Well, Judy and I have finalized our departure date: August 22nd. It’s so hard to believe that we’ll be leaving Japan in less than six weeks. Today was Judy’s last day of work and I’ll be leaving for the first of my farewell parties in about 20 minutes. It’s so strange to think that it just a few months we’ll be living completely different lives: new jobs (hopefully), new apartment, new friends, new car (ugh), new everything. As you can probably imagine, our feelings about leaving are pretty mixed; on the one hand, we’re excited about moving on to the next chapter of our lives (to use that clichéd line for the billionth time), but on the other, it’s going to be hard to leave Japan, our home for the past five years. We’ve made an agreement, though: if, for whatever reason, things fail to turn out well after giving it an earnest go in North America, we can always come back to Japan.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to enjoy free food & booze!