day 35 - back to the roots

08/07/07 later...
the last full day in japan. i left the yoshioka's house in the morning. mz baggage was still very heavy because of all the stuff that i hadn't thrown away yet. we drove to the yokohama station (which is probablier easier to reach from setagaya). i boarded the nozomi shinkansen (the fastest one) and the ride to osaka took barely more than 2 hours. i was picked up by kitamura-san and ueno-san (remember, they picked me up on day 1). i was looking forward to get to the hotel and relax a bit, but they wouldn't be japanese if they hadn't already made plans for the day. so i had to go shopping for a souvenir (i told them i already had enoug), i had to eat takoyaki although i wasn't hungry and so on. the usual deal, hehe. we went to the planetarium which was interesting, but i didn't understand the japanese explanations and fell asleep in the comfortable chair. in the evening they had a small farewell party for me. to my surprise not only osaka's mochizuki-san came, my host families from himeji and kyoto were also there. fun! after that they brought me to the hotel and i had my own private farewell party, walking around the airport at night and enjoying my last private moments.