I would love to know how one surives in Sheffield without a laptop, an Ipod, a book to read or quite litterally in the case of me - absolutely nothing in my room.

This is the harsh reality facing me at the moment, as I sit all alone in Sheffield, flatmates deserted in a room that has been stripped clean, waiting for the soul-filling journey that will take me from the City of Steel to the City of Donny and then onwards onto Darlington, then home-sweet-home. The past 22 months or so have been the greatest and most emotionally challenging of my life and it is one to which I close a chapter to with thanks to the people who have made this possible, and then onto writing a new chapter with the large emblazoned headline of Japan, which will become the starting point of the next 14 months or so of my life.

Its very sad to leave the people I care about in Sheffield; close and random friends, inspirational guides, well-wishers, my teachers and lecturers and everyone else who has supported me in making this small dream become a big reality. What I am facing at the moment is a huge pivot in my life, the turning point not just for the here and now, but possibly for the rest of my life. I enter the tunnel as one man and will leave it as another - for better or for worse.

I start my life again at ground zero (albeit with a few friends and classmates in Japan to help me if I get stuck) and enter a mystical world which I do not see as the glittery lights of Shinjuku or the hazy sunsets of a cherry-blossom spring in Yoyogi Koen. I see this chapter as representing anything but Japan. Japan is merely a by-word, something that is environmental to my changing state of being, a changing state of my inner-self from one form to the next.

This change is confronting me with tons of emotions that range from dangerous interpretation and cynicism to childhood excitement and anxiety. Every single one feels like a sharp prickly pin-drop that pierces into my sweaty, clamoured body. It keeps me awake at night. Its all I ever think about. Not the journey of simply going to Japan - but the journey that will awaken me spiritually and emotionally. I hope that this journey brings me fortune, and helps me discover myself and what I want to do - because right now I am unsure of what the future brings to the table and whether or not I want to eat what is front of me regardless of how juicy it may seem to the person standing next to me.

Yes, I will miss Sheffield. I will miss everyone who has had a part in my life for the past 22 months. But ultimately, I am going to miss the person who is sitting here typing this and who leave the UK in the next 2 months. I will miss him. Because I don't know if 14 months from now, he will be the same person.

I am being told that Sheffield will not be quite the same without me, but I think it is me who will not be quite the same without Sheffield.

And it is that closing comment that ends this rather turbulent chapter in my life. Thank you Sheffield for all the memories, onwards Japan and the potential wonders it may bring.