I'm down to a week and a half before I go back to California and I'm starting to miss Japan already. It probably helps that I'm essentially on vacation now and don't have to wake up and go to work every morning.
A big reason why I don't want to leave now is that I'm in the middle of a Japanese learning spurt. I've just become really comfortable with everyday conversation and I've even learned a bunch of common kanji . As a result I can actually read a few signs.
As an example of my progress in Japanese, I had a nice conversation with an old guy in an onsen (hot spring) today. In the locker room he asked me "dochira?", which means "which side?". My experience in Japan has taught me that he was really asking "Which country do you come from?". Then we kept talking for a while about traveling. It was nice becuase I've had very few onsen conversations.
On a completely different note, a few elementary school kids made me extremely uncomfortable. I'm usually at ease in onsen because old guys don't stare too much when you're walking around naked with them. But today 2 young boys and a young girl came in (I guess the separate "men's" and "women's" baths don't apply to children) and made it quite obvious that they'd never seen a gigantic naked white person before.
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