I've been e-mailing one of my senpai this week, because he recently returned to Japan. He used to live in my city, too, so he gave me some quick updates of our mutual friends - mainly, my lovely ex-supervisor's family. I can't believe I've been away for almost a year.

Tacking "reverse culture shock" has been an interesting experience over the past year. It's really quite sad, but I'm not exactly quite over leaving Fuku. Don't get me wrong! Life in Japan wasn't always viewed through rose-coloured glasses, but here are some of things that I miss the most:

- The friendships made in Japan. I should really make a concerted effort to keep in touch. But I'm hoping that my good Fuku friends know I still care about 'em, even if my correspondence skills are a major fail. Last summer, some friends even organized a surprise party for me at my local beer hall because I would already be out of Japan by the time my actual birthday rolled around in August. (I also "celebrated" my birthday here in Ottawa. I invited my closest friends out for a dinner. Everyone was 40 minutes late. Maybe I was feeling self-centered and jet-lagged, but I felt it was a weak way to ring in my homecoming. On my actual birthday, I didn't want to talk about it. We were celebrating my cousin's engagement on an elegant rooftop patio in Toronto. SWAG. Wish I had that!)

- Iced coffee. People often grip that Japan doesn't have a good cup o' joe. But the country sure knows its iced coffee. When we had lessons at the community centre, I often quenched my thirst by drinking Georgia's iced "cafe au lait" in a can. I realized I was the lone person who drank that drink selection dry from the nearby vending machine. At the convenience stores, they sold delicious Mt. Rainier iced coffee in neat plastic cups. You puncture the aluminium top with a plastic straw. Oh, iced coffee... so bad, but so good.

- More beverages: Long island iced teas (and nomihoudai), oolong tea (iced or hot), umeshuu
- Festivals
- Wearing yukata

- Karaoke (Specifically any Montell Jordan track)

- School life

- Carrying wads of bills in my wallet 

- Trips to Tokyo for the weekend... just because 

- Karaage teishoku at the mom and pop's shop along R4 in Motomiya

- Riverside snack bar in Motomiya
- The Meiji Shrine

- Convenience stores stocked with anything and everything

- 100 yen stores (good enough to furnish my apartment!)
- Blaring Drake tracks from my old kei-car, Haruto
- Driving a kei-car

- Purikura
- Reasonably-priced tights in cool designs

- UNIQLO

- The views from skyscrapers in Tokyo (I don't like heights, but I do miss peering down at sprawling cityscapes)
- The smell of burning rice fields
- The cheerful "Harro, Gemma-sensei" greetings from my former kiddos
- My bedazzled purple keitai (That's a lie... that ghettomaphone still cost me more than $100 in final bills!)
- My taxi drivers
- The 21st of each month
- Highway express buses
- Buster the Maine Coon
- Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea
- The hum of the cicadas
- Having students as my neighbours
- No tipping and high-quality customer service
- The vast selection of Nikes
- Sleepovers at Soph's old apartment (20 people in her tatami rooms? No big deal)
- Shinkansen rides
- Local trains
- Meeting up at Hachiko before partying in Shibuya
- Ageha nights
- Fake eyelashes from the Daiso
- Pooh-san novelties
- J-pop recommendations from students

I could go on, but this blog post is already quite emo and natsukashii!!