out to be located in a small paved area in front of a small meeting house near our own house. There was a small platform with a drum and drummer and a circle of bored looking women and children were vaguely dancing in a circle around it. Still *more* odori. They had a playlist of about 4 songs which they'd put on both sides of a cassette tape and turned over every 30 minutes or so. From my bedroom, I could hear the festival quite clearly, so between it and brats, once again, I found it rather difficult to study.
Thursday was the exam, which was pretty hard. Afterwards, we had the individual oral exams and our last visit with the bread lady. She gave several of us parting gifts of an origami bookmark shaped like a woman in a kimono. Before my oral exam, I said an unfulfilling goodbye to Bren, and finished the exam. Afterwards, I made that sightseeing trip in Motomachi that I'd been putting off since my arrival with the annoying Chinese kid. We went to an awesome shrine on the mountain with lots of gates and monuments and a cemetary. I used my last pictures during that day and didn't want to buy another camera, so I have no pictures from the closing ceremony yesterday. It doesn't matter.
While I was gone, everyone left our house. Everything was clean and quiet when I got home. I couldn't escape the festival another night, so I had to put on my yukata and was taken to the boring, loud festival where horrible old women grabbed and pushed me and shouted things at me over the loud music. You know, it's one thing to be barely able to understand a foreign language in a foreign country, but it's quite another matter to try and hear the crap people say at you over ridiculously loud music. They wanted me to do their stupid dance but I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND. I was trying to watch and learn and they wouldn't even let me do that before shoving me into the circle of bored old women and children. Once again, I say, all Japanese people are going deaf and with good reason.
It was truly a boring festival. The only thing they were doing was that stupid dance around the drum platform. Every now and then my host dad shouted something into a microphone and some women in Groucho Marx glasses and nurse uniforms joined the circle at some point. After a while, I managed to convince host mom to take me home and I spent the evening talking with her and Hiroshi.
Friday, yesterday, was closing ceremony. We all did a little graduation walk and our teachers made little speeches. Our sensei, Aoki, cried so much during her speech that she nearly couldn't finish it. We were given little gifts and had a reception with chicken nuggets and cold french fries. Even though the fries were cold and stale, they still tasted good. And we ate them with chopsticks. After a while, I said goodbye to Sarah and Rich and anyone else I felt had been worth it, and got host mom to drive me to the Hiroba area for one last email check before my long journey home. I'd been by on Thursday, but by the time I got there all the private booths were full and I was gonna have to sit between some kids playing video games so I left.
After I was done at Hiroba, I leisurely walked to Goryokaku station to save money and got there as the train I needed was leaving. Since I was gonna have to wait an hour for the next one, I rode the first one available back into Hakodate and waited there. Goryokaku station sucks. I had a very quiet dinner with host mom because host dad had to go to a funeral and Hiroshi was late getting home.
Well, whaddya know, the forcast for Tokyo tomorrow is RAIN! And it goes without saying that it will be raining in Hokkaido.
Just said goodnight to host dad for the last time. He and Hiroshi are working tomorrow so I probably won't see them again. Host mom alone will be taking me and my extremely heavy luggage to the airport. Tonight I will sleep in my hard little bed with my bean bag pillow for the last time. For all my longing for this day, I still feel sad about leaving them. But when I think back to the beginning, I wouldn't do that again for anything. And this concludes my last entry in Hakodate.