As the years went by, my optimism that I'd ever return to Japan, let alone Mito, grew dimmer and dimmer, and I'd all but forgotten that I'd ever started this blog at all.
But about 9 months ago, something happened. I got a job, woke up one morning, realized "Holy cow, I have disposable income and vacation time", and that since the last people I knew at my University were graduating in March, this WAS going to happen, or I'd be a monkey's uncle.
And about two weeks ago, that day finally came. I could hardly believe it and for the longest time it honestly didn't feel real, though that could have been how long and indirect my route could have been to get there. It was one of the longest travels of my life and resembled something like this:
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| The Ibaraki countryside at sunset, from the bus I road to Mito. One of the reasons I am so happy I didn't study in Tokyo. The beauty of the Japanese countryside is often overlooked. |
- 12:30am - go to work, leave car with security because this location was closest to the bus pick up location
- 1:00am take taxi to bus pick up location and wait
- 2:00am take bus to the city
- 4:00am arrive at airport way ahead of schedule, so sleep at the airport for 4 hours.
- 8:00am take flight number one. Arrive early at layover. Sit around there for 4 hours
- 1:00 pm (12 hours in and we haven't even left the country just yet!) take 13 hour flight to Tokyo
- 2:30am (still using US time) arrive in Tokyo
- 4:00am take bus to Mito from Narita.
- 6:00am arrive in Mito. Take Taxi to International Student House
- 6:30am arrive at International Student House.
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| Mito station. Had I not been lugging a behemoth purple suitcase behind me, I might've skipped for joy to be walking through here again and to hear that annoying Yamada Denki store jingle. Post Tohoku earthquake, it was very apparent to me that they'd put a lot of energy into giving the station a facelift and revilatizing the area -- it was even nice, cleaner and more lively/had more shops than when I had lived here four years ago! |
That's a whopping 30 hours from start to finish! But boy was it amazing and worth it!
If you read this blog the first go around, it shouldn't surprise you to know, that after dropping my suitcase off at my friend M's room, I dragged her out to Taiko, where we had dinner with the currently graduating E.S.S. members, who were freshman when I lived here. Freshman. Like as in they started school the same time I did, and I corrected all of their speeches for the speech contest freshman. It made me feel very old realizing that...
My friends all kind of laughed at me at first when they asked me where did I want to go in Mito when I got back....and my instinctive and immediate reaction was the 2 restaurants I always went to while I lived there -- Taiko and Takarajima. It's not that I'm a pig, or obsessed with food, but really...North Mito is kind of in the boonies. The most exciting thing within a 2km radius is probably Don Quiote. The buses in Bunkyo-cho (where the school is) and Hori-machi (where I lived), really didn't run all that often, and not everyone had bikes, so my friends and I spent a lot of time eating out, and these two places have the most memories in particular!
Walking to Taiko was so nostalgic, particularly because I remembered the way, including the shortcut behind max value, the grocery store. It was just like nothing had changed. When we got there, there were 4 seniors, and one 3rd year, who had never met me, but was so intrigued by me/had heard a lot of stories about me I guess, so he decided to come along too.
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| E-chan, 3rd year-chan, Keita, N-chan and Kanae. I was so happy that despite it being the holidays and three days from graduation, so many people came to see me after so long! |
There was N-san, who was the freshman who kept hugging me and crying "You can't go! You can't go!" at the last E.S.S. nomikai, and the person who arranged the whole shindig, Keita-san, who, blatantly asked me "DO YOU REMEMBER ME?!" to which I had to go "uhmmmmm....I so totally remember your face. Honestly I do. But what is your name?" I told him I was so embarrassed, but I think he forgave me when he saw I really did mean it when I said I remembered him because our conversation went something like this:
Keita: My name is Keita
Me:....Oh my gosh YES! OH YES YES YES YES YES! I remember whenever we went to go play the drinking game....gosh what was it called?! OH! Ya know, where you have to use a one syllable nickname of your name? And Rinda was Rin, so I couldn't use the Rin (Lyn) in my name, so I had to be "Kei" (Cait), and then YOU couldn't be Kei, so I think you had to use your last name, but that was ALSO someone's nickname, so it was REALLY hard to figure out what to name you! So I think we eventually settled on "Ta"
Keita:.....Oh wow... you're right. I totally forgot that game.
So once I proved I truly did know who he was, all was forgiven and we had dinner!!! I got the same last meal I had when I came the last time with A-chan, Y-chan, Tak-chan and the other American I traveled with -- Set meal number 5! Stamina-donburi with Ramen. Darn if I know why it's called Stamina-donburi, but it sure is tasty. Just as tasty as I remembered it and then some due to nostalgia.
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| Behold the glorious deliciousness that is the Number 5 combo at Taiko Ramen. |
There are also 3-4 schools that attend AKEL (that conference in the mountains I went to), on a rotating schedule, and since it's been 4 years, guess what? It's Ibaraki's turn again! That made me really happy!
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| This took more tries than I'd care too admit to get just right. |
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| Mito Komon wonderfulness! Thanks E-chan! :) And this was the moment that I realized "Hmm. I totally miscalculated on the amount of things I want to buy vs. people giving me gifts and suitcases on the return trip will be a problem." |
They then took me walking around the school in the dark and woah has it changed (more on this in a later post in which I detail Sunday's goings on), and we parted ways, but not before E-chan gave me an Omiyage!
With MITO KOMON ON IT! Because anyone who knows me, knows I love all things Mito Komon (essentially Mito's Nittany Lion), so I was stoked. It's some kind of sweet or cookie, but I haven't opened it yet, so I don't know. Note to self, try one tomorrow.
We parted ways, and then I dragged M-chan off to MAX VALUE! Partially because it still fascinates me a Japanese Grocery store was open 24/7, partially because I wanted to make her breakfast the next morning and needed supplies, and largely because I wanted Makuba's (Max Value's abbreviated nickname) brand of Royal Milk Tea Powder, the potato chip rings (in hindsight, I REALLY should have bought more...), and Acerola Juice, and very little to nothing was going to get in my way. At the grocery store, we ran into M-chan's boyfriend, who was super nice and complete gentleman, as well as said boyfriend's friend, who he and I hit it off right away, and had a lot in common (and it certainly didn't hurt that he was cute....). Then we ran into ANOTHER one of M-chan's friends, who insisted on driving us back to the kaikan even though it was 3 blocks, but hey, I was bone tired, hadn't slept and the juice was heavy, so I was like "heck yeah!"
Back at the Kaikan, M-chan is now essentially the RA, so that's why I was able to stay at the Kaikan again, which was quite possibly the best part about all of this, particularly because she lives in A-building, B-building's (where I lived) identical twin, so it really was like staying in my room all over again! I got to meet J-kun, the most current Penn Stater at the Kaikan. To date, he is the first American I haven't mentored to go on this program, and he had no idea the program was so young! He was SHOCKED when I told him that I was the first American, and had only been there 4 years ago. He was very nice, so we sat around drinking chuu-hi's eating girl scout cookies I brought over, and watching him lose every game of Jenga. He was extremely nice. It finally got to be 1am Japan time, when I figured that I should probably start forcing myself to go to bed. I'm amazed I lasted so long!
I'm surprised I managed to ramble this long, and kudos to you if you made it this far. I'll be back in a few days to journal about Sunday, my whirlwind day of Mito!
Until then! ;-)
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