First few days back home
Unmistakably, Japan has a place in my heart. Strangely, though I haven't been back in four years and haven't lived here for nearly 16 years, I couldn't help but feel that somehow I was coming back home. From the surprisingly smooth and friendly pass through customs at Narita (it always helps to say your coming to visit relatives), to the attendants at the Hotel New Otani helping me get a cab and change despite not being a guest, I felt I had fallen into some strange vortex that transferred me back to my days as an exchange student at Sophia University. So, just hours removed from San Francisco and, unfortunately, LAX, I was now just a stone's throw from some of my former residences in Yotsuya, and was back on a familiar alley enjoying yakitori with a friend and musical mentor of my yesterdays. The song remains the same...maybe it just gets better with age. Though it is as cold as hell frozen over, the warmth of family and the embrace of the familiar is more than enough ...