It is the 8^th of February 2012 as I write this, sitting at terminal 47 of the Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan. It is 2:23pm and my flight back to the United States leaves in about four and a half hours. I have been to the Narita Airport more than I have any other airport in the world. The first time I was here it was June 16^th, 2008.

As those who fly can tell you, airports seem to exist on their own separate plane of reality. You go down a hallway and have a seat in one city, then get up and walk down a hallway into another part of the world. In this way, all airports seem connected, right next door to each other. They have their own economy at the very least. A coke and a sandwich costs double in Airport World what they cost just outside their doors and down the street.

You become familiar with airports when you travel. Chicago O’Hare, Boston Logan, Seattle Tacoma, Will Rogers World Airport, etc. I am very familiar with them all. I know where the shops are and how to get around and I remember where to go without reading anything because I’ve done it all before. I have preferred restaurants in each (the Dallas Fort Worth airport is half restaurant itself). I have unique experiences at them all (I was nearly late for a flight in Detroit Wayne because of a movie they were filming there at the time. I nearly ran through the middle of the set). And after a while, going into an airport really feels like magic. I can go through that door and come out in nearly any city in the world.

For nearly the last four years I have lived in Japan. I have left it’s airport’s doors and gone many places, but I have found that there are many doors in America that have lead back here. Though I now wait to leave Japan for what may be (but hopefully not) the last time, it does not seem very permanent.

I will not miss the military. It’s lifestyle is not one I thrive in. I do not want to speak ill of it however. It has changed me, and in the end I feel it’s for the better. It has been as good to me as it’s been bad these past 4 years but it will continue to reward me for my time for years after I’ve left it. But, as always, it is not my desire to talk about my time in the navy very much.

As I said, I have been in Japan for nearly 4 years. I have climbed Mt. Fuji. I have slept on the rooftops of buildings in Shibuya. I have stayed in an $800 a night hotel room over 30 stories above downtown Tokyo with Katie West while she spent most her time in it naked (which you’ll know if you’ve seen NANOKA, one of the greatest things I’ve been a part of). I have walked inside the Great Buddha. I have swam in the ocean off of Japan’s beaches. I have explored abandoned Japanese water parks. I have eaten Japanese food, learned some of the Japanese language, made love to Japanese women, visited their temples and museums, and planted cherry blossom trees in Japan’s soil. I have made great friends here.

I have marveled at their society, their culture, their efficiency, their kindness, their work ethic, their fashion, their ideals, and their art. I have never known a life of such safety, of such ease of transportation, or of such variety. I have never once feared for my money or my life while walking any street at any hour of the night. I have seen children as young as five or six walking the streets and riding the trains to school by themselves. I have never been lost for long, and I have never found anywhere out of my reach. I have never known such an array of shops and restaurants on every street in every city selling everything you could imagine.

I couldn’t recount every experience I’ve had in Japan. I can however remember what walking through it’s living, breathing streets is like. The air and the sounds and the smells and the people. I can remember the rhythm of the trains. I can remember the colors and character of the small ramen and sushi shops. I can remember the festivals. I can remember the laughing and smiling of pretty schoolgirls. I can remember the noise and music that erupts from pachinko parlors. I can remember a crepe stand on nearly every corner. I remember the arcades and photo booths. I remember the ferris wheel in Yokohama…

I should stop. I have months and years of this, and I’m going to try and shove it all into a post on the internet? Absurd. Although honestly? I’m a little greedy. I don’t want to tell you some things. There are things I don’t need to write down to remember, things that may be mundane, but are unique to my experience. A few special memories, not all of them, but a few. A few of those are just for me.

I will cherish them the rest of my life. I hope that one day I will be back. I hope that if you haven’t gone to Japan, that you plan to. I hope that if you come here, you have at least ½ the fun that I had, which I assure you will take quite some effort.

Sitting here in the airport makes it seem easier than it really is to come back here. I do not yet realize, I don’t think, how far away Japan is about to become. I think it’s because I’ve only just recently realized how it had become home. Leaving it is as bittersweet a feeling as I can imagine.