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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Sayonara Japan, Shalom Israel

Last Friday we landed in Israel, back home after more than four years of living in Japan.

When I signed the contract to relocate to Tokyo, the expectation was that we would be in Japan for two, maybe three, years. At the time, despite me being familiar with Tokyo from several years of regular business trips there, living in the Land of the Rising Sun seemed like something we would never get really used to. We did not think it would become possible for us to call Japan "home". After all, it is so far away from Israel, geographically and culturally. How wrong we were.

Almost four and a half years have gone by and alarmingly fast. Not only did we get used to living in this foreign land, but we actually grew to love it. It is true that it would never be "home" in the deeper sense of the word - after all, a gaijin is a foreigner for life - but for us it did become a place we could call "home". A place we will terribly miss.

So it is with these mixed feelings that we start a new chapter in our lives, this time in our real "home".