Saying Goodbye

It's been an incredible journey, but - after 3 amazing years - my Japan adventure has come to an end.

Thank you to everyone here who helped me have the time of my life. I know that I'll be leaving a large part of myself behind. But I'll come back for it someday.

The whole month has just been crazy, from finshing classes, writing reports for every single student, about a dozen goodbye parties, packing, cleaning my apartment, catching up with friends for the last time, Rachel visiting, to saying goodbye to everyone who's lit up my life here. It's been hard, to say the least. People have been so good to me since the very first day, and it's them I'll undoubtedly miss most. I'll miss being a local; just yesterday I made it on the blog of my local cafe. The owners are so sweet and gave Kym and I each a free scone to take home as a goodbye present, complete with jam and cream. We were pretty big fans of their scones.

And of course, I'll miss all the little things:
- the way every now and then a kid will run up to you and say "hello!" in public
- the way people always try to teach and involve you in their traditional customs
- the way most people are calm and reserved until they get in that karaoke room...
- the way businessmen wear a tie, but after a few drinks it ends up tied around their heads
- the way old men proudly hum along to the traditional folk tunes playing in the background in public toilets
- when you walk into a small bar out of the city, and the locals (usually old business men) cheer
Just to mention a few.

So now it's onto the next adventure: just over 2 months of travel through Southeast Asia with my mate Kym. We'll be stopping in Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore. We've got a couple of exciting projects along the way... but you'll have to wait and see what I mean by that!

In the meantime, I hope you continue following my journey 'into the next realm'. I'll try to update when I can while travelling, although I expect there'll be no internet in a lot of the places we're heading to...