Last few days in Japan

What else happened before we moved away? 

 Oh. I know. I met some sumo wrestlers at a Cinco de Mayo event. Can't make that up, now can ya?

 I went to a goodbye party in Hachioji for our friend Vicky! Vicky got to Yokota two weeks before us, and left two days after us. What fun it was to spend three years with her and her crazy husband, Ricky!

I went to the Daiso, my favorite 100Yen (dollar ) store and loaded up on all kinds of crap I didn't need. Including this giant clown necktie, that I used as a hairbow for Cheyenne. I also spent many nights in PJ's with my BFF and neighbor Melissa. 

This is Melissa's dog, Penny-chan. She and Cheyenne were the very best of friends. If you say Penny's name today, she will whine and cry and start searching for her. It is VERY sad. Don't know how I'll feel when we have children that we have to take away from their friends! Ahhh, military life. 

Am I totally blessed or what? Look at the beautiful friends I have that came out to my very own "Sayonara to the Chelsea" Party. Incredible. Love and miss you all. 

Melissa, (and baby Smythe) and Chelsea.

We went bowling. Me with my sweet friend Emily and her precious little girls! 

We also went and had one last karaoke experience! Even baby Henry made it out! Our first week in Japan, our friends Kristen and Quinn drug us out to karaoke! We weren't sure of what to make of it, but we sure are glad we went that first time. They took us to "Yellow Cat" karaoke, which quickly became our most favorite karaoke joint! I don't know how many times we sang karaoke in 3 years, but I do know it was in the double digits. The first time we sang karaoke with Kristen and Quinn, we went into 'the big room at the end of the hallway. It's the same room we took my parents to sing karaoke in, and the last room we sang karaoke in too. I had many alone dance parties in this room, and watched Chelsea and Rob sing "My humps" when Rob's family was in town. So much good happened in that room. It's only a place filled with happy memories.

Oh! George and I finally made it to the top of the Skytree! This thing is INCREDIBLE! 

 Here's us standing on a glass floor looking down about a million miles. (errr... 450m) So scary! 

A view of Tokyo. It really is a GIANT concrete jungle.

Our last night in Japan. We went to Wingman Wednesday at the O-Club. Here we are with the residents of our building. These guys were the best and most fun neighbors ever! (There's a picture of Matt on the iPhone!) You can never count on everyone being in town at the same time! Miss you 1065! 

And then all of our stuff was packed up. And taken away. And we had to move away. It was awful.

We spent the afternoon of the day we left in the base hotel, surrounded by our favorite people. Thank you to everyone who came out to wish us well and send us off in style. I bawled my eyes out like a little baby saying 'see you later' to those I love the most. I cried all the way to the airport, on most of the flight to Hawaii, but then the white sand beaches did ease the pain a little. I still miss you all everyday.

In case I haven't said it enough... we miss Japan. Our time there was nothing short of incredible. We loved everything about it. It's safe, it's clean, the people were polite, and gracious, and willing to help. Those memories will not soon be forgotten. We went on trains, and boats, sky lifts, we hiked, we rode bikes, we skied, we traveled, we hosted parties, we attended parties, we ate, we drank, we said 'Kanpai!' at least a million times. We did a few pub-crawls. I watched a lot of Bachelor/Bachelorette with my girls. We watched sumo, and ate sushi. We devoured some serious ramen. We saw people leave on their deployments, and return home safely. We bought furniture, and a kimono, and Japanese dishes. We shopped, we saw museums, and parks, and mountains, and rivers and the ocean. We climbed MT. FUJI. We threw Daruma dolls into fire. I made mochi. We drank chu-his, and sang karaoke. We navigated the trains, more times successfully, than unsuccessfully. We danced in Roppongi, skiied in Nagano, and Hokkaido. Went to an ice festival, a samurai festival, a doll festival, a night festival, a summer festival, a fertility festival... (ok, we went to a lot of festivals...) Japan really has it all. And we miss it all. (Except the earthquakes... I don't miss the earthquakes.) 

"Don't be sad because it's over. Smile because it happened."