Part of our preparation for leaveing has been to leave reminders of our existence with friends we leave behind. Phil has made a "business card" with a difference.

On the back of this card Phil has put our New Zealand address and the address for this web site.

With only a couple of weeks left to pack for the moving company to take our stuff. Phil has tried to finish in the office but has got distracted with cleaning it! There have founds many things we haven't seen since we moved to the base five years ago. There was a box with family photos・books for studying Japanese (a little neglected) and many other items.

And what are we to do with the things we can't or don't want to take to NZ? Well, Phil's bicycle will be given to a new staff member; the TV to another family who's TV doesn't receive the bilingual broadcast; the microwave/oven also has a new home. And the list goes on. The car will become a base vehicle.
 Yoko has been doing a lot of the work in the apartment. The bedding has been packed with our winter stuff. We hope it doesn't get too cool after the passing of summer as all our warm stuff is in boxes to be sent to NZ on Sept 16th. (Thanks to Okamoto san of Leopard Express for all their help.)

Farewells are being said also. We have had a party in Kawagoe, where we lived when we first moved to Japan again in 1995. There are a number of people we will need to visit especially Yoko's parents.

Out friends at the base here in Tokyo gave us an excelent send off also. We felt very loved as most of the staff gave us a letter and showed their appriation.
(You can see the children here with Sakura and Satsuki Smith, the childrens friends since 1997. Machiko and Nathaniel miss them both.)

On the way home we stopped for three days in Singapore. It was great. We have very good friends Jeff and Racheal, there and they looked after us fantasticaly. Hopitality so good it was almost adictive. They took us over to Santosa Island which is like a lesure park/resurve it was great fun for the kids and relaxing for us adults too. (Nathaniel and our friend's son on a ride on toy in a Singaporian mall, on the way to the movies.)