かえります – I'm Going Home

I only have two more days left in Nagasaki. On Friday I will leave, probably forever. I am very happy that I have done this, and that my work here is nearly over – because it was hard – but it won't be easy leaving my friends and some of the quirky things about Japan that I have come to take for granted. I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment. I have thought about the journey home a lot in the past six months and now it is two days away – wow. This has felt like a time-out from my life so it might be difficult getting back into the swing of things in England. Still, I don't think English food will taste as good, English weather will feel as refreshing, or the English language will sound as melodic as it will next Monday.

My journey home should work out something like this: I am leaving Nagasaki on Friday morning, getting a bus to Fukuoka airport, then hopping on a plane for Tokyo. I will spend the next three nights in the Tokyo International Youth Hostel in Shinjuku-ku and spend the following two days sightseeing in and around the city. Then first thing on Monday morning, I will go to Narita International Airport and get a 12noon flight to London Heathrow. My Dad is meeting me at the airport and he will drive me back home to Preston. *sighs* It will be a very interesting next few days, I think. May is travelling with me as far as Fukuoka airport. From there she is flying to Korea to spend the next three weeks with some of her relatives there. After that she is coming back to Japan and spending a week in Tokyo, then flying back home to Vancouver. I am going to miss her a lot.

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Random photograph: Below is a photo of my favourite road sign. Many of you may not have a favourite road sign but I do. According to this sign, there are only two things you need to worry about: Nagasaki, which is two kilometres underground, and Hirado, which is one hundred and nine kilometres up in the sky. The Most Informative Sign in the World is situated about 2km from Nagasaki train station, which I suppose is the centre if the city. But really, if you hadn't figured out which city you were in until you were that close to the centre, then a sign that says you either need to start digging or head upward to Hirado (apparently your only other option) is surely just going to cause more confusion.