Wow, I feel spoiled...
I'll get to the enkai/farewell party after I account for the beginning of my day.
So, for some reason, I told the Chinese girl that I'd meet her at Loc City in Ogaki at 11am. That meant that from the time I woke up, I had about 15 minutes to get ready, head out, and drive to the station to catch a train that would go to Ogaki. And then from Ogaki, I had to walk for about 15-20 minutes in the sun and heat to get to Loc City. In any case, she'll email me later with her address for sending the vacuum. And she'll furikomi me the money before I send it.
I thought maybe I'd check what movies were playing this today at Corona World, but they're still the same movies as last week. D= So, I didn't end up watching a movie. So, I went to the arcade on the first floor of Corona World, played a game of Pop'n Music, two games of basketball, and one game of... something. I don't remember. Then it was lunch, and I had carbonara from Aphrodite in the food court.
Then, I figured it was time to head back to Gifu station. I bought a couple pairs of socks from the store on the first floor of the station, then went to Animate... I ended up buying a TRC pencilboard, Special A v.14, Gakuen Alice v.16, Kyou mo Ashita mo v.1 (new manga by EMURA -- mangaka of W Juliet), Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto v.1-4 (... the coloring on the covers got me), and Blade of the Immortal ARTBOOK (O_O).
I checked out the various store notices on the wall, and one of them caught my eye:
"Kingdom Hearts Formation Arts Vol.3 及び Vol.2" (及び = and)
They were supposed to come out at the beginning of August, but the date has been changed to 9/13 (Saturday)... not that I'll be in Japan, then. =|
After that, I went to the traditional papers store on the 3rd floor of Active G and ended up buying some long, but narrow shikishi. They gave me a pair of chopsticks for free. Something about a campaign. I didn't look really closely, but the chopsticks looked like they were of a nice design. =)
Then, I killed some time sitting in the waiting area on the 3rd floor, listening to music, and overhearing some ladies' gossip about their children meeting other people they've met online... XD;;;
Around 5pm, I finally got up, walked over to the Gifu Bus Center, asked about overnight buses from Tokyo to Nagoya... got redirected to the JR Travel Agency in the station, and decided to just call it a day for that. XD (I'll check online first, if not, then I'll ask tomorrow or something.)
From there, I took a bus to the place where we had our end of 1st term enkai/my 送別会, 後楽荘. The place was very traditional, and had a nice "yard"? I took a pic of it on my cell phone camera, but haven't uploaded it yet.
I totally didn't have a second speech prepared, so I had to prepare one while we waited for Mori-Sensei to come. It was only 4 sentences in English/6 in Japanese. XD; I got the teachers to laugh, though I wasn't intending to at all, haha. Because I told them that I got better at understand Japanese because of them, so I hope that they also got better at understanding more English. =P
... And then, I got a bunch of things from people. OTL; All the teachers and staff wrote me messages on one shikishi, and got me a light green picture frame with 4-leaf clovers on it, and ALL the students wrote me messages. Holy crap, it was a thick stack of papers binded together. (Most of them wrote in Japanese, lol!) And then separately, the people I usually eat lunch with (Komori-Sensei, Mori-Sensei, and Yazaki-Sensei) gave me each a present: A red door curtain, a fuurin, and a paper lantern.
At the end, the teachers reminisced about when I first came and how the principal had commented that if I wore the school uniform, I could totally pass as a student. And then Mori-Sensei reminisced how she thought I was a student when she first saw me in the teachers room...
They sang me "Furusato," the song that I played the accompaniment(?) for on the piano at the gasshokai last year.
... When I thought it was all over, the principal, plus the three teachers mentioned above, took me across the street to a place called Natural Cafe, and we had drinks (iced tea/cocoa). I managed to read through about 1/2 of the messages from the students in that time. XD; I think I'll share some of them later.
And I've been thinking... If I didn't know Japanese, they would have not written as much to me, and it would have probably been limited to "Thank you" and "Good luck in America." XD; But because they're in Japanese, a bunch of kids wrote more. I like the ones where they wrote about their memories. Some of them are still pretty funny. =P
---
But yeah, now it's past midnight, and I have to get up early tomorrow because I'll be meeting Yoshi at Gifu station, and we're going to go to Sekigahara (ref: Battle of Sekigahara - 1600) and Inuyama(?) tomorrow, and then on Monday, try to go to Mei and Satsuki's house (ref: "Totoro") or Meiji-mura in Aichi. And I want to go watch Ponyo or the Pokemon movie, if possible. =P
So, for some reason, I told the Chinese girl that I'd meet her at Loc City in Ogaki at 11am. That meant that from the time I woke up, I had about 15 minutes to get ready, head out, and drive to the station to catch a train that would go to Ogaki. And then from Ogaki, I had to walk for about 15-20 minutes in the sun and heat to get to Loc City. In any case, she'll email me later with her address for sending the vacuum. And she'll furikomi me the money before I send it.
