Giovanni was supposed to go with me but his job got busy and he couldn't go unfortunately. I went from October 13th, 2016 to October 31st.
I stayed in Tokyo, in Akihabara for about 5 days at a place called First Cabin Akihabara. Really nice capsule hotel actually with space to stand up in. I got to see Keisuke who actually loaned me his pocket wifi which was super helpful. I saw Atsushi who took me around to Tokyo Tower and paid for a rickshaw (人力車) which was really fun, and we also went to eat monjayaki (もんじゃ焼き) which looks like puke but it's pretty good actually. I met up with Ami and we saw the new Godzilla movie. It was ok, not bad. I got to see Matsushita Machiko also. We went out for steak and since she was staying at the same hotel I was, we were able to just go to the Tsukiji fish market the morning after.
I went to Kesennuma after that and saw Sakurai sensei, who gave me the rest of my pension money along with my hanko. Then I headed to Anchor Coffee where I saw Chuyan and met Dylan, one of the new ALTs. Jonathan King, another new ALT, showed up soon after.
I stayed at Acomo Inn, which was a temporary hotel near Niitsuki for most of the trip. I borrowed their bike every day and went around, eating at Yatai Mura and a bunch of other places. I eventually met the rest of the ALTs at Uotami and other places. We went to karaoke and Sen (my successor's successor) let me stay at his place for the last two days since I had already paid for the hotel for most of the other days. I met Laura at Anchor Coffee Mother Port during the English Cafe they have every Saturday, and I trolled her by letting her believe I was Japanese, that was fun. Aya came and had a blast watching me troll the group as well.
I got to see Megumi who seems to be doing well and has a job now. I didn't get to see Hiroe or Satoko as neither of them were in Japan at the time. Onodera Miu, a former student, came down from her juku to see me at Anchor which was super sweet of her. She said as a 3rd year high school student she goes to school then juku, then studies until 3 am, then wakes up at 6 am to do it all over again. Absolutely crazy schedule.
Hisana, Rine and Hazuki met up with me at Sakura Bowl. They looked to be in high spirits and I was happy I could see them again. Too bad Mahiro couldn't make it.
The Yatai Mura is going to disappear in March, so I was glad I could get back before that happened. Went to Stray Sheep and saw Rina and Maki (different times), and made it to Katsuko and Dejikonju.
I ended up getting a finger infection in Tokyo, and an ear infection. Fun times.
Miyuki, Muzafar's ex-wife, had a Halloween party thing for kids where she just made the ALTs figure out what to do for the 1st half of it. It was pretty irresponsible and I made a joke earlier about the ALTs being used as free labor, but after that I felt like that's exactly what she was doing. It went ok though.
I was able to get to Niitsuki and see Junichi and Chie sensei. I wanted to go back again on Saturday but got caught up in lunch, but I was able to see Dai again, who is now teaching in Karakuwa with Rebecca, so that was good.
I went to Jonan's Bunkasai where I was able to see Kikuta Miu and Suto China. China actually skipped out on her high school club activities to come see me, which was super humbling. That night Sen and I went to Coco's, Rebecca showed up also before we went to Dylan's and played Fibbage until it was time to go to the bus stop. The trip was super good and I wish I could have stayed a little longer, but now on to real life!
Rereading my last post, I forgot to mention that Yumiko got a favorable position in the Sendai speech contest and was able to go to nationals in Tokyo! She didn't win there, but I'm so proud and wish I could have seen her speech!
