One Month Left... Wait, What?

Happy Canada day and my best wishes to anyone who was the affected by the Alberta flood. I sincerely hope all of you and your homes are safe. My thoughts have been with you these past few weeks. Anyway, as the title will inform you, I have only a month left in my stay here in Sapporo! My flight I honestly have no idea where the time went, I could have sworn it was the middle of June yesterday and I still had a few months left only a few weeks ago. Once again, my apologies for the delay in the update, but I have been very busy as of late. This week my school is holding it's school festival, an event held by junior highs, high schools, and universities across Japan. The event essentially consists of performances by each class and a couple days of selling various goods at student-run stalls. The whole thing is put together mostly by the students, and a lot of work goes into it. I've been at school for a few hours after classes end every day these past couple weeks, but it's been well worth it. The preparations are lots of fun in their own right, and I can't wait to see it come together in the upcoming days.

So other than school festival preparations, what have been up this past month? Well, early in June there was a wonderful trip to Kyoto with my host dad, during which I saw lots, including the head temple of my host father's branch of Buddhism, which was pretty cool, and got dressed up like a Maiko (a Geisha in training who typically wears a colourful kimono). Unfortunately, the only pictures of that I have are on a CD, and my laptop doesn't have a CD slot, so I've been unable to upload them. However, once I get access to a computer that does and send myself the pictures, I'll be sure to post them here.

The entrance to one of the temples we visited.

Praying at the temple.

Me at a very large graveyard in Kyoto

Some of the goods for sale at one of Kyoto's markets.

Overall it was a great trip, and I'm glad I the chance to visit Kyoto again! It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I got to see some of the less tourist-visited sights the city has to offer.

Since then my time has mostly been used up with school festival preparations, school itself, a few rotary events involving volunteering with kids (lots and lots of fun) and sleep. I guess in all my business I lost of track of time, and before I knew it it came to be so close to my departure.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on going returning to Canada. Of course I'm excited to see my family, friends, and home again, but in many ways Sapporo has become my home. I've found family in not only my three host families, but also in the other exchange students and in my classmates at school. I've also made wonderful friends over the course of this year, and made memories I'll never forget. Departing is going to be very bittersweet, but for the time being, I'm focussing on the school festival and making the most of my remaining time here. Thanks for reading!