I’m back in the US.  I’ve been here since April 2nd, trying to relax.  My Japan adventures have come to an end but that doesn’t mean that gaijzilla is done with.  I have a lot more pictures to upload and a lot more tales to tell.  Keep checking back and I’ll get them all up here once my life gets a bit more sorted out.

I wish I could give you some simple, brilliant synopsis of my year in Japan, but it’s just not that easy.  My friends and I all stopped and asked each other what we’d learned, but very few of us had answers.  I guess I have a little more self confidence that I can get through difficult situations.  I now know my way around Tokyo better than I know my way around DC.

I went to Tokyo on the day right before I left for Japan.  I wanted to see the cherry blossoms in Ueno park and the thousands of hanami (cherry blossom viewing) revelers, who are a wonder in themselves, drinking themselves into joyful, loud blackouts under the falling petals.  It was a long, tedious train ride into Tokyo.  As we approached the metropolis, I causually looked up from my book and thought, “oh… we’re in Tokyo.”  A little more than I year ago, I would have lept up and shouted “Holy $#$@!$^&#@%$#!!!! I’m in TOKYO!!”  The very idea would have been almost unimaginable.  And now it was no more concern that “oh, we’re there.”

Ueno park looked just like it did when I first came to Japan.  Almost.  This time the cherry blossoms were  a little bit fuller than when I came last year.

I’m left wondering whether I ever should have left Japan.  Now I’m plunged back into a horrible economy with no job prospects and I’m missing the time when I had an actualy marketable skill. (I can speak English good.)