And so it begins...

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Day 86: Tokyo busy and the last goshuin

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I have 5 days left in Japan, to be spent in Tokyo specifically.  Having been in this city for a little over a week already I have had the chance to explore a fair deal of the city, and to no ones surprise I have found it to be exceptionally busy. Everywhere. All the time. I'm used to the idea of places having peak periods. Restaurants, stores, subways all getting busy at certain times of the day. Here, what I would consider peak activity in most other cities in have lived in or visited is merely the baseline. There is a good reason for this sense of hustle and bustle; Tokyo is the biggest city in the world, with 38 million people living here. To put that into perspective, the entire population of my home nation, Canada, is 37.5 million people. One of many exits to Shinjuku station, at 11am on a Sunday morning. At times this sort of density can be intense, and other times it can be frustrating. But for the most part I have simply adjusted to the flow of life here, and ...
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Day 90: End of the line

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I will start writing this final post in Japan, but it won't be finished until I am well beyond its borders. At this moment I am sat on a Russian plane waiting for the last passengers to board before we push back and I make my first brief stop on the long way back home; Moscow. Sadly, it will only be a fast transfer. I won't get a chance to visit.  Perhaps another time. But my final destination today will be Warsaw, where I will spend a 10 days before continuing on. As I sit here, with the plane now slowly taxiing to the runway, I am left with a lot of memories and thoughts about my time in Japan.  When I arrived three months ago I had such different plans for my time here. I had a detailed plan for a long mountain route following the Tokai Shizen Hodo, an intensive hike with long periods of isolation and plenty of nature around me for days and weeks at a time. I came prepared for lots of camping, lots of hiking, and plenty of time in the woods. A pack f...
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Day 89: My last night in Japan

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Tonight is my last night in Japan. I am sitting in my capsule bunk awash in souvenirs and gifts, figuring out how to pack it all into my limited baggage space. Normally I am pretty conservative when it comes to buying touristy things on a trip, but I have surprised myself on this occasion. I suppose being outside the norm was the entire purpose of this trip, so I have definitely embodied that with all the little trinkets I have bought for friends and family back home. One of a bajillion trinkets I have to find space for in my bag! I wasn't sure how I would feel to reach the end of the trip, and perhaps tomorrow I will feel differently once I reach the airport.  But right now I am looking forward to headed out and making my way home.  I feel very satisfied by my trip, by what I have accomplished and what I have learned.   Inside I can feel the mechanism of personal change slowly working, and outside I can see some more apparent changes as well. My l...
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