So hard to say goodbye to yesterday

Wow, this is it. My last night in Japan. I can not even believe it. It is basically the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. I guess I will back track and update on the last week and a half or so...at least what I can remember. God, many tears will continue to shed...

Wednesday the 28th started the "study days" which basically means sleeping in and going out at night. Wednesday, my friend Daz invited me to go to have Shabu-Shabu, which is raw meat that you then dip into boiling water...kind of like fondue? Anyways, it was Daz, Lucas, AP, Ivan, Jia, and two Japanese girls. For less than $30 it was all you could eat and all you could drink. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun and I drank a decent amount of wine.

Thursday I went to DISNEY LAND with my friend Rian. Oh man, what a spectacular day we had. The weather was chilly, but perfect. The park was completely decorated for Christmas and it was the epitome of magical. The lines weren't very long at all. I, again, was a 7 year old kid. However, I was more excited than the majority of the 7 year olds. I fell in love with Peter Pan as well as our Jungle Cruise Captain. So many adorable Japanese kids. It was so hard not to kidnap them. Anyways, the day was absolutely spectacular.

Friday I had my Japanese oral final. It went decently. I messed up a bit, but I am hoping to still pull of an A for the class. After school Nadra, Sara and I made our way to McDonalds for the arrival of the muchly anticipated Strawberry Shortcake McFlurry. McDonalds had been tempting us for a month and on the 3oth it finally came out. It did not disappointed and was completely delicious. After that, Kyle, Keith and I went to Kichijoji, a really awesome town near where Keith moved to. There were great shops and a fabulous park. The leaves literally looked on fire. The lake was beautiful. It was quite relaxing. I then went to visit Keith's new apartment and it was great fun.

Saturday I went to lunch with Jon to an Indian restaurant. The food was delicious, however, I seemed to have come down with a case of food poisoning or something along those lines. I was horribly sick and miserable all of Saturday night. Sunday afternoon I was luckily feeling just well enough to go visit Rian's new apartment in Koenji, where So lives. The three of us went to dinner at an okinomiyaki place. It was good, but I was hesitant on eating a lot. After dinner, I went to Jon and Lucas's new apartment in Higashi Nakano for their housewarming party. It was quite nice. It was a relaxing, intimate time with good friends...and outside of the dorm, which made it even better. I slept over there and then Monday was spent with me pretending to start packing.

Tuesday was a very stressful and chaotic afternoon, but then I went out to dinner with my friend Takahiro, who I met in my one class. We met up in Shibuya with some of his friends and went to this amazing restaurant called Elephant which had Thai/Malaysian/Indian-ish food. Not only was the food great and the atmosphere amazing, but they had a coupon so the entire meal was 50% off...but then his friends all paid for me since I was leaving. So nice...I had never even met these people before. After dinner we went to karaoke for 2 hours. We were in the biggest karaoke room I had ever seen...and there were only 5 people. I swore the room could have fit at least 20. This was the first time I had been to karaoke in which I was the only person really singing in English. It was awkward, but definitely a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I had to come home and study for my final on Wednesday.

Wednesday was another great day...well, once the final was over. Luckily it wasn't too bad. After the final, my friend from music class, Katsuya took me to this adorable cafe called Cafe Life and we got some cake. I'm really happy that I was able to actually hang out with my friends from school outside of school. Granted, it took until the very last possible week, but nonetheless, it was still a lot of fun. After I said goodbye to him, I rushed home and then went out again. I went out to dinner to the Elephant restaurant again, this time with Nadra, Jon and Lucas. It was a great way to end the semester. We were all relaxed finally and I got to spend it with my 3 best friends that I made. Unfortunately at the end of the night I had to say goodbye to Jon and Lucas. Lucas I will hopefully be seeing in a few weeks in Disney World, but I don't know when I will see Jon again.

Today...the last day. This morning I went to cancel my health insurance and then to visit Nadra's apartment in Kawasaki. Visiting all of my friends' new apartments is quite depressing because they are all so fun and adorable and I really, really wish I was able to actually live here in a proper apartment and be completely on my own. Oh well. After that I met up in Shibuya with So to cancel my cellphone. However, it turns out I am able to cancel it at the airport which is awesome because now I can use it up until the last minute if needed. So and I then went to a cafe where we had some really good conversations. I gave him a stuffed panda, his favorite animal, to thank him for all he has done for me. I then had the extremely difficult task of saying goodbye to him. He was basically the only person who I have been good friends with since the very very beginning. He has done so much to not only help me, but he helped all of my friends as well. I really really really hope that he will be able to come visit me.

Since then, I have had the burden of breaking down into tears virtually every 10 minutes. There are only around 10 people left in the dorm. Luckily Nadra is still here to keep me going. I am almost finished packing at this point. I leave tomorrow around 10:15. I am debating staying up all night and just sleeping on the plane. My walls are now all empty, which is very discomforting. I have been getting calls and messages from my friends with the final goodbyes. I haven't been able to officially say bye to a lot of people, but I can only do so much. It's hard to see and talk to everyone considering most people aren't living in the dorms anymore and have left all throughout the week.

Sigh. This has singlehandedly been the best thing that has happened to me in my 22 years of life. I have made some of the best friends and have made some of the most incredible memories a person could ask for. Yes, things went wrong. Yes, I wasn't 100% happy the entire time. But god, it really was all I could ask for and more. I can't see how I'm supposed to be ripped away from here. It's going to be a long, long flight home.