And another one bites, and another one bites

Another one bites the dust.

As I type, the good ship RayVon is on her way to Kansai International airport to return to New Zealand. I am certain I will be seeing her again soon though- she is planning to move to London by January (fingers crossed), but will definitely be there at some point. And I will definitely head to New Zealand at some point too.

Having kept our spirits up in Tuesday by going for dinner and having a marathon karaoke session with Nao chan (2 and a half hours where we impressed her by demonstrating knowledge of which rooms had the most songs- room no. 11 and room 3 at the Riverside hotel have the most up to date systems), LeeJay and I prepared to see RayVon off as best we could.

We marked her leaving with a meal in the city, LeeJay and I driving down after school and it feeling odd that we were on the expressway other than at the weekend. We wandered through Okayama's underground shopping centre and bumped into Saddam and RayVon while on our way to meet them, and then headed to Saddam's favourite restaurant (an izakaya above "Hong Kong" pachinko in the city). We gorged ourselves on tofu and cheesy potatoes and other good dishes while RayVon recounted details of her final day of school and how, despite telling her they'd check that the house was spotless they in fact only looked at the previous October's typhoon damage rendering RayVon's cleaning frenzy pointless. The meal finished with lots of pictures being taken and we headed off for desert to a cafe where we had our final bitching session and I informed everyone that all the waiters were in fact gay. RayVon immediately agreed: "that one's got a gay walk". She was right. I'll be going back for pudding (fnar fnar).

I really am not good at saying goodbye. Not because I cry and wail, but rather the opposite. As I've said before I just kind of stand there, do the hugging thing and say "take care, see you soon". I really will miss RayVon, and Abby, and when she leaves, LeeJay, but these are really good friends, and I have no intention of not keeping in touch.

Bye bye Raewyn Muir! I'll miss you too!