Winding Down

So there's only one more day (today) left in this program. I'll be traveling afterwards and don't know my internet situation so I may or may not update this anymore. BUT here's the wrap up of the trip.

I had an excellent time learning Japanese even though I kind of fell off at the end. I didn't really get a break thanks to DePaul's super-late-calendar. We got out of DePaul June 14th and this program required me to be here on June 11th (leaving Chicago June 10th) so basically I just had to take all my finals early and come straight here. I could handle the work load just fine, but towards the end, I just didn't care anymore. I wanted a break. Good thing this grade doesn't transfer at all. Muah haha.

Yesterday as a special end-of-the-program-treat, my friends host mom invited me and a few people to make Soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles). It was at this awesome little house she has. Coincidentally when my High School Japanese teacher did this program this woman was HIS host mom so we chatted it up about him. Anyway I got there and they were cutting some soba. I don't know if you have ever seen a soba cutting knife...because I know I sure hadn't...but that thing is huge and SCARY. In fact the guy who was cutting the soba when I got there was missing two finger tips. I'm not sure if he lost it from cutting the soba or if he lost it some other way, but either way I was scared of the knife.


So we made some soba and ate it. Mine didn't taste very good.




Anyway, since I'm leaving I'm gonna make a list of things that I miss from home and things that I'm going to miss from here...

Miss From Home:
1) Friends n Family
2) Variety of Ethnic Foods
3) Trains that run late
4) My own bed
5) Normal toilets
6) Soap in bathrooms (No public bathrooms have soap in them and that's gross)
7) Being able to eat/drink and walk down the street at the same time
8) BBQ Sauce
9) Working
10)Being able to play a lot of music regularly

Miss From Japan
1) My friends and host family (especially Hikari and Nozomi, they are awesome)
2) REAL Japanese food
3) Trains that don't reek of excrements
4) Almost everywhere being photogenic
5) Mountains
6) Clean Air
7) No responsibilities other than getting home on time.
8) The weirdest ice cream flavors ever
9) Convenient stores everywhere
10) Vending machines everywhere