As often as I can I try to avoid it. I'm not sure what it is about bidding a fond (or not so fond) farewell to places, people and situations, but I often do my best to make them as low key as possible.
I think about the last couple of jobs that I've left and I've done all that I could to just sort of disappear without anyone noticing or making a fuss of the fact that I'm departing. I think maybe because I don't like all the attention to be drawn to me in that way.
Even at the grand old age of thirty, I've had plenty of these situations in my work and personal life, and it's hard to say that any of them have particularly been easier than others. I guess in terms of people and places, the longer time or greater connection you have then the more difficult the "Goodbye" is.
I remember vividly my last day at Primary School, I managed to somewhat shun the feelings of sadness despite my friendship group essentially splitting in half and going to two different schools, but I can remember by Aunty picking me up and asking how my last day was, and then all of a sudden it hit me that I wouldn't be going back there and I burst into tears.
I'd like to say that when you're younger it has more of an impact on you, but I remember not particularly enjoying leaving secondary school and also university. Attachments to friends always make it more difficult.
After twelve months in Korea, leaving behind the country, the city and the two great friends I'd made, Charlie and Kevin was difficult, and I think for me it's more the contemplation that the situation of everything together will never exist in the same state. I knew that I'd return to Korea some day, and I knew that I'd stay in touch with my the two wonderful people I'd spent a year bonding with, it's more that the stars would never align again so we'd be in that situation.
Maybe I'm too sentimental, don't really know how to let go of stuff or perhaps I'm just rubbish at saying "Goodbye" 'properly' - I'm not sure. But I do know it wasn't easy to leave behind my life in England to come on this trip, and I think that in a week or so's time when I have to bid farewell to this continent once again, it too will be difficult moment for me
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Yes, it is the last day of my stay in Japan, but it isn't the end of my trip just yet. I guess it has a lot to do with how I've felt whilst I've been here and also that I've stayed here for the longest out of anywhere.
As I wrote yesterday, I keep having to remind myself that I have one more country left to visit before returning to England, but I think because I've been here for such a long time and enjoyed myself so much that it feels like the end of something at least.
In that sense, it very much is.
Tonight is the final night I will sleep in a Japanese hotel bed on this journey as tomorrow I will be departing for the final stop on my trip which sees me travel to Hong Kong. Having stayed only two nights in both Hiroshima and Fukuoka (one in the latter as I write this) the end of this journey has felt like a bit of a whirlwind, but I'm glad that I made two short stays somewhere rather than extending any of my other stays or just remaining in one place for four nights.
It's been hard not to focus on leaving tomorrow, but I certainly feel like I have done my best to ensure that these last few days haven't passed me by as I switch focus to my final destination.
Having spent some time walking around Fukuoka yesterday afternoon when I arrived from Hiroshima I feel like this is perhaps one of the cities on my journey that will be unheralded because it doesn't have any major sights to visit or any grand experiences for me to have. I certainly felt like there was the potential for me to have a productive two days though, and today I was going to make the best of things by getting out and about for the final time on Japanese soil.
Located about five minutes away from Hakata train station on foot, I wouldn't say that I'm quite far from everything, but it does seem as though Fukuoka is quite spread out due to its former status as two different cities.
It feels like it's a completely different experience to the ones that I had in Tokyo and Osaka, but more comparable to Yokohama or Kobe, particularly because of its maritime connections with both.
Like those two Japanese cities, Fukuoka is a part city and I believe that it's probably as close to a 'seaside' town as you would find in Japan. Maybe it's just the experiences I've had on this continent, but I don't really feel like most of this section of Asia (Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan) are in to the 'beach life' as much as we are in Europe - perhaps it's because they don't have so many of them.
Obviously I visited Busan in a stretch of time where it wasn't exactly the weather for sunbathing and catching a tan on the beach, but perhaps it just isn't part of their culture.
I remember during our time in Korea, Charlie once told me that whilst Kevin and I were away in Thailand enjoying plentiful beaches, he'd had an experience of his own on the east coast of the country which wasn't quite what he expected.
You have to bear in mind that Charlie is from South Carolina, and when I visited him in 2009 I went to the island of Folly Beach which essentially paradisical compared with anything you'd find on this continent. Whilst he was expecting people to be lying out under umbrellas enjoying the sunshine he said that pretty much everyone was fully clothed, basically preventing them from getting tanned, and he said that people who were swimming were doing so not in their bathing suits, but just in their regular clothes as well; I remember his particular astonishment at seeing one person coming out of the water wearing a hoodie and jeans!
