In the morning Daniel, our awesome host cooked us French toast and eggs…what a guy. He had to leave early for work, but I stuck around with Ryan until around 10:30. We talked about all of the excitement that awaited us in the future. It sucks to say good bye but we chose our own paths and we must follow them. I wished Ryan luck and took off towards Shibushi. The ride to Nichinan wasn’t going to be that long so I took it easy and marveled at the Miyazaki scenery all the way to Nichinan. The scenery seemed to be getting better and better. Once in Nichinan, I settled down at a McDonalds to wait for Deepa, my second JET host of the trip. I ordered a bacon burger combo, it was okay but they are shady with ketchup here in Japan. Or are Americans just wasteful? You be the judge...
She arrived shortly thereafter and promptly showed me to her apartment close by. On the way, we ran into some students of hers…she seemed to be very popular with the kids. She keeps a very busy schedule here in Nichinan and teaches everywhere. Back home she is also a teacher, so I think it comes natural to her. She had tea ceremony class to attend to, so she left me alone to shower and do my laundry. Since dryers are usually not found in Japanese homes, I took my wet cloth to the coin laundry place to throw them in the dryer.
Once she returned, we went to eat some good ramen! It didn’t disappoint…we talked about each other’s lives and found out that we had a lot in common. She likes to backpack as do I. We headed back home and I started planning for the next leg of my trip, from Nichinan to Miyazaki City. For the first time I was heading out without having any idea where to stay…but I knew there would be hotels in the area since it was a populated area. The weather forecast looks to be a bit rainy tomorrow.