The End is Nigh

Well I can hardly believe it, but there are now only two months left until it's all over. It has been an incredible twenty two months, but sadly my time to leave Japan is nigh, and on the 1^st of August I will walk out the door of apartment 101 Karuni Haimu for the very last time, ever. Although I have always known that two years would be the longest that I would ever stay here in Gonohe, that hasn't made the actual prospect of leaving any less strange. It's not often in life when leaving somewhere feels so definite. Ever since I signed the piece of paper in January, confirming that I would not be re-contracting for another year, I haven't been able to shrug the rather uncomfortable feeling that the clock is ticking down on me.

As is always the way when you face leaving somewhere you have been a long time, there is a tendency to remember the good times and forget the bad. With so many fond memories at the forefront of my mind the imminent prospect of leaving Japan does make me feel a little sad. But then I guess it's necessary to remind yourself that, of course, it wasn't always sunshine and smiles, and – horrendously cheesy though it sounds - the end of one stage in your life also marks the beginning of another.

During my time living in Gonohe, many of the things that appeared so bizarre to me when I first arrived have become relatively normal. These days being obliged to drive at 30mph on main roads hardly ruffles my feathers at all, I never give a second thought to the (once infuriating) fact that bank ATMs close at 9:00pm, and I even relish the prospect of eating raw horse meat – a dish that scared the life out of me when it was first served up as a treat on my arrival in the town. Thanks to Japan I have virtually forgotten what it is like to fear crime, and even in the seediest parts of Tokyo my guard is always down. Simply finding myself in situations where I have no idea what someone is saying to me has almost come to feel the natural state of affairs.

But it's not just the idea of leaving Japan that feels strange, equally the prospect of returning home is a little weird. If you'd asked me just before my departure for Japan if I thought much would be different by the time of my return, I'm sure I would have said that I expected things to be much the same. After all, two years isn't that long a time. Yet, gradually, I've come to doubt whether this will really be the case. Of course, whenever I speak to people back home they always say how everything is just the same and little has changed, but for me, having left the context of my life in Scotland, I can see many things will be different. Just take for instance the fact that in the course of the past two years several people I have known have passed away, quite a few have given birth, some have got married, and one even went bald. When I got on the plane back in the summer 2004 you still had to empty your wallet to cross the Skye Bridge, people were more than free to spark up a cigarette in the pub, and if your mobile phone had a camera built in you were very much the exception. Now the bridge tolls are gone, the smoking ban passed and camera phones are all the rage. Yet those are just examples of some of the changes that I am aware have taken place. I will also return home with a two year gap in my knowledge of UK pop culture: two whole seasons of Big Brother, the Crazy Frog ringtone craze, and the meteoric rise of The Arctic Monkeys all passed me by (which was probably for the best actually).

Of course coming back to Scotland isn't going to be like The Planet of the Apes, I'm sure that when I return it will take a little time to readjust to the 'reverse culture shock', but I feel confident that the chances that the apes have taken over are relatively slim. I did ask one friend who returned home for a visit if it was strange going back, and was interested to hear that one of the first things to strike him were the many smells that were so unlike those of Japan which he had become accustomed to. I can't help wondering that if something as basic as the smells of home can become unfamiliar then there must be a whole host of other things that I will need to reacquaint myself with. I guess this summer I shall find out.