Back home

We got back home last night after our two week trip to Japan. We decided to come back a day early so we can take the weekend to recover and I’m glad we did. It’s nice to have a couple days and nights to readjust to schedule and get my mindset back into work mode.

I’ll write a lot more about the trip throughout the week, but overall I loved my second trip to Japan. It came at a perfect time. I felt that I was able to largely disconnect from work and recharge. The week of the 4th was a great time to be away as work slowed down significantly.

Being abroad does make you realize how lucky we are to live in America. We’ve got a lot of problems here, but pretty much every Japanese person who spoke to wanted to visit or had gushing praise for America. I suppose that we’re so lucky and have so much privilege in this country that we forget that others don’t have what we have.

On our last day in Tokyo, I complained to Sophia that there are not that many gifts that are worth buying in Japan anymore because we have nearly everything already. We have Japanese grocery stores stocked with the local goods and candies that also line the stores in Japan. We have the biggest Japanese chains such as Uniqlo, Daiso, and Muji right here in SF.

Being home is bittersweet. I’m sad our trip is over and I’m going to miss Japan. But coming back home to a sunny San Francisco with everything we have here isn’t all that bad.