it's not life that matters but the journey...

Well the good news is that the rain stopped yesterday afternoon. The bad news is that it's still cloudy, and I had so wanted to see the sun today!

The next couple of days will be busy as I'm cramming in extra lessons with students before I go. It's been hard to concentrate on teaching when I have so many other things on my mind, but the students are a nice distraction. I did mail out two packages yesterday (by sea mail, so they'll arrive after I do), so I feel somewhat organized. I just have one more box to pack and I need to organize my suitcase and carry-ons to see how much I can take. Leo has to see the vet (something I wasn't aware of) before I fly, to get a health certificate. Hopefully there won't be any complications with getting him out of Japan and into the U.S. (I've checked all the requirements). Finally, I think M has to visit a doctor - he's been having some bad stomach problems, and he'll have to take care of it here in order to avoid American doctors!
So that's life in a nutshell.

I finally got more photos uploaded, so I'm sharing them with you now. These are from our visit to Hiromi Koen (the beautiful park, which is 10 minutes from here by car - I wish it had been in walking distance!) to see the Cherry Blossoms:



( see more of Hiromi Koen )

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands


So sad how few states I've been to (I need to remedy that with some road trips!).

and even sadder that I've been to only 10 countries in the whole world. I had meant to visit Korea or Vietnam this time around while I was in Japan (since Asia is all so close together), but didn't have the money, alas!

I do plan to visit the entire British Isles, Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic), and some South American countries someday. Oh, nice dreams...

if you want to read this really long list, ( please clicky clicky here )