My last night in Japan

a photo from a thousand years ago (last week). i guess i had all of these romantic notions of what my last night in japan/tokyo should be...mentally i had big plans to get closure on my time here. in the end i was shattered from packing up all my life in boxes, and from my china trip and the japan roadtrip. when i got to the hotel, it was chucking down with rain, and it was such i lovely 5* hotel... in the end, i simply couldn be bothered to leave my hotel. i realised that i didnt need a significant swansong of a final night...the past 9 months was what it was all about, not the last night. my good friend tomomi was in town as she had been to a wedding the day before, so we had a quiet dinner on the top floor of the tokyo dome hotel. this was the view. to be honest also, id said my goodbyes at my leaving party, and by now i was just in 'going home' mode,and had kinda switched off my leaving emotions. kat rang me on the way to the airport which kinda brought it all back to me (leaving), which made me sad. the airport was funny. my company always fly people business class, so you get 32kg of luggage allowance...i had no idea how much baggage i had (physical, not the emotional kind)...i dont know why, but i gingerly placed my bags on the scales...as if placing them gingerly is going to reduce the weight???!! anyway, it came to 50kg (including snowboard)...ouch...that was about a 300 pounds fine..eek eek and thrice eek...so the woman on the desk goes away..for a full 10 minutes...she fills in a form...which im looking to see the fine on, she looks up, and says 'thats fine sir, have a nice flight'....PHEW! nil fine..thank you mr branson

tomomi met me at the airport to say goodbye (by this point i was sick and tired of saying goodbye to good friends), anyway, im sure she wont mind me saying that she cried, and im so grateful that she was there to say goodbye.

at the immigration, i gave back my residents card and had to reply 'no' when the immigration officer asked me if i was planning to return to japan...at least not as a resident. fingers crossed ill be back one day...

sayonara japan