my final bow

photo by rudy (indonesia), june 29, 2005

a bow is either a commencement or a culmination of a certain chapter of a particular event. in japan, that bow could mean a greeting when meeting someone or a gesture of thanks when it is time to say goodbye. in my case, it means goodbye to the pain and pleasure, loneliness and joy, friends and foes, anxieties and excitement of my 2-year sojourn in a place aptly called the land of the rising sun. my bow also signals of another opportunity to take, another race to run, another life to live.

it was indeed 2 fruitful years. i was blessed.

(it is now 3:03am, i am still packing my things. at 12:51pm today, together with other JDS fellows, i am leaving for tokyo. i have accumulated so many things such that my 2 pieces of luggage already exceeded the limit of 40kgs. i have to repack, and leave some things, essentials and nonessentials alike. one friend texted me saying u can never really bring all, if at all u can bring things once you leave this world. she's right.)

after all

june 29, 2005, sawarabi hall

let now the pictures speak for me. it's not in the diploma, sir, it's in the day to day experiences and the company i was, am and will be with.

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a little later...


NPO farewell BS, June 29, 2005, shiozawa

and more experiences... i am blessed with a good company while i have my sojourn in japan.

congratulations to my friends!

packing and eating and more eating

the good thing about leaving is that goes with it is the fare-you-well dinner invitations. in between packing my things, i don't need to think twice to go for free dinner. (this is one sure antithesis of economic belief that in this world "there is no free lunch.")

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fishing park, echigo yuzawa, 6/27/05 photos by daniel and leah

together with leah and daniel, we got to fellowship with the takahashi family (and their friends) in a fishing park in yuzawa town. barbecue for lunch, plus the chance to go fishing in a river, there is no need for me to proceed to PhD. (hey they paid around 2,100yen for the equipment, what can my fisherman friend in the phil say about this?)

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alpo no sato, echigo yuzawa, 6/27/05

the bonus for this time-to-say-goodbye was the chance to climb (hehehe gondola de) the alpo-no-sato of more than 2,000 meters high. it was raining but it was great. a cone of ice cream in the rain and in the mountain at that gave me a different high.


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beside the river, yonuma, 6/26/05

the church also gave us (graduating christian students) a nice barbecue party near the river. (this river is my haven in times of loneliness and celebration, often come here, but still the name of this river remains 'anonymous'.) we rendered our last song (as a BS group) during the sunday service. the song was timely for all of us as it tells us to "dare to run with our eyes fixed on Jesus." i am starting to miss my church here. God has been wonderful to us.

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well, a dinner like this in uonuma murakami (muikamachi) after the bbq party won't do us harm, so off we went in the evening. thanks to our church pianist who knew where to find a nice place to hang out and eat. salamat sa donor.

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6/25/05

this was in kita no yada, famous among iuj for its okunomiyaki, yamato style. dinner courtesy of channa from cambodia.

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6/25/05, photo by daniel

and this one was in cafe west in muikamachi. ah this time i paid.

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thanks also to the countless dinners with leah and daniel, hai from brunei, yusril from indonesia, mirzo from tajikistan, soib from uzbekistan, prof. nakamura, prof. kuroda, filipino parties, aoki sensei, isahaya san (oh thanks a million) and all those patilaw dinner by cambodia and vietnam. my decision for the month of june to stop cooking (tipid and diet) served me right. almost everyday, i get a free meal from either one of them. kahit wala nang diet basta libre...