Week 4

Week 4 of Japan was my final week with my host family and friends in school. 😢

I graduated from IC Nagoya!

This week was the most bittersweet as everyone knew it would be the last days that we would see each other. My friends and I spent each day after school with each other and reminisced on our memories.

Since it was our final week in school, our school helped us write our names in an art called Shoudo. My name (Rin) written in kanji is 凛 and it took me several attempts to get it right! It has 15 strokes, all in a certain order, and the kanji means cold. I thought it was very fitting since my last name, Morozova, also means cold/frost in Russian!

My host family and I planned one final day trip to Kyoto through Nara before I left and we stopped by incredible monuments. We went to the Buddhist Temple Todai-ji, Byodo-in Temple on the 5 yen coin, and the golden Kinkaku-ji Castle. My host dad explained to me each of the eras of Japan and how the country evolved into what it is today. It was amazing to hear the lore and actually in the presence of these buildings that had such a crucial part in the history of Japan.

On Saturday, July 27th, I said goodbye to my host family. They had cared for me like their own daughter and I still keep in contact with them. I hope to visit them again soon, and I'm planning on going on more study abroad programs in college! Perhaps if I travel to Japan again, we can meet and talk in Japanese.

Some of my classmates and I took the Shinkansen (high speed train) from Gifu to Tokyo and met with everyone from AFS. We stayed a night back at the original facility in Tokyo. It was so fun talking with everyone about their experiences and sharing stories from ours. I've made lifelong bonds with people on this trip and I could never forget the memories we made.

We then took a tearful plane on July 28th, back to LA and went our seperate ways back home.

Thank you for reading about my last week in Japan! Please check out my video where I talk more about Japan and the impact it made on me:

https://www.facebook.com/61559215989787/videos/758565262984314/