Last Days In Japan

    Underneath the hot sun, Janice and I sat on the bottom steps with our packs on the asphalt in front of us. We had over six hours to kill before our bus left for Osaka. Within 3 days, we would be in Shanghai.

    My supervisor told me to wait at my apartment until 2 p.m., when utility people would come to shut off my gas, water, and electricity. He also told me to have money ready in case I needed to pay any bills up front. It was good to know that these things were going to be taken care of.
    During the morning and early afternoon, Janice and I still had some packing/throwing-away-of-things to do. There was food left in the refrigerator that was going to get us through the afternoon. Everybody wanted to throw away my cooking oils and spices, but when you put them all together, they amounted to quite a bit and I wanted to leave them for my successor. Most of our things were packed and ready, but there were boxes laid everywhere that needed to be taken to the school for when the cleaners would come the next day. Lots of furniture had to be moved out of the apartment as well, so we had to figure out what was allowed to stay, and what had to go. And then the things that were to stay, had to be put in certain places. I remember someone posting on their Facebook at the time, "when you're moving out, everything is burnable."
     I also had to cancel my phone and pick up some pension forms. One of my teachers, volunteered her time to help us move some of our things around and to deal with various Japanese Language-oriented errands that we still had to run. If this early part of the day sounds like it was chaotic, that's because it was. I also realized that I left something out of my cover letters that I uploaded the day before for some jobs in Vancouver. This meant that i needed to do some re-writing and some Internet time.
    It was 2pm exactly when my doorbell rang and the 2 teachers (my supervisor had also showed up to help) were in my bedroom packing futons into the closet. I was just putting together my last cover letter, but I went and answered the door. I expected utility people, but it turned out to be my landlord who stepped into my apartment. She wore the same business suit and heels that she did the day before when she checked my apartment and said that there were no problems. She didn't speak any English and my Japanese was terrible, so I let my teachers deal with her while I put the final touches on my application. Apparently, she was here to check my apartment again.
    At 2:03, I clicked the button to finish uploading my files and then turned off the computer. When I turned around, I noticed that many of my possessions had in the meantime been gathering a lot of kinetic energy. Many of my things had either been put outside, or thrown away.
    It was about this time that my supervisor told me that everything needed to be removed from the apartment and that once the landlady finished her check of the apartment, I would have to leave my apartment, and that I "could not come back." I think that technically, I had paid my rent for the day, and that i should have been able to live there for a few more hours, but it turned out that this wasn't the case.
    From the bottom steps leading to my apartment, while we listened to my landlady change my door code -- so that we wouldn't be able to get back inside, I looked up to the windows on the second floor and said goodbye to what was my home for the last 12 months.