It’s been about a year since I left Japan, and I know many friends and readers (those in the JET Program) are coming up on saying goodbye to a country or to their friends who are headed home. Here’s a few posts from the archives about leaving:

On Disconnecting in Japan (link)
It costs $200 to remove an air conditioner in Japan. 

On Meeting a Strawberry in Japan (link)
What seemed to happen, in my last weeks in Japan, is that rather than feeling a sense of attachment and a longing to stay, I have left already. Some students gave me flowers. They’re plastic so I don’t have to water them. It’s a nice gesture, but lately I feel like those plastic flowers, being there and looking the part but not really living.

41 Things I Like About Japan (link)
Useful in drawing up your Japanese bucket list.

7 Lessons Learned (link)
The ideas that have kept me sane – or have been learned after losing and finding my sanity – while practicing to become the person I am today. I’ve tossed a lot of ideas out in Japan, these are the ones I’ll be taking home.

On Life After Japan (link)
I panicked in an airplane-hangar-sized grocery store. My favorite restaurants at home had closed, or didn’t taste the same. I had to drive everywhere, and I felt stagnant from not walking. I instinctively tried to book a train to see my friends, but there are no real trains, nothing I could afford.

On Falling Out of London (link)
I came to Japan to write uncertainty out of my dictionary, to invent a new language to define myself, one that didn’t rely on anything outside of itself. That was a stupid idea.

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