Stoat - Where?

And just like that, my two year teaching ‘career’ has come to an end. It’s hard to put my feelings into words as they alternate rapidly between the joy of revelling in new-found free time and a kind of emptiness, which I didn’t really expect. I guess suddenly stopping anything after a long time is bound to leave a hole, but I still didn’t anticipate it fully. To mitigate the effects, and mindful that I’m leaving soon, I’m doing my best to see as many people and places as possible before I go. In terms of places, I’ll probably be staying local as there are lots of places in the area that I still haven’t seen. I would’ve liked to go up to Tokyo, but I have to think about saving money for Singapore and Australia, so I might just use it as an excuse to come back in the future. Other cities like Osaka and Kobe, which I’ve been to, but not explored, will also have to take a back seat, though there’s a chance I might make it down to Universal Studios in Osaka in a couple of weeks.
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Japan is known, often erroneously, as being a very efficient country. But today I realised that sometimes things can be too efficient. Having settled on checking out Australia, I’d originally booked my flight to go to Melbourne after staying for a few days with my cousin Alan in Singapore. But, on the advice of a couple of friends, I changed my mind and decided I should see the West coast first. The flight itself was quite a lot more than I expected ( including a hefty £80 fuel surcharge), but one of the good things about it was that I could change the times, dates and destinations without penalty.
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