Holiday nostalgia
February 23rd, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Aya Kawanishi writes about her latest visit to Osaka and the surprising news from her friend…
Going home is like going to the past, I thought. I was on the way home after I had visited my old friends in Osaka – the city of my life. I go there almost every time I go to Japan and I go to Japan almost every holiday. This time it was a little different and I felt that things are changing when one of my friends announced an engagement.
New year gathering in Osaka
Osaka is a special place to me. I think everybody has their own special place. When you go away like study abroad or work placement abroad, you realise what you miss the most. Most likely it is your home but for me it is my school in Osaka region. Despite we all departed from school to each direction to become grown-ups, I and my school mates quite often organize a meet-up. Gathering around the table, feeding my rumbling stomach the region’s best food freshly cooked on an iron plate on the table. Steam and noise arise from the cooking are seized by even louder voices of ourselves exchanging each other’s life story to fill up the time we spent apart. It was only when one of us made a wedding announcement that the party fell into silence and cheering broke out. It was great news. It MUST have been! But after the dinner, when one of my friends said to me that she’d felt as though we would be living different lives even more than now from this point, I couldn’t help thinking the same.
Going back to Osaka was going back to be a school girl for me. But not anymore since I have had to face that I am not. As time passes by, I should look into the future otherwise be drawn in holiday nostalgia.
