This is probably my last post about Japan. My job ends on July 27th since I’m taking PTO for the last few days. My sister, Sophia, is coming then to travel with me for four weeks before we return to the US. I won’t have my laptop then, so no blog posts - plus with that much travel, I don’t think I’d have the time to type it up! It’s an end to an era. I’ve been invited back by so many people. I will definitely return! Japan has carved out another horcrux from my soul.

At lunchtime on Saturday, I had plans to hang out with Y, one of her friends, and K. We met at Yaoko supermarket and bought the ingredients to make takoyaki! It turned out very delicious. Her area was hopping with Pokemon too, so when we left, K and I, went up to Nukisaki shrine, before heading home. In the evening, I had P and S’s farewell party at Raku Raku in Takasaki. We had a whole room to ourselves to be rambunctious in. Ate a ton more delicious food. Such a social day for me, haha.

Then Sunday, today, I had my own farewell/birthday party. It was potluck style. After cleaning up the apartment and a pokemon walk, my first guests arrived 10 minutes early. Nothing like reminding you you're in Japan hah. No standard thirty minutes lateness. Everyone brought delicious food with and it was really fun! A mix of teachers, ALTs, and Japanese friends from GIC and my Japanese class. I have many leftover snacks now though! People even surprised me with presents! I’m so lucky to have met such great people here.

Today was my birthday! Can’t believe I’m already 26 and in a completely different phase of life than my parents were. On Wednesday, we had my goodbye enkai in Takasaki. I actually took the train so I could drink! The most I’ve had to drink too, since it’s all you can drink. Many fuzzy navels, ha. The food was delicious Italian food and about 16 teachers came. O-sensei translated my goodbye speech into Japanese and even the principal had prepared something in English. It was a lot of fun. They even surprised me with dessert for myself - mango ice cream and tiramisu! They sang happy birthday to me! So sweet. I joined seven others on an after party when we went to another locale to celebrate two of the new student teachers for taking their licensing exam. Apparently I work with many younger teachers: 23, 24, 24, me, 26, and 27!

Thursday was the closing ceremony and the start of summer vacation. They did the big cleaning to leave the school sparkling. I gave my goodbye speech with a wobbly voice, but didn’t cry. A, the student council president, gave me a perfect speech in English. She’s an amazing girl. I really wanted to hug her, but knew I wouldn’t be able to keep back the waterworks. They also gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I handed out my choco pretzels and walked around giving the extra to students as well as taking photos with them. Around 3 pm, I had arranged to play tennis with H-sensei! A-sensei came with as well since she used to play soft tennis in middle school. I finally discovered the changing rooms at school, with a tatami mat section ha. You could take naps here! H-sensei bought us sports drinks and we headed to the courts, another spot I’d never been. It’s right next to where the tea ceremony club and koto club practice as well.

H-sensei brought hard tennis balls and rackets so we could play! The students were all surprised when we showed up ha. It was great to play tennis again although I started off really horrible. I tried hitting the soft tennis balls a bit, but it was so weird! You have to swing really hard, but the weight of the ball hitting your racket is light. A-sensei turned out to be quite good at hard tennis too. I ended up playing till 5 pm and then chatting with the girls a bit. My arm was really shaky at that point, I have no muscles left! But at least I wasn’t completely awful.

Today, On my birthday, Pokemon Go was released!! I promptly got the game and walked around town after school. The silk mill area has tons of Pokemon. K met up with me later and we went out to eat for dinner. The Iranian place was closed once again, apparently you need reservations for them to be open at night, so we went an Italian instead. Since I had to work, it was an uneventful bday, but I got the wonderful present of Pokemon Go and the news that Emily Prentiss was returning to Criminal Minds, haha.

Saturday evening I had a combined farewell party with GAJET and GIC at the Maebashi beer garden. I ended up driving as usual because of the train fares and lack of cocktail selection. I also had to stop at a store to get some pretzels in order to make chocolate dipped pretzels as my goodbye presents to my co-workers. It was good to see loads of people again and I stayed the full 5 hours, chatting and eating loads of edamame. It was my last time seeing a lot of people so it was bittersweet. I almost went for karaoke afterward, but I still had an hour drive home and I was exhausted. Not meant for all night partying ha. Although this was a three day weekend, I had no plans and it was glorious.

