Goodbye Kani City!

Well, today is both exciting and sad. Today is Damien and my last day in Kani City, Japan. When we first arrived, on our first full day in Kani it was raining and cold and we walked down by the river and marvelled at the huge herons fishing there. Since that day we have made many such walks down by the river.
Comorants and ducks on Spring mornings with cherry blossoms.
Hot Summer nights watching the bats swoop and dive.
The colorful leaves of cool Autumn afternoons.

The various animals and birds we always saw became like friends to us here.
Today, our last full day in Kani, we again walked down by the river. This time is was sunny and beautiful. It was almost like all the animals we have seen were out to say good-bye, cormorants, herons, ducks, grebes, nutria, egrets, pheasants, crows and hawks. It was amazing to think of all the things, good and bad, that have happened between those two river walks.

We gained many wonderful memories during our short time in Kani and really grew to love this area. We met many wonderful people and had some great experiences. It is sad that things couldn't have worked out like we had planned, but now we are embarking upon a new chapter in our lives, in Australia. One that hopefully will involve starting a family.

I will leave Kani with a haiku I made up while sitting outside in a hotspring a couple of weeks ago while looking up at the beautiful blue sky and sitting amongst the autumn leaves, watching a hawk flying above:

circles in the sky
over steam and autumn leaves
a quiet moment