Today, I hung out in Osaka with four friends from Canada, France, and Japan. We spent the day together in Namba. They can all speak Japanese, but I wanted to practice my English as much as possible, so I tried to speak in English. In the end, though, I ended up speaking mostly Japanese. I realized that my English still needs a lot of work. But at the same time, I feel like I'm slowly getting better at expressing myself. I still don't know enough words, but I'm starting to feel like I can get my point across with the English I already know. I think my current way of studying English is pretty good. I use Duolingo to practice a little every day, watch Netflix to improve my listening skills, and mainly use ChatGPT to practice speaking and expressing my thoughts. Today, one of my French friends complimented my English. He told me, "Your grammar is already really good. You just need to practice speaking more." I think he's right. But hearing that made me really happy. It felt like someone had finally noticed the effort I've been putting in. Of course, I still have a long way to go. But today, I felt like my goal was becoming a little clearer. I'm still far from being the English speaker I want to be, but for the first time, I could actually imagine myself getting there. I'm going to see them again next month, and I told them, "I'll be able to speak better English by then!" So now I have even more motivation to study. In two weeks, I'm also going to have dinner with an American friend I met in Mongolia. Lately, I've had more chances to speak English, and I want to make the most of every opportunity. I'll think of each conversation as something to prepare for and keep working hard. Anyway, today was such a great day. We ate Kobe beef together, played some sports, and had a lot of fun. Everyone was so warm and friendly. I'm really glad I got to spend the day with them. I'm also really happy that I've made so many friends from different countries. I feel really lucky to have such great people around me.

I arrived in South Korea at around 6 a.m. The immigration process took forever, but I finally got through at around 7:30. I had about four hours in Korea during my layover, so I decided to go to a casino. And somehow, I won quite a lot. I started with about 10,000 yen and ended up with around 120,000 yen. I played roulette almost the whole time, and honestly, it made me feel like roulette might actually be something I’m good at. Maybe I really am lucky. Still, this whole trip probably cost a little over 300,000 yen in total — around 180,000 yen for flights, 40,000 yen for accommodation, and maybe another 80,000 yen for everything else. So if I think about the casino winnings, I can tell myself that this trip only cost me around 190,000 yen. That feels pretty good. Maybe coming to Korea just to go to the casino wouldn’t be such a bad idea either. The adrenaline was intense. Right now, I’m at the airport. On the flight, I watched the movie version of *Nanimono*, and now I’m listening to its theme song, “NANIMONO.” Listening to it makes me feel like something in me has changed. Only “feel like,” though. I think this trip helped me organize my thoughts a little, especially about relationships and how I want to work in the future. If I had to choose theme songs for this trip, they would be “NANIMONO” and “Shape of My Heart.” Both are theme songs from movies I watched during the trip. When I watched *Léon*, which uses “Shape of My Heart,” I didn’t actually think that much of the movie while I was watching it. But the feeling stayed with me afterward, little by little, and I gradually started to like the song more. What that movie and song made me think about is this: having something or someone you want to protect probably makes life harder than living only for yourself. But maybe it also makes life richer.

Today is a travel day back home. I’m traveling from Tbilisi to Kazakhstan, then South Korea, and finally Japan. Today, I’ll make it as far as South Korea. At a restaurant in Kazakhstan, I called the staff several times, but no one really paid attention to me, so I ended up leaving. It put me in a slightly bad mood. Tonight, the airplane is basically my hotel. I thought I might be able to sleep, but I couldn’t really get any proper rest. Also, because South Korea is five hours ahead of Georgia, Friday is only going to be about 19 hours long for me. Maybe because of that, even though I haven’t slept much, I still somehow feel pretty energetic.

Today was a travel day from Kutaisi back to Tbilisi. Tomorrow, I’ll leave Tbilisi and head back home. In Tbilisi, I met someone from Ukraine whose home had been destroyed because of the war, and who had come to Georgia after fleeing Ukraine. He told me he had no money and asked me for some. I really hesitated. I just couldn’t bring myself to give him cash, so I decided not to, but I did give him some food. I thought about it a lot. Maybe his story was a lie. Normally, when something like this happens, I don’t trust it and I say no to everything. But for some reason, this time I felt like maybe I could believe him. He also showed me some real photos, and that made me want to believe his story even more. I thought I would feel more guilty if I chose not to believe him and did nothing, so I think I made the right choice. I just hope what I gave him helped in some small way. Right now, I’m sitting on a hill in Tbilisi. The trip is almost over. It was so much fun. Meeting that Ukrainian man made me think that maybe things are enjoyable partly because they eventually come to an end. Looking back on this trip, so much happened. I listened to songs by a Chinese singer on the way to Kazbegi, met a kind older man at my guesthouse, and tried chacha for the first time. My room was amazing, although some of the locals around the guesthouse looked a little intimidating. The owner gave me a ride to Juta. I came back from Kazbegi to Tbilisi with a guy who looked kind of like a delinquent. Then I took a train and a marshrutka to Mestia, where I met Tyler. In Mestia, I saw a glacier, hiked in the rain, stayed for quite a while, and ate a lot of good food. Then I went to Ushguli, took things slowly, and somehow ran into Tyler again. I was nervous about missing the marshrutka back to Mestia, but I made it. On the ride from Mestia to Kutaisi, I almost got carsick, and I learned one important lesson: always sit in the front seat of a marshrutka if you can. In Kutaisi, we had parties almost every night. We ate watermelon and cheese and drank wine, and I spent my days slowly wandering around the city. Then I took the train back to Tbilisi today. I had booked a window seat, but someone had taken it, which annoyed me, but I decided to let it go. After that, I rode the subway for the first time, and now I’m sitting here looking at the view. I read a lot of books, watched a lot of movies, listened to a lot of music, and thought about my future. While I was doing all of that, the trip somehow passed in an instant. This trip felt different from Mongolia and Cambodia. I had fewer worries this time. Maybe that’s what made it feel so different. I’m still sitting up here on the hill, but I think I’ll relax for a little longer and then head back to the guesthouse. I still need to buy some souvenirs.

Today is Day 13. My Mongolia trip was 13 days, and when I went hitchhiking, that trip was 12 days. Until now, 13 days was the longest solo trip I had ever taken. This time, though, it’ll be 16 days. Part of me wants to go home, but another part of me still wants to stay longer. Both feelings exist at the same time. I like staying at home because I’m pretty introverted, but I also love being somewhere completely different from everyday life. I guess I’m always somewhere between those two sides of myself. Still, once I go home, I know I’ll immediately fall back into my normal routine, so I don’t really want to go back yet. Maybe I should take Monday off too. I still want more time away. By the way, it’s kind of amazing that I’ve only used seven paid vacation days for such a long trip. Normally I would have needed about 13 days off, but thanks to Silver Week and the way my company’s weekend work schedule lined up, I didn’t have to use that many vacation days. That worked out perfectly. Today was supposed to be sightseeing in the city, but honestly, it was more like just taking it easy. I went to a cafe, then another cafe, then another cafe... I wish I had brought one or two more Japanese books with me. I’m running out of things to read, and it feels a little unsatisfying. I also feel like there are more shops here where the staff seem unfriendly compared with Japan. Because of that, when I find a place where the staff are really nice, it makes me even happier. Today, I went into a souvenir shop and someone suddenly shouted, “Close it!!” at me in a loud voice. It scared me. We had another party tonight too. It went from around 8 p.m. until midnight, and it was really fun. It made me want better English even more. There were people from all kinds of places, and German, Russian, and English were all flying around at the same time. It was complete chaos. I drank a lot. Happy!