Chris and Mari are celebrating their First Japanniversary…in Hong Kong!
When we moved here I envied the multicolored passport stamps in everyone else’s passports. And they’d only been here maybe a year! I would NEVER have that many stamps! WRONG!!
In addition to exploring Tokyo, Kyoto, Sasebo, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Yokohama, Kawasaki and of course Yamato in Japan, we’ve traveled to Beijing and South Korea and met up in Ports of Call around the hemisphere like Perth and Singapore. I went to Sydney; Chris went to the Philippines. I flew across the Pacific Ocean five times in one year. Five. Times.
We’ve purchased a scooter for me, a motorcycle for Chris, and a $500 car that we already had to junk. I’ve had short and long-ish hair, and Chris has grown and shaved off a mustacio. 
We’ve seen parks, shrines, temples, museums, libraries, memorials, flora, fauna, etc etc. I ate kangaroo. Chris ate tentacles. We both ate raw octopus and shellfish and squid. Neither of us ate that nasty stuff I accidentally ordered last month. 
We’ve learned it’s absolutely worth whatever it costs to heat up this drafty house in February. And in March if it keeps snowing. It did. My mom will never again Skype me to find me in a wool hat, turtleneck, overcoat etc in the kitchen. We will form alliances with kerosene. 
We’ve made and said goodbye to friends. And we’re looking forward to the next two Japanniversaries! 
Naritasan and the Great Pagoda of Peace
Hi Honey, How Was Your Day?
Pieku
Pumpkin Patch!
So, after all this traveling, in a couple of years, you're going back to the US, buy a house with a picket fence around it and live there happily ever after?
Probably not. You've got the bug! Enjoy!
Tear! That is such a great re-cap Mari! I always enjoy doing a New Year's one and when I read over it I can't believe all that we have done. Seriously, a year? It went super fast!