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Homeward Bound
Return to Sasebo proves you can come home again |
| When we saw the sign, we knew we were close to home... | |
| This was a trip Julie and I started planning around November. We both had our reasons for wanting to make the trip; for me, it was a chance to reunite with many old friends and to revisit places where I spent three of the most important years of my life. For Julie, it was a time to visit family, living and dead, and to conduct some official business as well. |  |
(Left) Julie and her "ba-chan", or grandmother, after our dinner at the base's Harbor View Club. |
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| The trip south across Japan took about 15 hours one way. That included time for lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, the occasional traffic tie-ups, particularly when we hit Kobe and Osaka. We spent the first two nights of our trip at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, about three hours from Sasebo. Julie had business there and I had never been to this base, even though it was that close to Sasebo and I had lived in Sasebo for three years! I guess I just wasn't much of a traveler back then. Anyway, we eventually made it across the expansive bridge that unites the main island of Honshu with the island of Kyushu, where Sasebo sits. | (Top) Ryoko, my "Sasebo mama-san," was so happy to see me, she called her former English teacher, Marie Carlson, who lives in Wisconsin. Marie and I were friends when I lived in Sasebo. |