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…of boredom until my summer job at Creek Run Day Camp begins. I’m still dying of boredom. Le sigh… If you’re reading this, post a comment, cause that’ll give me something to read as I… rot here in this chair.

On the plus side, I actually finished my Japan Photo Album. So… look at that too.

Gods, when will this boredom end?! @_@

No, it’s not really that bad… I just miss Frances (she’s still in Japan) and Summer is the least motivating time of year for me. I can’t wait for August.

What am I doing now that I’m not in Japan??

Somebody save me please. I’m dying here!

That’s Japanese for Summer Vacation. It just goes to show that I’m still thinking in Japanese… it was more of a culture shock coming back to NJ than it was going to Japan. Mainly because I was so busy and had so much fun while over there, and here it’s just depressing and tsumaranai Collingswood. Summer Camp starts in 2 weeks, so at least by then I will be too busy to notice how bored I am, and then summer will be over before I know it. Until then, however, I just get to miss Japan and the people I met over there.

I’ve been working on a little photo album/webpage this past week. It’s not done yet, since I’ve been getting back into lazy mode again (at least when I’m not spending hours writing email in Japanese), but the pictures are up, so feel free to view it in progress.

I have to admit I don’t take too many photos. I’m really bad with remembering to bring my camera along with me, and when I do, I hardly ever take photos of people, just scenery. Don’t ask me why… just one of my stupid tendencies. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photos that I took… and if you want to see more then visit Leo’s photo page or Joy’s photo page. They’ve got a lot more than I do, including the places that I forgot to bring my camera.

I did however, manage to bring my sketchbook to as many places as I could, and when I didn’t have it with me at the time, I sketched from photos and from memory at night after doing my homework. I worked quite a bit on the sketchbook after coming home as well.

So I’ve finally returned to New Jersey from Japan to face the grim reality that the rest of my natsuyasumi is going to be boring and disappointing compared to the insane business and fun I had in Kanazawa. My flights were long and really boring… they sat me between a really fat guy and the air conditioner, so one half of me was freezing cold and numb while the other half was pressed underneath of a hot sweaty man who needed to take half of my chair in addition to his own. I tried speaking Japanese to some Japanese people, but they just spoke to me in English so it wasn’t very fun…

I spent the weekend in Tokyo with friends, and it was a great end to the most fun month of my life. It was a long time since I laughed like I did in Tokyo, and I’ve never laughed that hard so many times in my life. We had a really great group of people studying together in Japan.

Now that I am back, I’m going to try to finish up my sketchbook and scan it, then upload the scans and the photos of my trip. I’ll post a link as soon as it is underway, as well as posting a link to Leo’s site again once he’s all finished. Since I wasn’t able to update this blog last month, you’ll see that I just now posted my emails that I sent out, so go on and read them if you want.

Oh and I wanted to say thanks to Bronwen, the first person I talked to after I got home. Our conversation went something like this:

Matt: Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bronwen: Hey Matt, when are you going to Japan?
Matt: …….

As with any journey, the return trip is the worst. The whole flight(s) I was checking my little green watch set to Japan time, imagining what I would be doing were I still in Kanazawa, and remembering what it was like to arrive at Eurocentres on that first day of class, not knowing anyone, and having no idea that I was in for the biggest adventure of my life…

The moon looked so beautiful over the Pacific Ocean on the return flight… unfortunately my camera could not capture how pretty the view was

My last day in Japan! :’(

We woke up late in the morning again, and it was a rainy day. Since I had to go from wherever we went to the train and then to the airport, I had to carry my giant, heavy granny-suitcase everywhere I went. :-S That was not fun at all… it was hot, rainy, and Japan is the *least* handicapped-accessible place I’ve ever been to, so there were no ramps or escalators or anything… and since we used the subway so much, I had to carry my heavy suitcase up and down probably 3 miles of stairs alone.

The first thing we did was buy umbrellas… Frances was incredibly helpful the whole time, either holding my umbrella for me, or helping me with my suitcase. We really want to eat, so we set out looking for food, me trailing behind with my luggage. (Chris, Dave, Seul, Jose, and Frances were all lucky enough to be staying longer in Japan than I was, so they didn’t have much to carry.) We went to an old train station-looking place that was converted into restaurants, but no luck… so we went down more stairs, to the basement of a really really tall building… no luck… back down… around the underground areas like a maze, until finally we found a restaraunt suitable to everyone’s liking. We were tired and starving, so we all crawled in there, ordered huge beers (which made us even sleepier) and ate as much as we could.

Even though it was only early afternoon by then, I had to get to the train station with enough time to make it to Narita, so we went back to the subway. Tokyo’s subway system is amazingly efficient — you could probably get to anywhere in Tokyo without ever seeing the light of day. We took a number of trains through the subway maze (again, thanks to David’s knowledge of the area), and we found a JR ticket area. We said our goodbyes, only to bump into eachother again when the group going back to Eurocentres discovered they had gone the wrong way. So once again we said our goodbyes (it was especially hard to say goodbye to Frances for the 2nd time ) and parted again.

Getting from Shinjuku to Narita was strangely a bit harder than getting from Narita to Kanazawa, but I managed it alright. Once again, it wasn’t really until I was waiting for my plane to arrive that I realized I was going away. I tried practicing speaking to a few people in the terminals in Tokyo and Toronto.

The whole time I could only think how lucky Frances and the others were to be going back to Eurocentres at that moment instead of flying to America. The moment I that left, I was already dying to go back.