Ise

Good night dear followers of Japan.

   Today, I decided to end my journey in Japan.
   Since the program ended, I have spent all of my time in the Naiku, talking with people and observing them through everything they do. It is not the way I would choose to spent my last days in Japan, but I do have a master thesis to write and I need information that can only come while observing the people.
   Truly speaking, that was my main goal when I decided to come to Japan. I made questionnaires so thtat I could deliver them to the people in the Naiku and collect valuable information. Unfortunately, some people did not colaborate with me. It seems that seeing a foreigner (which is very rare in Naiku) holding a lot of paperwork and asking questions, makes them very unconfortable. I was warned about this, but confirming it was not a good experience.
   For that reason, I decided to explore the Naiku by myself and observe the people and what they do inside. Also, I decided to ask them questions, without any paperwork in my hands. It was quite different, and I got very good results. Actually, extremly good results! After asking some questions about the Ise Pilgrimage (Ise-mairi) and about the people, I came to a conclusion that completely destroyed my questionnaires. With that, my vision about the Ise-mairi also changed entirely.
   Unfortunately I will not share such conclusions here, for various reasons. After all, that is why I'm writting a master thesis. So, if you guys are interested you can read it after I finish it! I hope you understand.

   In the end, I wrote this post to tell you that my journey is over. I still have my day tomorrow but that will take me, again, to the Naiku for more field-studying. I just wanted to tell you guys that, after all, there is nothing interesting going on, for you guys, in my free days.
   If everything goes well, I shall leave Japan in less than 3 days. I wonder what will the feeling be like, because I still have to say goodbye to all the foreigners I met. Fortunately, I have a pretty long flight with them!

   To my dear followers, thank you very much for reading and for coming to my blog. Again, if you want to contact me just go to my profile on the left side and send me an email or find me on facebook. Hope you guys learned somethings from this blog, as much as I did while writting in it.
   Once again, thank you for reading!

  Diogo here, signing off.
  Sayonara!