Sayonara Japan

Homecoming montage!!! 

Well, the time has come to say "sayonara" to Japan... and I have to say in hindsight it has all gone by pretty quickly... now if you had asked me 1 year ago I would have told you this tour was never going to end! It is still soaking in that we have been here for 2 years... and it truly is bittersweet now that we are leaving. I know at a few points (ok... maybe more than a few) I wanted nothing more than to get the heck off of this island, but I stuck it out and really tried to make the best of it! What I got was an amazing adventure!

It has been a WILD ride these past 2 years... (understatement of the century), but we have made it through somehow and now it's time to go back to reality with hopefully no deployments lurking in the shadows...

There is so much we will miss about Japan... the food, the people, the culture, and how much there is to see. I will miss our weekend tours and traveling all over to explore different parts of Japan and have new experiences. In the short time we were here we have done so much, not just in Japan, but in other parts of this side of the world as well. Some of the highlights for us were climbing Mount Fuji (obviously), experiencing all the different foods (and sweets), our trip to Kyoto, and getting completely lost in the culture and the people here in this amazing country.

Damian and I each made a list of the top 5 things we will miss the most (we could have easily made much longer lists!!!!).

Damian's FAV snack!

Damian's Top 5:
1. Fresh sushi (cheap)
2. 7-11
3. Quiet travelers
4. Easy public transit
5. EVERYTHING is more efficient

Beth's Top 5:
1. FOOD (pastry shops, sushi, noodles, sweets, kit-kats, all of it)
2. Wicked clean public restrooms
3. Taking the train EVERYWHERE
4. Chu-hi's (apple, peach, and sparkling chardonnay)
5. People watching (especially the little Japanese kids in school uniforms and the really old Japanese people on the train)

Top of Mount Fuji

It is now time to close this chapter of our lives, and we are excited for the next as we move to the Washington DC area and Damian will be stationed at Walter Reed Military Medical Center. We are very thankful for all the wonderful people we have met here in Japan and hope to keep in touch with many of them and are hopeful that our paths may cross again someday. Japan will always have a special place in our hearts and our minds, but for now we say sayonara.