Iwade is serving up it’s usual randomness. As I got off the train my host dad came and picked me up in his flash new car (A benz!) and said let’s go past the old school. I was pretty ready to get home but he says oh look a concert is on! And why don’t we go watch. So we step into the hall and sit down to a school orchestra club performance for the next 40 minutes. I was grinning at the sheer randomness, but fondly because I was remembering how life was always this random and I used to think it was because I didn’t understand what was going on half the time, but actually it probably was just because it was random. Like this. Nice to see Wakayama still going strong in that respect!

It might have been that I still had only had 3 hours sleep? But it was quite a ‘random rush’.

After that he took me to see my host mum who was taking an ikebana course in a japanese room at a shinto temple located somewhere amongst the rice fields scattered with houses.

It turns out I had been there before and the people that lived there remembered me, and I remembered the room and one of the girl’s faces. It was quite bizarre also they rushed out to take pics, but I took it in my stride because, well, that’s countryside Japan for you!

After that we blissfully went back to my house. Quite surreal to be here, but I feel so much home. It’s lovely.

I still have an aching in my chest though when I think about Rocco and TJ.

I also get a version of jealousy when I think about what they’re up to… but it’s not really because I don’t want them to enjoy their week just that I’m left out of it all.

Different paths.