Already?

Welcome to our last day in Nanao.  Tear.  The students all went into the day with bright smiling faces,  but the sun soon mimicked the tears rolling down the many faces and our time in Nanao drew to a close.

Before the tears though, we started the day with the Soroptomist women.   The students were led by a priest to attempt Sazen meditation for ten minutes.  They were supposed to clear their mind and fall into nothingness.  I’m not sure if this happened for anyone, but they sure were quiet for those minutes.   The room was full of peaceful students sitting cross-legged on tiny black pillows.  It was nice.  The only thing discouraging about this temple area was that the trees were infested with the most horrendous of spiders.  These were thumb-sized(body) spiders that will haunt the dreams of our students until the end of days.  Or maybe just my dreams.

We then went to another location, but we were still with the Soroptomist women.  This location was sort of a playroom type place.  The students played Jenga, made water balloons and also had to move marbles from a tray with chopsticks.  True and Megan were pretty good at this.  We then had lunch provided by the women.  There was sushi, shrimp, rice flour soup, pizza and then some. 

After lunch the kids were able to make cotton candy in all different colors.  Then there was about an hour of just hanging out in the room.   Our Japanese chaperones gathered a few pillows and took a nap, so I did the same.  I was a bit apprehensive about going to sleep in a room full of teenagers hopped-up on cotton candy, but I got a few winks in. 

When I awoke, everyone was still there, so I guess no harm done.  Speeches were then in order from various powerful women and Meer.  We then said our goodbyes to those sweet women and were off to Cedar Street.

Here we split into our groups again and took turns making incense, painting goldleaf or checking out the shops along the street.  My group started with the street, which was kind of a bust because most of the shops were closed.  The bookstore was open so we went in there, but it was full of not-for-underage-eyes books and magazines, so we quickly left.  BOW-CHICKA-WOW-WOW.  No thank you.  We then went into the candle shop and made some incense type pouches.  We were given jars full of smelly-good essences like: sandalwood, cinnamon, cloves and something that smelled like Vasaline.  We took spoonfuls of each smell and placed it into a pouch.  The woman was very helpful and said that our pouches smelled good.  Thanks lady.  Painting gold leaf is not easy.  It’s like catching trying to catch a snowflake on your finger without it melting.  Close to impossible, but just short of it.  In the shop we were surrounded by 3,000,000-5,000,000 yen shrines.  After trying to make our simple coin key chains, I can appreciate how much time and skill must go into making these beautiful shrines.  They were totally worth the amount of money because of the effort put into them.  Also, ancestors are said to live in the shrine, so the sentimental value is through the roof.

We made an unplanned stop at the Coast Guard office because Yuri’s dad (Jackie’s partner) worked there and he wanted to show us around.  It was cool.  We received some free loot and were able to look out on the bay from atop the building.  We were given binoculars to lookout and Katrina couldn’t really figure out how to use them. 

We had some time to spare so we went to the 100 yen(dollar) store and a Best Buy type store.  There was immediately a line for the for the massage chairs.  These massage chairs were legit.  They massaged your back, feet, arms, hands, neck and bottom all at the same time.  It was hard to leave those chairs; however, not as hard as leaving the next destination: the farewell party.  Get your tissues ready.

The bus brought us to the farewell party before anyone else arrived so that we could practice our CHA-CHA a few times.  We looked pretty good too.  The families started to show up and we all talked and waited for the room to fill.  Once it did, there were the speeches to be given.  Brent did an amazing job on his speech.  He hit all those accents very well, or so I am told.  Mrs. Cooper, Ms. Salter and I gave our speeches and then we were told to start eating. 

After the food was consumed and the bellies were satisfied, we started the fun part, the goodbye speeches.  What is there to say about the goodbyes?  There were tears running down many faces and the faces that weren’t leaking were just putting on a brave face.  A few students definitely turned into Patsy Cline and fell to pieces.  Anna, Alek and Kassity were probably crying the hardest.  It was a tearful affair.  Each student was told from their host family how much they were going to miss them and how it was great to have them here in Japan and how they all hope that this isn’t really goodbye.  We all hope so too.

Then we had to dance.  Yeah, we probably should’ve thought that through when we created the schedule of the party.  There’s nothing like crying behind stunna-shades while doing the Cha-Cha Slide.  We went through it all once and then each student went out and found their partner, gave them glasses, got them on stage and taught them the dance.  It worked out well.  The stage was pretty full and it was a sight to see. 

We were then introduced to the Japanese chaperones for next year.  And flowers were given to Mr. Shimizu for being the Jaycee JW chairman this year.  He gave a speech and then many pictures were taken.  The chaperones then left, so I don’t really don’t know what happened after that or how long people stayed.   It was a great ending to an amazing time in Nanao.