Week 67: the penultimate peril!

My second last weekend in Japan! The start of my last week in Japan! Wow!

On Saturday we had a fireworks party at International Hall. My friend's kid invited all her friends, and we had lots of fun kicking around a deflated soccer ball that I found in a field six months ago, and slapping around a tennis ball with my hockey stick! When it got dark enough, we played with sparklers and the real grownups fired off a few fireworks.

The firework haul!

I also did a test-pack of my suitcase and finished buying souvenirs and bought a box of red bean popsicles. And I saw the google car!!! So maybe my time in Japan will be immortalized on google streetview. Keep your eye on this spot!

I also found a place where I can find a job if I ever need to work in Japan again!

Acne studios.

Before I came to Japan, I found a blog that I really like called 1000 things about Japan. It's written by a woman who lived in Tokyo for about 20 years, although ironically she left Japan and stopped her blog almost as soon as I got here. Anyway, I really like her style of having an alternating list of things that she figured that she will / won't miss about Japan after she went back to the US. Here is my much shorter list, in no particular order. Maybe I'll add to this list next week, because I'm sure there are many other things.

1. I WILL miss the friends that I made here, especially the Bulgarians.
2. I WON'T miss being 12 hours out of synch with everyone I care about (and also being like 6000 km away from them). 
3. I WILL miss being able to take the subway to get anywhere, including the snowboarding hill!
4. I WON'T miss jerkos staring at me for being non-Japanese and whispering "American!" to their friends.
5. I WILL miss bean-based sweets, like my bean popsicles!
6. I WON'T miss not having access to actual functioning deodorant. I have smelled terrible for a month. Even terribler than I normally smell!
7. I WILL miss seeing tanuki and deer hanging around my home / place of business. 
8. I WON'T miss seeing terrifying hell spiders hanging over every doorway that I need to go through and window that I want to look through. 
9. I WILL miss the people that I see on the subway every day. The guy with the neon running shoes who is always dressed in a track suit (I like to imagine that he is a gym teacher).... the lady with a weird hat and unflattering cotton shorts who always glares at me... the schoolgirl who looks identical to Ann Veal from Arrested Development.. the business lady who always shoves in front of me so that she can get on the escalator in front of me, then walks verrrrry slooooowly to the next escalator and blocks my path... the Japanese guy with orange hair that is huger and fluffier and curlier than mine... alas!
10. I WON'T miss being unable to read food labels and worrying about mystery fish all the time.
11. I WILL miss the abundance of mountains to climb and to look at!