I arrived back safe and sound, jet-lagged but otherwise fine, Wednesday morning. If you're curious about my lack of online appearances since then, well, I've been kept occupied dealing with ten billion people here who want to see me (as well some last minute shopping for stuff I won't have to pay duty on). Managed to poke my head online a couple times over the past few days -- you may or may not have noticed -- but anyway, I'm back in business. Sort of. Much of my luggage remains partially packed, since I'm going to have to move it all south again in about two weeks, but that makes it a pain to find stuff sometimes. Also, I may still be a bit hard to find for another couple days, until the festivities are over. Anyway...

Tokyo trip went well, if you were curious. Signed up for a tour: saw the Tower, the Emperor's Palace (from the outside of the walls, anyway), Akasaka Temple, and a brief viewing of the Diet, as well as general views from the bus of other locations. Really good tour guide too; spoke good English, and had a lot of interesting info about the history and sites of the city, as well as a few jokes. ("The tour bus cannot wait here for you due to parking rules. So if you come back before the pick-up time, you will not see the bus. If you come back AFTER the pick-up time, you will not see the bus.") Also, on my own power, visited TouCho (the Tokyo Metropolitan Area government offices: great view from the top, all the way to a faint but visible Mt. Fuji) and Akihabara (premiere tech equipment shopping district, where I picked up a discounted TM Revolution CD and an expensive but high-quality Japanese electronic dictionary, complete with handwriting kanji input).

The Kitais surprised me by giving me a lift to the airport and saving me about 4000 yen train fare (though I think they spent MORE than that on tolls; just about all the highways in Japan are turnpikes). Mr. Kitai even took the afternoon off to see me off. They also tried to pump me full of presents for myself and my family, but my baggage was already overloaded, so they wound up having to put most of it in a box and ship it from the post office that was conveniently right in the airport. Hasn't gotten here yet. *shrug* Anyway, it was really nice of them, although it also stretched out the goodbyes...

*sigh* I'm really going to miss everyone... When I head back and forth between Irvine and Campbell, that's not a big deal, because I know I'll see the people I'm leaving again in six months tops. But I have no idea when I'll be in Japan next, if ever... ...honestly, I'm getting a little teary-eyed right now just thinking about it.