After a busy morning at the station, Yoko-san and I stopped for a quick bite to eat at a ramen restaurant, then we headed off towards Toyota, to visit none other than the Toyota Kaikan Exhibition Hall. Toyota is about a half an hour drive away from Kariya. I had been running on little sleep the past week, so with that paired against my uncanny ability to fall asleep in cars, I pretty much dozed off during the entire ride. I need to apologize to Yoko-san (and to Eri-san and Anny-san later in the week) because I was not very good company. (>///<) We made it to Toyota and toured around the exhibition hall. We even caught a performance by a robot playing SMAP's 世界に一つだけの花 up at the front of the hall. I'm not a big car fanatic (even though I do drive a Corolla), so I had a fairly average time there. David on the other hand, who we ran into again with his host family, absolutely loved the factory tour they went on earlier in the morning. I had a good time in the…uh…gift shop upstairs. Hehe.

We had to head back to Kariya soon after to prepare for the closing reception. It hardly feel like a week had gone by and we were already at the farewell dinner. I got dressed and lugged my huge bag of gifts with me to dinner. Shoichi-san wasn’t feeling well, so it was only Yoko-san who went. We sat at a table with Colleen, Gerry and their host family. Everyone began taking pictures around the table. I gave up after the first ten minutes because there were so many cameras going off around me. I’ll have to steal photos from other people when I have the chance.

Dinner was a very relaxing affair; everyone got up to mingle around. It was hard saying goodbye to people, since this was our last event together. I received so many presents from everyone. The bag I initially took to give presents came back filled with ones I received from others.

After dinner we had the last of our speeches and formal gift exchanges. Then all ten of us lined up on stage to give our closing thoughts. I was dreading this moment since I had to speak in front of everyone. Stephanie was trying to reassure me by saying that whatever we mumbled in English would be translated flawlessly into Japanese. (We had excellent translators.) However, my problem was that I was going to be mumbling in Japanese in front of everyone. Thank goodness I didn’t put Yuka’s translation efforts to shame, because everyone said I spoke perfectly:

“この一週間本当にありがとうございました。私のホストファミリーやKIFAの皆さんのおかげで、新しい体験を沢山しました。ミササガにも、是非いらしてください。”

*Thumbs up*

Thank you Yuka! 
Always my lifesaver. =)

Afterwards we finished the evening off with some dancing on stage (just the tanko bushi) and last minute goodbyes. My biggest problem when we got home was trying to figure out how to pack my suitcase to accommodate all the gifts! Of course, I had one last encounter with the ofuro and my heated futon. ^_^

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Writing this entry now about two months later makes me miss everyone even more. While this is my last entry on my visit to Kariya, I’m sure it won’t be the last time I’ll be seeing everyone again. I will definitely be writing more on our cultural exchanges in the future. Until then, farewell Kariya!