I said my farewells to Brenda, Alyssa, and Julia, and then Steve drove me to the airport. I really had a great time with them, and they were very hospitable. They really made my short stay in Australia enjoyable.
At the airport I met up with the rest of the gang, and checked in. Andy and his wife Michelle were there at the airport, and everyone took lots of pictures. I ended up posing for photos with everyone here and there.
Mr. Hayashi said that because he bought my ticket at the same time as Miss Kageyama’s, we were sitting together in the front of the plane. He was stuck in the back of the plane with all the students. An hour after takeoff he came up to see us and check to see if there was an open seat nearby, but unfortunately the plane was full.
The trip back was nine and a half hours, but it went by fairly quickly. Miss Kageyama practiced English and Japanese, and we sat next to an interesting guy that was sort of smuggling himself into Japan. He’s going on a tourist visa, but is going to sneak off into the countryside and try to get odd jobs while he surfs and skis his way around the country. His girlfriend lives in western Japan, but her father won’t talk to him, so he can’t get married. This poor guy is going to lay siege to the father and try to get him to change his mind a bit.
At the airport, we cleared customs without a problem, they just asked me where I was coming from. I got to stand in the “Japanese resident” line, which was fairly short! Unfortunately, they only spoke Japanese there, so the guy just waved me through.
After we got out of immigration, we met all the parents, and even the principal and vice-principal were there. They were putting on a big PR show for the parents that were there. The principal made a big speech, while Miss Kageyama and I waited around the peripheral trying to blend into the crowd. Finally all the formalities were completed and we jumped into the bus back to Kobe. I was home around midnight, and I spent a few minutes unloading my suitcase before I passed out from exhaustion.
