Bye Bye Tokyo

Preparing to Leave - Our Last Week - Saying Good-bye

When we moved to Tokyo in June of 1998, we signed an 18 month contract. We did not want to commit for a full two years because we thought about starting our World Tour in the beginning of 2000. However, when the time did come to commit to an extra six months and work over the Y2K weekend, we chose to stay since we loved living in Japan. Plus, we calculated that with an extra six months of salary, we'd have money for not only a year of travel, but also for a house down payment when we returned. Thus, we lived in Japan from June of 1998 to June of 2000 and have very fond memories of our time there.

Preparing To Leave
Tara started preparing to leave Tokyo six months ahead of time. She used the weekends to organize photos and investiage world travel options. However, on June ?th, the day before the movers came, Seth took over and made sure we slept in our bed before packing it away in storage.

Our Last Week
We must thank Tara's colleague Kondo san for opening our eyes to the official company time off policy for people relocating internationally. When we moved from London to Tokyo, Tara took no time off at all beyond what was absolutely necessary. Stupid!! For this relocation, she made sure to take the full five business days allocated to anyone relocating internationally. It was so nice to have Seth's last day in the Tokyo office be on Wednesday, May 31st and then Tara's last office day on Friday, June 2nd because we weren't flying to Chicago until Friday, June 9th.

Saying Good-bye
We made lots of friends while we lived in Tokyo and we tried to make an effort to say 300good-bye to everyone.