But, there's no place like home

Sitting at my desk today, it feels like maybe I was just asleep for about a week and had this really cool dream where I went to Japan with Britt and had a wicked awesome time, saw some of the coolest sights, and met some of the best people ever. it all seems so real though. I even have a hello kitty photo album sitting next to me with pictures of the adventure. but the girl in the pictures has glasses and curly hair, so it must be someone else.

During this adventure there were Shrines, and Temples, and monkeys, and waterfalls, oh my. We spent 5 glorious days in Niigata with the Hikosawa family and various friends of Britt's eating TONS of food (don't ever think for a minute that the lovely people of Japan only eat a little bit of rice and fish at meals), sightseeing around town and about 3 hours away in Nikko. And we ate a lot too. We made a pit stop at Nihon Kai where I drew some initials in the sand. We had a Mexican Cuisine Party at the Hikosawa home where we drank corona and received beautiful gifts from the family and friends. And we ate some more. After a stop at a Junior High School to talk about being American (and, subsequently, defending ourselves in a way) we made our way to Oz, umm, I mean Tokyo. Tokyo was everything I hoped for as a combination of NYC/Las Vegas/Disneyland/Hell. I enjoyed the brief city life even if that meant burning eyes and difficulty breathing at times. The people were great and the walks to and from the subway were kind of refreshing. Oh yeah, and Chester has a talking bathtub.

As I rode the train from Tokyo Station to the airport, I reflected on the whole wonderful week as I stared out the window. If felt pretty surreal even when I was still there. There was even an earthquake in Tokyo 10 minutes before my flight left and a earthquake in San Diego right after I got home. strange. The best parts of the adventure don't translate through pictures or words unfortunately, but those are the things I'll remember most of all. So I'm looking at these pictures and saying to myself... "and you were there, and you were there, and you were there too..."

song o the week... somewhere over the rainbow...