The last couple of weeks have been intense. Our usually tidy apartment became a chaotic jumble of things to sell, give away, ship home, throw away, or take travelling. The catharsis of moving on to new adventures is still as hectic as it's always been, but I seem to be enjoying the process more this time round.

Yesterday was our last day of work. The sublime bliss of leaving a job for an adventure sunk in and electrified us. We've gone through a flurry of sayonaras with friends and students. There's a japanese saying, ichigo ichie, that translates roughly to "one chance, one opportunity." I'd like to think that we've made the most of our time in Japan, especially with all the good people we've met.

Visas and boat tickets have been arranged. Only a few boxes to ship off home, and I'll be in backpacker traveller mode again, with Hania the rookie in tow. This time next week, we'll be hanging out in Shanghai!

Regarding our journey, our friend Jim asked us to "be sure to explain the difficulties of communicating and finding directions and dealing with the crises and moments of desperation, when you are lost and confused.  It's nice to hear about the scenery, but its the emotional moments of disbelief, frustration and "Oh, shit!  What do we do now?" that makes those adventures so memorable and fun."

I'll do the best I can to put those experiences into words. The next post will be from China. Sayonara Nippon.

Fluctuations:

Not a good time to have our savings in Japanese currency. Our travel fund has lost a huge chunk in value over the last 6 months because of a drop in the yen. In a year the exhange rate has risen from 85 yen to the Canadian dollar, to 105 to the dollar.

We're checking out the exchange rates daily hoping that they'll improve within the next couple of weeks so we can transfer our money to a Canadian bank. The risk is how bad can the exchange rate get.