Farewell Japan

It is the final day of the school year, I have finished grading exams, and all final paperwork is submitted. I will board a Delta 777 at Haneda International at 9:55pm flying to CONUS tomorrow.

さらば日本よ。お招きいただきありがとうございます。

It was a wonderful stay. We will miss you.

Japan has been welcoming to the point of becoming spoken of as “home.” My children have certainly thought of it as such. They have known little else. Their American side influenced by the base outside of the normal cultural influences so it has not strictly been an American influence. Their other influence has been very Japanese. Living off base gave them an immersion into Japanese culture that often took precedence over other influences and they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Jun especially has been influenced. She is the only one of us that speaks English, liberally seasoned with Japanese words and phrases (and new Spanish words she has been learning) such that some struggle to understand her.

We will miss the scenery here. Japan has much scenery to enjoy from the beaches to the mountains, rivers to lakes. Much of the scenery is as you find in art works.

 

We will miss our friends and neighbors, especially Sobo. She has watched over our family as if we were her blood. The children know her just as a grandmother. If I could not locate my children, it would be likely they were at her house. 

 

The entire neighborhood around our house accepted us plainly and treated us as if we had always been here. Last Thursday, they hosted a 送別会 “farewell party” for us. They became family. 

 

We will miss the strange to us things that can easily be bought here. Things we will see nowhere else are abundant. Like Cheese Tea or Emergency Underwear. Being in the land of “Hello Kitty,” a bathroom would be incomplete without “Hello Kitty” toilet paper.

 

We are looking forward to our time in Spain but there are things uniquely Japanese that we will miss.

To Japan we say goodbye and thank you for everything.