Shut up, I'm the driver you're the passenger.: Last Update

I am anticipating this to be my final update from The Land of the Rising Sun.

Let's see, my apartment looks like a bomb hit it. Well, except the two giant suitcases which are just about completely packed up! I am surprisingly ahead of schedule with the packing (I think). I'm sending my bags off to the airport tomorrow which means that I today I need to finish it off before I go out for my sayonara party with Kate and our Japanese friends. As it stands right now, I have two giant shopping bags full of beatiful gifts from everyone from my co-workers, friends, old students and even Kayvohn. Definitely going to be breaking the carry-on limit. Ah well.

I saw my old supervisor yesterday and the day before and it was totally emotional. Out of respect for my relationship with her, I'm not going to go into the whys of it all. But seeing her again kind of brought the whole thing 360 and it upset me more than I thought it would have. This situation is so weird because I'm saying goodbye to people whom I've had to overcome big communication obstacles to get to know, but nonetheless, have grown to respect and love. And these are also people who I will probably never see or hear from again. I've never been this emotional about a goodbye before. This is a major, two year chapter in my life that has had its share of high highs and low lows and precious moments and embarassing communication flukes, etc etc. Anyway, I wanted to sign off with some pictures from the last week.

Enjoy.

Ichiro-kun and his giant watermelon

Toshie, my students' mom, teaches an ECC English class for kids, and on Saturday afternoon she threw us a Sayonara Party with her students (who were also my students from Elementary schools).

After the ECC thing, I headed to Sanjo for my friend Nao's wedding. Here they are cutting the cake. 15 minutes after that, he changed into jeans. This party was very strange. But there was booze, so all was well.