Today was my last day at my host university in Japan. I didn’t achieve everything that I hoped, but I did get some interesting results that I can do something with in the months ahead. Such, I suspect, is the summary of most research projects.
Six weeks here has been a short enough time that I still feel new, and still wish that I had a few more weeks available, to do more work and to explore the area further; but it’s also a long enough time that I’ve made some local friends, and will feel sorry to leave. This afternoon I walked home the long way, and I found myself taking special note of the sights and sounds along the route, trying to fix them in memory. This has been a short chapter in my life, but a chapter nonetheless.
Tomorrow I am putting work largely on hold and going on a two-week holiday around Japan. I’ll probably write a little bit about it as I do (for those who are really not interested in my holiday diaries, forgive me – I’ll return to more subject-focused topics in a fortnight’s time). After that it’s back to Scotland, and a return to the reality that I have a looming thesis submission deadline, meaning that while I do plan to further analyse and to write up what I’ve been doing in Fukuoka, I have to be very careful how much time I spend on it.