I think the Japanese definitely 'enjoy' the sun more than the Koreans although you still find lots of people shielding themselves from it with umbrellas and caps pretty much everywhere you go. Being from England there only one reason why I would carry an umbrella, and it isn't to protect myself from the sun!
People in England do tend to go a bit crazy when the sun comes out, we can often be very starved of it I think, but it doesn't take more than a couple of hours for people to start wearing shorts and sandals when the temperature is still around twelve degrees or so. I'm looking forward to seeing plenty of examples of that when I return, especially as I'll probably be wrapped up warm having been spoiled by the climate I've experienced here!
When I woke up this morning and looked out the window it was blue skies again which gave me the perfect chance to get out and finish off my stay in Japan the only way I know how.... with a long walk!
I headed back in the same direction I had done yesterday, walking past the Canal City Mall and through Tenjin although this time I continued on and headed towards the Ohori Area of the city which is about 45 minutes or so from where I'm staying. When the weather's sunny and I have podcasts to listen to, I often don't really consider how far I'm walking, but after being on my feet for so long it was nice when I grabbed some lunch as was able to sit myself down in Ohori Park which is a huge green space with a massive lake in the middle which is just off the main road:
It's been a rarity that I will just sit down and relax somewhere for a while but the scenery in the park itself was too beautiful not to sit and admire.
The park itself was bathed in sunshine which reflected off the water almost blindingly. Ohori Park is a huge space with a walking path around the outside and a little strip of land in the middle. It's a popular place for people to walk their dogs or exercise around, and there were plenty of people cycling and just generally enjoying the weather as I sat there doing exactly the same for about two hours or so.
The path around the lake is about 2kms long and I walked around half of it choosing a different place to sit down for a while near a boating lake and an area where there were some exercise facilities for people to use. It was nice to just sit and take things in for a while. There were planes flying overhead coming from the airport and then swimming around in the water were some large fish and also terrapins which kept popping their heads up before furiously swimming off. I sat in the shade for a while but then it started to get a little nippy so I managed to find somewhere that was more exposed to the sun before eventually deciding to peel myself off the bench and move very close by to something else which was in the park that I'd seen on my way:
Whilst I've had the chance to see some beautiful architecture in terms of castles in a couple of Japanese cities this wasn't going to be the case in Fukuoka as the castle here was sadly destroyed a long time ago.
All that remains is the outline and the ruins of the castle which are free to tour around just next to the park and very close to the city's art museum.
I walked up some stairs and through a wooded path until I came to the entrance of the castle which allows you to walk up to the very top plinth where the castle itself previously existed.
From there you get an excellent view out over the city even being able to see as far in the direction of the Fukuoka Tower and the Yahoo! Dome which are both on the coast:
The opposite way you could see the sprawl of the city and from above you could also see through the trees some other bits of the castle and the walls which still remain:
Having spent a bit of time walking around the ruins, which is now a lovely shaded park, I headed back in the direction of Tenjin, but instead of going back towards my hotel I instead went towards the northern coast of Fukuoka which is where the main port area is.
I walked alongside the river as it joined and then split into two parts again, before eventually spilling out into the sea and leaving me pretty much standing on the further point I could reach.
Just on the tip of a stretch of land is the Fukuoka Port Tower which is a free observation facility which I went up to the top of to get a view.
Most people selected to go for the Fukuoka Tower because it's much taller, but I didn't fancy trekking all that way out so chose to go here instead as I thought it would still provide me with a really good view over everything. Turned out I was right.
The tower itself was entirely empty when I got to the top, and it had the feeling of being in a lighthouse. It's 70 metres tall and provides good views out over the water to different parts of the Fukuoka prefecture as well as the rest of the city:
Sadly there was nowhere to sit down or I'd have stayed a while and taken the view in, but when I went down there was a small park at the very tip of the land which had some benches where I sat for a while:
I made my way back to the hotel via the river as the sun started to disappear from the sky and for the final time I grabbed some dinner on the way back and came to my hotel room for the night. I've spent most of the evening arranging things for tomorrow although there's not too much to sort out as it's pretty straight forward to get to the airport and once I arrive in Hong Kong things will be slightly different than how they've been over the last couple of weeks.....
Thnks fr th mmrs
Fall Out Boy (2007)
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