The momentum we’d picked up going from Sapporo to Nagano over the same weekend snowballed into our last week of work at the hospital. Last Wednesday, Rhys and I had our leaving party at the hospital’s cafeteria, Malon. The turn out was a little smaller than we had hoped as half of the wards we had worked at were attending an important meeting, but nevertheless, director of the hospital Dr. Ishikawa, the head of the nursing department, and about fifty others of our friends and acquaintances came to see us off officially.
After receiving a certificate from Ishikawa Sensei, receiving the Japanese way of course with two hands and a bow, we wandered around the room talking to people, eating washoku and drinking beer to calm our nerves. The director had said his words already, and soon it would be down to Rhys and I to deliver our leaving speeches. We knew in advance we’d have to say something and had the chance to prepare something with our Japanese teacher, but it was still the source of nervousness. We can speak Japanese to some degree from the six months we’ve spent here, but the hospital provided us with such a fantastic experience that it’s hard to really find the right words.
Nevertheless, we decided to make the speeches without any kind of note to help us (that would be cheating), and managed to talk for three or four minutes. I made up for my limited Japanese with some poor jokes, and otherwise managed to remember what I wanted to say. Dr. Ishikawa complimented us on our Japanese after we had finished. I just hope I can build on the Japanese I’ve learnt here over the last half-year when I return to England and don’t forget it all during my travels.
After the speeches were all done and dusted we received a few gifts from the hospital, including our very own inkans, with our names written in katakana. Inkans are small red stamps every Japanese person seems to carry and are used rather than signing. Although far less secure than signing, which is easy to fraud in the first place, these stamps are all you are able to use when signing documents, slips and whatnot at work. Following the leaving party, we went to an Izakaya with Yamashita, Hiromi and some others, and ate raw whale. It was pretty tasty.
The following day, we were invited out to a meal with Dr. Ishikawa, at a hotel overlooking Nagoya Castle. It seemed like he’d booked the best – and most expensive – seats in the place. We had a five or so course meal whilst talking to him and his wife in half-Japanese half-English, although wearing the same clothes as the night before. Not because we’d had a crazy all nighter and had no time to get changed, but because we only brought a single suit each. Which is still at least one more suit than most people take on their gap years, I’m sure.
The pictures stop here. Now I have left my apartment in Nagoya, I have no means to upload them to the internet. They are still being taken though and will appear sometime in the future, all going well.
As I turned nineteen on Saturday, just another number but as some annoyingly pointed out “still a child in Japan”, I went out to the Hard Rock Cafe in Fushimi with lots of the people working at rehabilitation at the hospital. We have a lot of friends in rehabiri, but none of them could make it to our leaving party due to the aforementioned meeting, so it was great to get another chance to hang out and drink with them. The night finished with a couple of hours in a karaoke booth singing everything from Oasis to outdated Japanese anime theme songs.
On Sunday, as well as clearing out my apartment, Rhys and I were taken to Ise by Yamashita, home to Japan’s biggest and holiest shrine. In the evening we went back to Yagoto and visited Soda Pop for a final time. After we told one of the owners it was our last night, he called the other and she came to say goodbye which was a nice surprise. The day after, I sent a load of my unneeded possessions back to England, handed the room key back to Tojo san and was gone.
I feel weird writing about my last week in Nagoya, because although less than a week ago it seems like an age has passed since. As soon as I left the apartment on Monday, I met with Hiromi, and along with Akichan we began the long drive to Tokyo. When I told Hiromi I had some things I needed to do in Tokyo before my travels, she found she had a three day holiday at the time and could make the trip. Not only would the time in Tokyo have been a lot less fun without Hiromi and Akichan, having to get the Vietnamese visa and anti-malarials would have been a nightmare without their help, the places being hidden away on back alleys in the suburbs.
After six hours on the road accompanied by cheesy J-pop and ABBA, we arrived in the capital of Japan around half past seven in the evening. Despite having visited Tokyo for two days right back at the start of my Japanese adventure, it felt completely different now I am accustomed to both the language and culture here.
Over the few days I had to spend in Tokyo before my flight from Narita, we went up the Tokyo TV Tower; much like any other but a little taller, walked around the streets of Shinjuku and Shibuya, which is home to the biggest pedestrian crossing in the world, and I got to spend a couple of nights in a capsule hotel. Whatever you’ve heard about capsule hotels is probably true. They are cheap, easy to find and easy to book into and the rooms have little TVs in the ceiling, but the good points end around there.
After booking in at the lobby in a capsule hotel just out of Shinagawa, I went up to the third floor to my room, which is actually just a small hole chiselled out of the wall. There were about seven floors in the hotel, each having two rows of capsules, maybe around forty capsules per floor. The hallway with capsules lined up one after another was quite reminiscent of a mausoleum. Mine was on the upper level so I had to clamber up a small step ladder to get into my capsule. Due to the small size of the lockers and huge size of my backpack, I had to sleep with the thing in my coffin sized box. It was fun for the experience, and the location of capsule hotels is usually pretty decent – the second one I stayed in was 15 minutes walk from the centre of Roppongi – but finding a youth hostel a little bit out of town is a better option. It’s no more expensive, often cheaper in fact, and a lot more comfortable.
Japan sometimes feels like the kind of city you might read about in a science fiction book from the 1950s. Things like the capsule hotels, huge TV screens in the big cities and the fact the only birds you hear are the artificial ones which chirp out when pedestrian crossings turn green, or the woodland ambience noise which is played out from speakers in the subway systems across the country.
Sitting outside in Bangkok, where I’ve been since Friday afternoon, it was refreshing to hear some real birds for a change and the sounds of a living, breathing city. The air pollution and traffic is unrivalled however, so my taxi ride from the airport was long enough to pick up some basic Thai from the driver. Apparently, the word for cat is pronounced a lot like “meow”.
Anyway, it’s nice and hot, and such a different atmosphere to Japan. I was a bit uncomfortable finding myself homeless after vacating my apartment in Yagoto, but now I’m at the start of my trek into south east Asia, I’m geared up and ready to go. I sort of miss being able to communicate in the local language, it feels just like when I arrived in Japan in the first place. But it’s fresh here, new and exciting. And I feel free.
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