Already 10 days that I am back in Switzerland but I cannot let Japan out of my head. Coming back from a “long” stay abroad is always hard and it proves me that I am not going to stay in Switzerland for a long time. As a matter of fact, this will be the last article on my life in Japan but still, I will add side notes and other comments later because there are still stories to be told.

Last day at work and final presentation… I feel anxious because I have worked hard during the past months but I did not get the results I expected for my research. I bet you do not really care about that but I will just say that I am still working on this project (I asked for it) and it will probably lead me to my next destination… The presentation went pretty well and I was relieved and happy at the end to get acknowledgement from the other team members. I spent the rest of the day packing and cleaning my workspace, offering Swiss chocolates to my colleagues and waiting for theend of the day… for the farewell party, which is also the welcome party for Thomas.

We only knew it was on Friday but they did not care about telling us at what time…As I was just bringing back some books to our library, one of the researcher had an exclamation and started packing too, it was around 6:25 pm. By 6:30 he was ready and asked if we were also ready to leave to catch the 6:35 bus, I knew it would be something like that so I was ready but not the other interns who shut down thair computer in a hurry. Well, I am not too bad at sprinting I guess as we managed to catch the bus.

Remember in May we went to an Okinawan restaurant, to make the cycle complete it should end also in an Okinawan restaurant, plus they have delicious food and alcohol… Before we get too drunk to say something meaningful we talk about Japanese language and how difficult it is to read kanji. To argue how difficult it was even for Japanese I took out one of my “meishi” and hand itto the boss telling him that Japanese could not read that name. The funny thing is that he looked at the address and asked if this guy was working at NAIST, the university next to our lab, and I answered that in fact he was working for NEC. He was surprised he did not know him then so I suggested him to flip the business card and then he understood. That was a big laugh! And I was honored as he asked to keep it saying it was his treasure (just look back at the meaning of the kanji for my name).

Speaking about Japanese language, it was time to make my speech (which took me hours to write and try to make it interesting). I might leave a transcript later but for now trust me, it was not too shabby eventhough the first part was in English I tried to translate most of it in Japanese then.

And finally came the drinking game… in May one of the manager asked what strong alcohol exists in Switzerland, as we were drinking awamori, to what I replied absinthe. Thanks to a friend who visited me during the Summer I could get a bottle of the “green fairy” (it was from Neuchatel and 53% for the curious). They were a bit intrigued by the process of pouring water slowly on a sugar but they drank it. Sweet and tasty! We got to try also an Okinawan liquor with a sleeping snake inside… tastes like fire and you can really feel the snake taste! We finished the bottle, some even drank it without sugar nor water and figured out it was a bad idea.This was a great party and I was happy it ended up like that.

Of course it is always sad to say good bye or “sayonara” should I say, but we will meet again once a page of our life has turned. Until then, I wish that NEC C&C Innovation Laboratories succeed in getting closer to build a new world where we will communicate heart to heart, from my point of view I will go on to figure out how we can communicate mind to mind and in 30 years we will lead people to the light we followed during our research.To all the people who passed by and read my articles, I address my thanks. I am not sure if I gave you enough of a glimpse of Japan but at least I tried. I would encourage anyone who has the chance to go to Japan, it is a mind blowing experience and I learnt a lot from those 6 months. This adventure fulfilled one of my dreams and I reallywant to come back so as final worlds:

“Believe in your dreams and make it happen, because dreams really do come true.”