Day 7 (02/02):
Our last day began in a hurry, with us rushing to pack our bags (being too tired to pack them at midnight the night before), and many of us happened to end up skipping breakfast altogether to go shop at the local convenience store and enjoy a last meal of Japanese pastries. We found that most of the souvenirs we had bought couldn’t even fit in our bags! But we had a solution in mind for later.
After our sort-of-breakfast, we headed back to Kokutaiji high school for a final goodbye with our buddy students, though not all of them were able to come. We gave out some final gifts to the students and were able to meet with teachers and even some Kokutaiji alumni. Despite the bittersweet feelings of saying goodbye, we were able to have some final fun with our Kokutaiji friends.
We left Kokutaiji, then, to visit Don Quijote, a famous Japanese department store. The trip was short, however, as we had to get to our lunch spot for that day. Many of us raced to the Pokemon card aisle to buy some last souvenirs, while others bought extra suitcases to pack our souvenirs in. On our tight ten-minute schedule, many of us were racing a minute or two late back to our meeting spot to get to lunch.
For lunch, we ate at a tempura restaurant, even sitting in a tatami room where we had to remove our shoes and eat at a low kotatsu table. The restaurant – named Suishin – served us all plates of delicious tempura fried seafood and vegetables, including shrimp, eggplant, pumpkin, and even Hiroshima’s famous oysters. Alongside that, we were served a typical Japanese egg broth, miso soup, pickled vegetables, and green tea with a pot of rice constantly boiling at our seats.
After the amazing lunch, we returned to the hotel and loaded our suitcases into our minibus and rode to Hiroshima airport. We enjoyed our last views of Japan’s rugged landscape, new sights of mountaintop snow, and passed by quaint towns and villages. We eventually arrived at the airport, checked our bags in, and bid farewell to Kokutaiji teachers as we passed through security. We had an hour of free time in the airport, so we enjoyed a variety of meals – from chicken katsu sandwiches to Miyajima-famous Momiji Manju cakes and even some oysters! We then boarded our short flight to Tokyo, enjoying views of the Japanese terrain from above and even deep naps on the relatively quiet and empty plane.
We landed in a hurry in Tokyo, having little time until our next flight to the US. We passed through security without incident and then raced to nearby food stores (though some of us were, at first, attracted by the Yves-Saint Laurent next to our gate) to grab quick snacks to eat and water to drink.
We ran to the gate to grab an early spot on line, before all boarding our plane. We then enjoyed a very sleepy – but also study-filled! – flight back to JFK airport. Getting off, we thanked our captains, passed security, and retrieved our luggages to walk out into the New York City cold and catch our bus to BCA. Most of us either fast asleep or talking brightly in the back, we returned to BCA with views of the NYC skyline and gentle snowfall.
At BCA, many of us groaned at the sight of returning to school, though in the end, we all happily reunited with our families after a week overseas.
I would like to add, as a final note to the blog, that this trip offered me a new perspective beyond the bubble of my BCA studies. It reminded us that there is a world larger than the constant rush of classes and exams, and that perhaps there is more fun and adventure to life than how good our grades are or what college we go to; that there are infinitely more valuable lessons to learn outside of our tiny home in Bergen County. And with that, we would all like to thank the students and teachers at Hiroshima-Kokutaiji High School for the equally fun and life-changing experience they provided for us, and we can’t wait to host them at BCA sometime in the future!