Final Post

I started this blog 4 years ago when I first went to Japan to teach English. I have now left Japan after an unforgettable, life changing experience. During that time I really enjoyed my teaching work. I spent my first year working for NOVA, a chain english conversation school or eikaiwa 英会話, in Matsumoto city. The next three years I taught in the Japanese state school system. The first year at a Junior High School in Ueda City and the next two years teaching in many Elementary Schools in Matsumoto city. The work was fun and rewarding and I made many friends through it.
Living in Japan gave me a chance to travel to many interesting places inside and outside the country. I visited Mexico, Hong Kong, Hawaii, Laos and Thailand. Inside Japan I visited more than half of the countries 47 prefectures. Living amongst the Northern Japanese Alps allowed me to ski on some of the best slopes in Asia regularly. In the summer I hiked many Japan's biggest and best mountains. I got into running and completed two full marathons. Through these activites I made many good friends, Japanese and foreigner or gaijin 外人 alike.
I got to know the culture and found out the best and the worst of Japan. The best: so many wonderful Japanese foods and dishes, the shinkansen bullet trains and simple efficiency, futuristic gleaming modern architecture side by side with beautiful traditional buildings, karaoke and other Japanese inventions, the work ethic and manners, cherry blossom time or hanami 花見. The worst: beurocracy, even now a failure to aknowledge and come to terms with World War 2, strange Japanese takes on western culture like the KFC Christmas bucket of chicken or teenage girls or ギャル trying to look western by wearing coloured contact lense and dyeing their hair orange.
During my time in Japan there was a revolving door of five different Japanese prime ministers. My family and friends all moved on with their lives. Notably my brother got married, moved to the USA and had a baby. My internet alias Matt Santos predicted the election of Barack Obama as life mirrored art and TV's the West Wing proved uncannily accurate.
This is not the end of my association with Japan. I have become fluent in Japanese and recently passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test level 2. I intend to continue studying and maybe even try to find a job where I can use my Japanese skills. My love life has had its ups and downs but I am now very happily together with a Japanese lady. She will join me in England soon. I will certainly go back to visit and may go back and work in Japan again. This is the end of this blog though. It served it's purpose to reassure and inform my friends and relatives back in England of what I'm doing. It was also a diary and a personal history for me although edited of the more private or scandalous episodes of my Japanese life. It will remain on the internet for the consumption of people who know or people who don't. Thanks for everything, Japan. See you soon. さようなら