And what are my final (well, not really final, since I’m sure I’ll write more about it – but you get the idea) thoughts on the trip?
It was easily the best vacation I’ve ever taken – hands down. And I say that even though it didn’t feel too much like a vacation. It almost felt like I’d been living in Japan instead of just visiting there. I never had that “oh, I’m on vacation so I must do vacation-y things” feeling the whole time. It was always more of a “hmm, what should I do today?” kind of feeling. It felt very normal.It felt like home.
Which might sound odd, since this trip brought the total time I’ve spent in Japan to a whopping nine days. (10 if you add up all the hours I’ve spent in Narita on layovers. But that hardly counts, and it’s cheating.) I did fairly normal stuff, so why shouldn’t it feel like home? I went shopping, hung out with friends, ate, slept, went to a party, took pictures, shot some video – all pretty normal stuff. (Okay, so the sumo tournament wasn’t quite normal.)The fact that it felt so normal has complete cemented my desire to live there. I really like the city (even though it’s ridiculously expensive), I’ve got great friends there and I can function easily enough, in spite of being completely illiterate in the local language (a fact I’ll be remedying). What more do you need? A job, sure. But I’m a resourceful geek with a pretty wide range of skills. If nothing else, I’ve got plenty of ESL experience, and there’s always openings for teachers. I’ll be saving and scrimping for the rest of my time in Korea, building up a nest egg to make the transition easier. I shouldn’t have to live in a box and eat conbini leftovers too soon after getting there if I swing things the right way. (I suppose if things started approaching the cardboard box level, I could always pimp myself out to be somebody’s live-in houseboy. ^.^ )
It should make for a grand adventure. I’ll be sure to let everybody know how it turns out.