above: Numazu and Senbon Beach, from our last climb up Kanuki!
It was so hard to say goodbye to Numazu, though fortunately we were so busy that we didn't have much time to dwell on being sad. Our last week was spent saying goodbye to all the students - most of whom we'd seen every week for the last year, frantically cleaning up the apartment, making runs to the post office and trying to leave things in order for the future teachers (whose arrival was delayed by the earthquake, so we never got to actually meet them!), all amidst rolling blackouts and goodbye festivities.
The last three days in town in particular were a complete blur: there was a takoyaki (octopus balls) party at Satoshi's house on Saturday...
above: oishii!
And then on Sunday, the official school goodbye party at our favorite karaoke place:
For some of my students, their last memory of me will be of me realizing that, other than the title phrase, I do not, actually, know the words to Kiss Me. (NOT a song I chose to sing - Yuka made me do it!) Sorry about that, guys.
Iain and Satoshi sang the song from Totoro (in Japanese!) much more successfully.
When we arrived a year ago, the karaoke welcome/goodbye party was fun, but a bit overwhelming, full of people we didn't know. One year later, we had so much fun we didn't want to leave, although - several beers later - we reluctantly remembered we had one last day of work tomorrow, and wobbled home on our bikes around eleven.
We drove past this hot pink car EVERY DAY for a year.
We were amazingly not hungover the next morning when we drove to work one last time.
above: the apartment, looking cleaner than it ever did all year.
After that, there wasn't much to do except finish scrubbing down the apartment and trying to wedge everything into our backpacks. In three days, we had somehow managed to go from this:
... to this:
boom.
We bid farewell to our boss and Numazu, and hopped on the shinkansen to Osaka, where we were able to say goodbye to Yuka, who just moved there. On Tuesday morning, we flew in Ho Chi Minh City in time to have a bowl of pho for dinner:
It felt amazing to step off the plane into Vietnam - and very intensely strange to go from our home in Numazu to the streets of Ho Chi Minh City in just a little over 24 hours. In all the excitement of being in Vietnam again, Numazu now feels really far away, but looking through the pictures that I've haphazardly thrown up on the blog (not the best photos, sorry) is definitely making me miss it much more now.
There are so many people we will miss horribly: our awesome friend
Yuka, who made us feel welcome the minute we arrived and who was always up for a coffee and cake, or a night of yakitori, or a photo-taking excursion; it's been a long time since I had someone to geek out about cameras or crafty stuff with! Also her husband
Kenji, who spoke very little English but who was always hilarious; our lovely boss
Kiyoko, who was always so kind, patient and helpful to us, and who is partially retiring herself, having sold the school, so hopefully she can enjoy some well-deserved relaxation. It was a pleasure to work with her, and also her husband
Eiji, who patiently drove us both all around the greater Izu area; ALL of our students, but especially
Satoshi, who often joined Yuka and Kenji on excursions or nights out; and
Daisuke and
Toshihiko, who invited us out to some seriously amazing dinners and whose lovely families we were always happy to spend time with. We also worked with some really nice part time teachers, particularly
Susan, Paul and Michel, who could always be counted on for early morning banter over the copy machines. I will miss all my classes, but especially my super-cute nursery school kids and the amazing students of my Friday evening Advanced class, who were collectively the most interesting, intelligent and hilarious people ever. We were so lucky to have gotten to know everyone, and we will miss them so, so much.
But mostly we'll just miss life in Numazu itself: getting to know some of the friendliest people in the world, the pretty drives to work in the mornings, the beach, the mountains, our small apartment with its tiny garden, the nomikai (drinking parties) with our students. We never got tired of it; we were always happy to be there in our sleepy city under the shadow of Fuji-san. Early on in our year, one of my students said that the sight of Fuji let him know he was home. For one awesome, full, too-fast year, the same was true for us. Sayonara, Numazu - we'll miss you!
