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The Wrap-Up Post

Dear Readers:
For any of you that still get notifications or such when this blog updates, I'm sorry this wrap-up post is essentially a month late. I, of course, meant to write it earlier, but packing to return home, unpacking at home, and packing AGAIN to head off to my Junior year of college quite stole my time and attention away.

The last week at the newspaper passed quite quickly. I had many long pieces that were simply waiting for enough space to print, so in the last week I had a piece published every day. It's hard to not feel like quite the celebrity! And even though I had a "welcome party" the previous week, at 11pm on a Thursday the society section threw me a "goodbye party" where everyone I worked with, including camera men, came to eat and drink. One of the members used to compete in university-level sumo wrestling, and at the urging of our society chief he, ah, took off his pants to demonstrate...

Then I took another night bus from Kanazawa to Tokyo (10pm--7am) where I met up with my host family from high school! I spent the morning at their Tokyo apartment where I had a simple breakfast, showered, napped, and talked with a German girl staying with them who was interning at a communications company in Tokyo. My host mom saw me safely on the train to the airport, and then I was off on my last huge leg to Chicago.

It's definitely a wonderful and eye-opening experience to travel. And this trip was unique in that I got to talk to many people that are out of the scope of normal tourism. While I realized that journalism isn't for me (unless it's more of a monthly--like the New Yorker, anyone?) I can't wait to get back to Japan.

Stay tuned for the Japan Saga Part 4.

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