The plan for the afternoon was to head over to Macau, an island formerly belonging to Portugal but which was handed back to China in 1999. It’s also only 65 km away from Hong Kong, making it a relatively easy day trip for us. Our first task was getting a subway pass, known as the Octopus card here. Thankfully, our hotel is only a couple blocks from an MTR station, so we headed over and picked up a couple Octopi.

I awoke after a decent night’s sleep and worked on my presentation notes/speech for a couple hours in the morning, making a brief breakfast run to the convenience store downstairs. I headed over to the Congress for the morning sessions, sitting in on a few second language talks and a tone perception talk. A slight touch of nerves for my impending presentation led me to have a rather abbreviated lunch break–a quick egg salad/avocado sandwich at Deli France near the convention centre.

I left fairly early in search of food in the general direction of the Hong Kong Convention Centre. The wave of humidity that hit me as I exited the hotel instantly brought me back to my time in Thailand. The heat was definitely present, though not unbearable, but I think it’s ultimately the smell that reminds me of it–something like thick hair mingling with car exhaust fumes, noodles and stir fry with a bit of standing water thrown in. In my wanderings, it became apparent how small I was amidst the soaring buildings–caverns of concrete, steel and glass.

I’d never flown Air China before, but I was immediately pleased to see a pillow/blanket set on my seat and a TV set in the seat back. I’d almost forgotten the kind of amenities one gets when flying international. We were soon on our way, and I settled in for the long haul. Fortunately, I was able to sleep a good portion of the journey, broken up by the occasional meal (another perk of flying international, they feed you!).

As my 25th year draws to a close, with a couple short weeks until my next anniversaire, I feel compelled to take stock of the past year and all its adventure. I realize most people have this moment of nostalgia around New Year’s, but for me, such reminiscence is stirred by my encroaching birthday. Since I was a kid, I have always felt the need to be older…perhaps believing that I could skip the awkward, gawky faze of adolescence right to what I believed to be the good stuff.

It was with great excitement and anticipation that I awoke this morning, only to have it dashed rather soggily as I discovered it was raining rather excessively. Festival fail. Unfortunately, this meant that the festival was pretty much canceled. It seems odd to me that for something like the third biggest festival in Japan, they wouldn’t have some sort of wet-weather plan, particularly when it occurs annually in October.

It was 12:30 pm by the time we reached Takayama, and what would be my final stop on my whirlwind Japanese tour. J-Hoppers Hostel was quite easy to find, just a 3 minute walk from the station. I was too early to check-in, so I left my luggage and headed off for ‘Old Town’. I’d been to Takayama before, but I had always enjoyed the traditional merchant houses (dating back to the Edo period, 1600s), with shops selling artisan pottery and wood carvings, as well as, of course, the ubiquitous sarubobo doll.

My plan for the day was really to hit the highlights of Kanazawa. After answering a barrage of emails regarding my recruitment for my thesis follow-up study I’m running when I get back to Vancouver, I headed out the door. I went back to the station to grab my bus pass for the day and hopped on the Loop bus bound for Kenrokuen. The town is fairly compact (it only takes about 40 minutes to do the entire loop), so I was soon off the bus and up the steps to the gardens.

It wasn’t long before I was rolling into Kanazawa. I disembarked and got my bearings, heading off to find my guest house. While I was proud at having found it so easily, tucked away as it is, I was soon crestfallen upon discovering it was closed for cleaning from 12 – 3 pm, which meant I was stuck with my luggage for the next 2 hours. I’d known that they wanted you out in the afternoon to clean (most hostels do), but I suppose I didn’t anticipate them to be closed and locked completely.

Today was my only full day in Kyoto, and thankfully it was a beauty. The morning sun beaming brightly I headed out just before 9 am, making a quick stop at a nearby coffee shop for an egg sandwich for breakfast. Kyoto was the city I had spent the most time in on my last visit, and I managed to hit a lot of the major sites. Thus, my plan for the morning was to see a few shrines that were a little more off the beaten path.

What a day! My somewhat impulsive decision to head to Hiroshima for the day lead to my heading out the door at quarter to 8 to catch an 8:20 shinkansen. I had originally wanted to try and squeeze in two or three days in Hiroshima when I begun planning this trip, but found there really wasn’t enough time. However, the joy of having a JR pass is that you can impulsively decide to hop on a bullet train for the under 2-hour ride down south.