The final day Antoine and Nel skipped out entirely, to go back and enjoy a day off from school. I was planning to meet Richard, my friend from San Diego, at Sannomiya station at 12:30, so I was going to stick around anyway. The last two seminars were decent – one was from a guy that was one of the original JET’s, and his stories were very interesting. So much different from our experiences.
Once the conference wrapped up I went to pick up my luggage. I was the first person to walk into the huge conference room, and they were ready for a big crowd. Imagine forty people standing in front of a thousand suitcases. Everyone bowed and said “Irrashaimase” when I walked in. I wish my camera was in my hand when it happened. It was so cool.
I went to Sannomiya and bumped into Richard right away. It was good to see him – he had cut his long hair off, and he looked pretty good. We stashed our gear, and then went out for some noodles to catch up.
We walked around Kobe exploring a little of Motomachi, and then we took the train back to Higashi Futami. I showed him around the apartment, and we just relaxed and rested up. Richard’s wife Naoko is organizing his trip, so he’s been busy seeing all kinds of famous sites in Japan.
We went up to Carrefour to do a little shopping and then went to the yakitori for dinner. It was a good opportunity for Richard to use his Japanese, and he did great! The master was a good sport and we had plenty of meat-on-a-stick.
Richard and I came back around 11, and I was so exhausted that I went in to bed and crashed right out. What a day – but it’s nice to put the conference behind me and get back into my normal routine.
