Marilee here.

We said, “This is the last….” SO many times today. As in:

• “This is the last hotel breakfast buffet we’ll have in Japan.” Said while eating the eccentric Italian-themed food offered at this hotel — wedges of Gorgonzola, prosciutto, frittata. We never treated ourselves to one of the early morning glasses of red wine on offer (no regrets there).
• “This is the last Japanese big bridge we’ll go over”. It seemed fitting, after cycling over so many huge bridges in the last few weeks — most memorably, the chains of bridge-connected islands in the Seto Island Sea, that our final taxi journey to the airport included going over a big bridge. It also reminds us of all the massive infrastructure projects that we kept encountering along our ride through the country. It must be great to be an engineer in Japan, you’ll never hurt for work here.
• “This is the last tunnel we’ll go through!” (Followed by cheers). Right after going over the bridge, our road to the airport plunged into a tunnel. Classic Japanese highway construction. The tunnels are one thing I won’t miss about cycling in Japan.
• “This is our last bowl of ramen.” Said with mouth full, while eating very good ramen at the airport (alas, overpriced, but it was airport food after all).  I have had enough cup ramen while camping to last me a lifetime, but good ramen is a thing of beauty. Fortunately we have lots of noodle soups ahead of us in Thailand, Taiwan, and Korea. 

We watched Okinawa disappear out the plane windows and tried to adjust our brains to the reality that we’d be going to bed that night in Bangkok. Hard to believe!