I thought maybe I'd check what movies were playing this today at Corona World, but they're still the same movies as last week. D= So, I didn't end up watching a movie. So, I went to the arcade on the first floor of Corona World, played a game of Pop'n Music, two games of basketball, and one game of... something. I don't remember. Then it was lunch, and I had carbonara from Aphrodite in the food court.
Then, I figured it was time to head back to Gifu station. I bought a couple pairs of socks from the store on the first floor of the station, then went to Animate... I ended up buying a TRC pencilboard, Special A v.14, Gakuen Alice v.16, Kyou mo Ashita mo v.1 (new manga by EMURA -- mangaka of W Juliet), Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto v.1-4 (... the coloring on the covers got me), and Blade of the Immortal ARTBOOK (O_O).
I checked out the various store notices on the wall, and one of them caught my eye:
"Kingdom Hearts Formation Arts Vol.3 及び Vol.2" (及び = and)
They were supposed to come out at the beginning of August, but the date has been changed to 9/13 (Saturday)... not that I'll be in Japan, then. =|
After that, I went to the traditional papers store on the 3rd floor of Active G and ended up buying some long, but narrow shikishi. They gave me a pair of chopsticks for free. Something about a campaign. I didn't look really closely, but the chopsticks looked like they were of a nice design. =)
Then, I killed some time sitting in the waiting area on the 3rd floor, listening to music, and overhearing some ladies' gossip about their children meeting other people they've met online... XD;;;
Around 5pm, I finally got up, walked over to the Gifu Bus Center, asked about overnight buses from Tokyo to Nagoya... got redirected to the JR Travel Agency in the station, and decided to just call it a day for that. XD (I'll check online first, if not, then I'll ask tomorrow or something.)
From there, I took a bus to the place where we had our end of 1st term enkai/my 送別会, 後楽荘. The place was very traditional, and had a nice "yard"? I took a pic of it on my cell phone camera, but haven't uploaded it yet.
I totally didn't have a second speech prepared, so I had to prepare one while we waited for Mori-Sensei to come. It was only 4 sentences in English/6 in Japanese. XD; I got the teachers to laugh, though I wasn't intending to at all, haha. Because I told them that I got better at understand Japanese because of them, so I hope that they also got better at understanding more English. =P
... And then, I got a bunch of things from people. OTL; All the teachers and staff wrote me messages on one shikishi, and got me a light green picture frame with 4-leaf clovers on it, and ALL the students wrote me messages. Holy crap, it was a thick stack of papers binded together. (Most of them wrote in Japanese, lol!) And then separately, the people I usually eat lunch with (Komori-Sensei, Mori-Sensei, and Yazaki-Sensei) gave me each a present: A red door curtain, a fuurin, and a paper lantern.
At the end, the teachers reminisced about when I first came and how the principal had commented that if I wore the school uniform, I could totally pass as a student. And then Mori-Sensei reminisced how she thought I was a student when she first saw me in the teachers room...
They sang me "Furusato," the song that I played the accompaniment(?) for on the piano at the gasshokai last year.
... When I thought it was all over, the principal, plus the three teachers mentioned above, took me across the street to a place called Natural Cafe, and we had drinks (iced tea/cocoa). I managed to read through about 1/2 of the messages from the students in that time. XD; I think I'll share some of them later.
And I've been thinking... If I didn't know Japanese, they would have not written as much to me, and it would have probably been limited to "Thank you" and "Good luck in America." XD; But because they're in Japanese, a bunch of kids wrote more. I like the ones where they wrote about their memories. Some of them are still pretty funny. =P
---
But yeah, now it's past midnight, and I have to get up early tomorrow because I'll be meeting Yoshi at Gifu station, and we're going to go to Sekigahara (ref: Battle of Sekigahara - 1600) and Inuyama(?) tomorrow, and then on Monday, try to go to Mei and Satsuki's house (ref: "Totoro") or Meiji-mura in Aichi. And I want to go watch Ponyo or the Pokemon movie, if possible. =P