Yesterday was my goodbye party with the English Club. I brought back funfetti cake mix from America and I still had the brownie mix from when I first came to Japan so we baked them together. The bright blue icing really freaked them out! Apparently it tastes quite different from Japanese frosting, but not that bad. We also watched She’s the Man in the AV room while the cakes were baking. The club provided the drinks and we got to eat them while watching the movie. It was really fun. Though I didn’t realize how scandalous She’s the Man is! So much kissing and naked male chests. Plus the gender reveals are even crazy by American standards. How do you explain the concept of kissing booths and southern debutantes? I think they enjoyed it though? I was happy that streaming the movie on netflix with my phone and tethered laptop worked. At the end, M presented me with a box filled with letters from them and a picture of us all together. Too sweet! I ended up crying during my thanks and made some of the girls cry too. I’m gonna miss this bunch.

Then today was my last day at Shimonita. I thought I could make it without crying, but the one on one talking and surprises did me in. I said my goodbyes to the teachers during the staff meeting, but then at lunchtime, some of the girls surprised me with thank you notes from the second years and one of the third year classes. Such beautiful art and decoration so I teared up a bit. Then in the afternoon I gave my goodbye speech with M-sensei translating. The tallest boy and only person taller than me, T, gave me a goodbye speech. He was nervous but he did a great job! He then gave me flowers as well! Later I received some omiyage and a goodbye present (daruma!) from the principal. I even had a farewell talk with him, mostly in Japanese, and he even teared up thanking me for everything I had done. I’m glad the students enjoyed having me around.

So I had been planning to have a group trip up to Oze for a while and I managed to get one together for today! I was hoping to see the daylilies, but we had to make arrangements so far in advance, it was only a guess if we’d be able to see them. Due to the warm winter, all the blooming times were off. We took three sets of cars up to Oze, one from Maebashi, one from east Gunma, and one from my area. A-sensei (a new young teacher at my school) drove us from her house. We had arranged to meet at Oze at 9 am at the Oshimizu entrance. Two of the guys from the winter Asama hike were coming too, plus two other people I hadn’t met before, for a total of 10 folks. The last car came at thirty minutes late because they had some troubles. We actually had to park in overflow parking as the main lot was already full. It was just a short walk up the street.

Having Japanese people with was really handy! K found out that there is a shuttle bus up the first part of the road to the first hut! The long, boring gravel road that took Papa and I over 1.5 hours with our heavy packs. We could have skipped it and paid 700 yen for the bus fee, by buying tickets inside the shop, and it would have been a 10 minute ride! The next bus left at 10 am, so we killed some time before boarding. It was much nicer hiking from the actual trail part and without a heavy pack! We were much faster! We took some photos by the lake and decided to have lunch at the next spot, where Papa and I ate breakfast last time. There were some many people this time! According to the visitor center, we came on the peak day for the blooming lilies!

We had lunch overlooking the marsh, spotted with yellow, and the lake. Everything was so green and lush after the rainy season. Completely different than one month earlier. The trail was completely muddy and wet in several spots. The lake was filled with reeds that undulated like the waves in an ocean. Mesmerizing. After lunch, we checked out the lilies before continuing our full circle around the lake. The latter part I hadn’t done before so that was interesting. The trail was much more worn down and followed the lake’s edge closely. One spot was perfect for sitting on a stone beach! I promptly waded into the water and several others joined me. It felt so good! Papa and I could have totally gone swimming here, although it started out shallow.

I felt great during the hike and only at the end started to feel some aches and pains. Progress! It was much flatter than what I’ve been hiking recently, ha. The last bus back left at 4:30 pm which we missed, so we just walked the downhill stretch back to the cars. A total of about 17 km, a rise of 600 m, and 7 hours hiking. It was fun to go with everyone especially because it was their first times!