Vocabulary of the Week: Goodbye さらば

さらば　is just an old-timey way of saying goodbye (like farewell). You can hear it in this song called "Sakura" by Moriyama Naotarou.

Soon I will be saying goodbye to Japan. It's going to be hard. I will miss my walk home from school. My host family. Pastries filled with bean paste. Rugby. Judou. My friends. Tea Ceremony class. The convenience of trains. The narrow roads and the hills. The neighbors. Wasabi with my steak. Miso soup. Working pedestrian lights. The frogs that sang incessantly outside of my window. Were they frogs?

I said goodbye to my friend the other day. She left for America the day before yesterday. I didn't cry until I walked by the bicycle park where we would meet up before she left to ride home and I walked up the hill to my house. I never thought I would cry looking at a bicycle park.

さらば、友よ。

さらば、日本。