I arrived back in Singapore yesterday. After five and a half years, my journey in Japan has finally ended. I’m still processing the change, so I’ll probably write about the last few days later (I’d like to finish writing about Okinawa first). But I wanted to pen this post while the memories are still fresh. I suppose this post is more for me, to remember the kindness shown during my move back and to remind me to show the same kindness to others.
The kindness of strangers
The day of my move from Sasebo, I made a last minute trip to the post office. While struggling there with my box (which turned out to weigh 7.5 km), I passed by an ojiisan. After greeting him and making some small talk, he offered to give me a lift to Aeon! That’s right next to the station and about 1 km away from where we were, saving me a lot of time and helping my tired arms.
I thought that was the end of it, but then I met a salaryman at Sasebo station, who helped me with my luggage (I had four fairly huge bags + my backpack). We were chatting while waiting for the train cleaning to finish (apparently the amount of luggage I had didn’t look like it was for one person). When the train doors opened, I grabbed one of the luggages to bring it into the train, intending to come back for the second one. When I turned around, I realised that the salaryman had taken my second piece and saved me the trip!
When I arrived at Fukuoka, I waited until I was one of the last to get off because there were a lot of bags and I know I’m a bother. But the second last person looked at me and asked: “can I help?” And thanks to him I managed to exit the train!
A while later, I was struggling to get to the turnstiles, another salaryman came up to me. Apparently I dropped something from when my bags fell (and they fell 12345 times on the journey). He took one look at me and helped me carry one of the bags all the way to the taxi stand!
Fast forward to the airplane ride back to Singapore. I went overboard with the presents for my family and ended up with one carry-on luggage and three bags of snacks, and my camera bag. There was the air stewardess who helped me carry the bags to my seat, the uncle who helped me take the bags down from the overhead compartment, the stranger who realised I forgot my camera bag and chased after me to get it, as well as another uncle who helped me carry my bags to the trolley.
Without all these strangers, I might not have made it back to Singapore!
The kindness of friends
Of course, I can’t forget my amazing friends. I have one friend who came to help take some furniture off my hands. After she left, the BookOff staff came and I ended up not being able to sell everything. Since I no longer hand a car, I called her in a panic and she immediately came over to drive me (and some furniture) to the recycle shops to sell! We ended up going to three shops and she helped me reduce my large trash fee by a significant amount. She’s also the one who sent me to the station and was the one who convinced me to send at least one piece of luggage via Kuroneko because 「何とかならない！」(you won’t be able to manage). If it weren’t for her, I might never have been able to leave Sasebo.
And there are my coworkers, who helped take my bulky furniture (and reduce the amount of money I had to pay) and still gave me cakes and dinner!
Not to mention another friend, who I trained with in the hotel. We haven’t really talked since April, but she not only helped take some of the furniture, she also came by with lunch the next day and helped me to clean the house as well.
If it weren’t for all of them, I probably would have been 10000000x more flustered during the move and would probably have spent a lot more money trying to get the house in a suitable condition.
It really goes to show that people are kind and that God is good and sends people to help me even before I open my mouth to ask! May this post be a reminder to do the same to others.