212/365: Feb 1 2009. Eiko, Taizo, Pancho. My Japanese family / landlords / upstairs neighbours took Greg and I out for a fancy meal at a local restaurant. I swapped the Olympus for a far superior Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150. This was one of the first pic's from that camera. I was so excited, they all thought I was kinda nuts. I gave them a framed print of one of my own pictures from the Dr Sketchy's exhibition. I hope they like it, I gave them what I thought was one of the tamer prints.

214/365: Feb 2 2009. My mum Helsie would have loved this Helsie, they are soooo alike. Love this girl. We had lunch at Pizza Junction in Harajuku then went makeup shopping. I bought some more pink eye shadow. Thanks baby! She's off to live and love in Germany in a few months, leaving Tokyo after some 15 years. I know she's doing the right thing, and am delighted that she is making that leap of faith, to follow that fella halfway around the world.

215/365: Feb 3 2009. Minimum, Wakako, Ono-san, me and Tamaki. Some of my Starbucks family. We hit one of the private rooms at Iseya, Kichijoji's *awesomest* cheap beer and yakitori joint where we got all teary and did the gift giving/too many photos thing. Then I went home to keep on packing/cleaning.

216/365: Feb 4 2009. Oh my. Such a fun night. Cherry Typhoon, Paulie (aka Dj Evil Penguin) and I spent the afternoon/evening doing a tour of Asakusa, finishing up at a pretty legendary sake bar with Magnus, my Dr Sketchy's replacement and talented photographer.

217/365: Feb 5 2009. That last day/night in Japan was frikken frenetic to put it mildly. After running around like a maniac all day, Kat, Darin, Jake, Christian, Yuiko and I met up for an early dinner. Greg, the Canadian microbiologist roomie turned up after work. I said my "see ya's" to the Australia-bound gaijins (knowing that we'll be seeing each other in Australia in a few months) then hit my favourite haunt, Peppermint Cafe, (with Greg) to meet up with the J-crew for a night of more gift-giving, too many photos, quite a few tears, a speech and a slow clap. In this picture: Ami-chan, Lisa, me, Mikorin, Sachika.

218/365: Feb 6 2009. Sayonara Japan. I met up with the local crew at the park Starbucks for a last coffee, then a small group made their way with me to the airport bus stop in Kichijoji where they waved me off. Such a lovely send off. I sat on the bus as it drove out of Kichijoji and tried to comprehend that the moment had finally come. I loved living there, in Kichijoji. Such a great community.

Christian came to the airport to drink beers with me. Lucky since my plane was delayed 2 hours. Old friend Hide - on his way to SF for a holiday - met up with us at the airport for half an hour too. He's such a gorgeous man. Anyways, this is the last photo I took in Japan. Quite fitting that it is yet another picture of me and Christian drinking beer. Christian, you are such a wonderful friend. I love you! You helped make my time in Tokyo so much more fulfilling, so much more drunken and way less lonely than it could have been...... Such a solid friend, always there when you are needed. Thank you.



219/265: Feb 7 2009. Hello Australia.

My new room. My new neighbour. My new life. Woohoooooo.

I'm really sorry that the past few months worth of blog posts have been so clearly rushed and, quite frankly, duller than dishwater. It's been quite a struggle to keep blogging during this period of transition but I was bloody determined to keep it up, just to have at least a part record of my last year in Japan. I'm also really sorry that the comments have been broken apparently since I did the upgrade to MT 4.23 back in early December, as I know that people wanted to chime in and say their piece during this time - thanks to you folks who emailed me directly. Your continued interest in frangipani.info constantly surprises and motivates me, so thanks for sticking on in there. Still trying to work out why the comments aren't working, but I want to get them working again asap - it's way too quite around here without them.

Love youz.

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