Day 17 - Rob the Lion

I'd fallen asleep in my clothes last night and actually managed a solid night's sleep! I woke up around 6.45ish, I was meant to be meeting Darren for breakfast at 7am. I got to the canteen about 7.11 so I think I missed him. I helped myself to cereal and had a jam sandwich this time too.
 
Back at the tent I packed a bit before getting my stuff ready for our pack-away day at work. I got to the staff area a bit early and they'd already packed a lot of the bits away, the rooms were so much bigger than I thought!
 
Our job was to move all of the stock from the back room onto pallets and cages. The first stage was quite easy, light boxes that we passed along a production line from room to outside. It was a proper workout.. but nothing compared to the tents. They were quite heavy, I should know as one was dropped on my leg!
 
The boss was in a great mood, we had music and were given ice creams halfway through. There wasn't many of us, it was a volunteer shift, and we made the most of the sockets. We finished at 11.30, half an hour earlier than we were originally told.
 
I wanted to go into town for a bit of a walk and to visit the ¥100 shop. I met Gemma, Dylan and Dom in the canteen. We tried to find Emily, I had agreed to meet her at 12.30, at 13.30 we called it. Stole Ben from work on the way and we took a nice stroll to Sun Park, also picking up Emily.
 
I loved the ¥100 shop!! There was so much random stuff in there.. I only spent about ¥650 and managed to get some funky sweets for the brownies, presents, spotty origami paper and two Japanese USB charger plugs. The only downside is that I was in there so long I lost the others.
 
I found Dom and Gemma in the arcade and then Dylan, Ben and Emily in the supermarket. I had a cheeky Mister Doughnut while I waited for the others to get ice creams and visit the pet shop. It was nearly 4.30 now and I still needed to pack!
 
Dom had bought a load of balloons from the ¥100 shop and on the way back proceeded to make a balloon animal. I had the privilege of holding the parts as he made them. We must have looked real funny walking along with a bunch of yellow and orange balloons. By the time we were back, Rob the Lion had been born.
 
I then went back to my tent to pack the last few bits away. It took longer than I thought and was much more stressful than I had anticipated - I just kept finding more and more things to fit in!! Finally, my bits and bobs were all in the bags and we dropped the tent. With no tent bag to be seen since the first night, we gaffa taped all of the poles and pegs together and put the tent in a bin bag. Neither of us are too fussed on keeping it.
 
I then went to dinner with Hannah, Darren, Lewis, Martin and Lissie. We thought they'd maybe treat us for the last night with pizza or something. It was curry, and it was so so good!! The others still hadn't dropped their tents so I went to find the other others in the dome for the IST Closing Ceremony. 
 
I honestly have no idea how, but I found Gemma, Emily, Dylan, Dom, Ben, Emily, Nathan and Tebbs within 5mins. The Ceremony was really good, we got free hats, danced to the jamboree song, enjoyed some Scottish dancing and singing, lots of Irish singing and sang Auld Lang Syne to finish. It was so wonderful to close the Jamboree side by side with the fabulous friends I've made here.
 
Of course, being IST, we had an after party. It was originally scheduled for the beach but was moved to the food houses. Good job too, didn't fancy sandy clothes or sandy toes. It was looking to be a great party, we were whacking out all of our best moves... but then it got quieter and quieter and stopped. Apparently we needed permission from the Top Dogs before we carried on. 
 
We amused ourselves for a while and we led the way in doing the Hokey-Cokey and singing Sleeping Lion. However, when the music came back on it was so quiet we struggled to hear it. Circle of Truth it was.. the benches had been taken from the car park so we just laid on the floor.
 
I was woken up a while later and we decided it was probably best we all went to bed as we had an early rise. I said goodbye to Emily and Ben, I probably won't see them in the morning and they're not touring after. I know I'll see them again soon though! At about midnight I was snuggled on my roll mat in Dylan and Nathan's porch ready to leave tomorrow morning.

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