Carissa's Exploits and Fabulous Adventures




Japan Round Two

Friday, December 24, 2004

Soooo cold! It was supposed to snow last night and I woke up early this morning and thought there was a layer of snow on my balcony and was terribly excited! Then I realized it was just the sun glinting off the rain. Grrrr. The cold would be so much more bearable if it was at least pretty (and not raining). I suppose I will be home in a week and can just look at all the snow there.

Speaking of which... YEAH! I am so excited about going home. I have spent the whole week packing and trying to get everything organized. Another thing I love about Japan- I am having my suitcases picked up at my apartment tomorrow morning and they will take them to the airport for me, then I can pick them up near where I check them with the airline! So easy! It means that I don't have to haul the suitcases across the entire country (I'm flying out of Tokyo Narita which is an 8 hour drive from Fukui). It is cheaper to ship the suitcases than to get a bus ticket there, too bad I can't pack myself as luggage and have them take me too (it is almost as fast as the bus).

I am a little nervous about going home. I've been hearing everyone's reverse culture shock stories lately and it doesn't help. When I was in Kyoto for the Japanese Language Exam I was a bit shocked about being around so many foreigners (non-Japanese) because it was more foreigners than I had seen all together in one place in over a year. Fukui is so small that seeing a foreigner (especially a foreigner you don't know) is fairly strange. I see maybe 2 foreigners a day (other than Sean), but some days I don't see any. I also remember last time I went home I didn't have huge culture shock, but the sizes of food threw me off (I ordered a medium coke in a fast food place and they handed me a bucket and were insistent that it was a medium size, while I thought it looked more like a jacuzzi). So although I am excited I am also wondering how I will respond to everything.

I am going to start referring to my neighbor as "The Incessant Vacuumer" He started vacuuming before 9am this morning (long before my alarm clock went off) and was at it for over an hour. Vacuuming my apartment takes less than 2 minutes because it is so small, so I truly don't understand how he could find things to vacuum for an hour (the airconditer? the walls? the ceiling? his clothes? the TV?). There is always strange thumping coming from his apartment also, like he is jumping rope or throwing balls around. I have only seen him once on the day my apartment flooded. He doesn't look crazy, but the strangest sounds come from his apartment, so it makes me wonder what he is doing over there (chopping vegetables really loudly). I'm always tempted to go knock on the door when I hear the thumping and see if I can't figure out what he is up to. My own personal mystery (although probably not novel worthy).

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