Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

12/30/2005, Seattle trip day 7: Rocky times

Our last day of activities didn't go so well.  Despite the best of intentions, we got a bit of a late start.  We had breakfast at a place downtown, which was pretty good.  The night before, I had stayed up until 3:00 AM or later, working on a grad school application.  I thought everything was done.  However, in the morning, I realized a different application, which I thought was done, was actually not done.  I had a big paper form to fill out.  I worked on it a little during breakfast.  After that, we went into downtown.  I thought I could do it in an hour.  Previously, my mom had been wanting to take Akemi to Ross, a discount store, so we agreed that I would leave her there for an hour.  An hour turned into two.  Not fun for Akemi.  She spent two hours of the afternoon of the last day sitting in a dumb store.  I felt really badly, but there wasn't much I could do, given where I was at.  It couldn't be postponed.  The situation just sucked.  Akemi was annoyed, but also forgiving and understanding.

After that, we met up with Sara and Julia at Zeitgeist, a coffee shop.  My mom and I were having some minor disagreements, so I was on the cell phone trying to resolve that, in the midst of spending time with Sara and Akemi.  I felt bad about ignoring them, but again, there wasn't much else I could do with the situation.  Eventually, Julia came.  (In case you don't know, Julia and I were together for 6½ years before I came to Japan.) Julia and I are still good friends and I wanted to introduce her to Akemi.  Akemi and I had talked about all of this ahead of time and she said she was okay with it.  We did have a nice visit.  For my sake, I was really glad to see both Sara and Julia.  But, Akemi, already having had a bad day, eventually started feeling uncomfortable.  Perfectly understandable.  When Sara left, it was just the three of us and it just got worse.

We had been planning sort of a grand finale to the trip.  We were to go to Jazz Alley and hear Ernestine Anderson with Ray, his mom, Joanie (his girlfriend), and my mom.  Unfortunately, Ray fell sick and that plan fell through, too.

It seemed like the day was going to put a nasty cap on an otherwise great trip.  However, my mom helped immensely.  My mom and Akemi get along beautifully.  Perhaps better than my mom and me, or Akemi and me.  Akemi wasn't feeling very well.  My mom talked to her and cheered her up.  We went out for dinner at Chinoise, an Asian fusion restaurant with some good Vietnamese specialties.  Vietnamese food is Akemi's favorite ethnic cuisine.

So, despite some ickiness, the day and the trip did end on a good note.

Before I went to bed, I was feeling a little sad myself.  It was a great trip, overall.  I was sad to leave.  Furthermore, there was a lot more I would have liked to have done.  I didn't spend enough good, quality time with my mom or Akemi.  And, I didn't get to see Ray.  We had another plan on the 29th which fell through due to my mistake in planning.

In particular, I was sad we didn't get to do this project.  My mom had purchased a kit for a gingerbread house and started it before we came.  But, we didn't get a chance to finish it.  Most likely, it went to waste.  That kind of thing bothers me.

Looking around the house, which my mom had decorated so nicely, I was a little sad to see our nice Christmas holiday coming to a close.

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