Fruit flies like a banana

We seem to have finally "found the floor" as Lisa put it, having tired of the endless piles of stuff and heaved it all into seamail boxes. Our last effort was a 20kg reminder of why cars are awesome, which the post office fortunately agreed to pick up for us. There are probably two more boxes to send and a bit of slash and burn to be done to the wardrobe, then I can almost imagine getting the remainder into a suitcase. This is a Very Good Thing, because it's just over a month until check-in and that Mario "running out of time" sound is on the edge of my hearing.

Melloween

After last year's costumed antics there were some robust discussions about what we would do this Halloween; because of all the American influence it seems to be a massive thing here and there's no shortage of events going on. We could have dressed up as Power Rangers and run around Himeji, for example, or done the Harry Potter thing again and club-hopped in Osaka while shrieking women chased us around camera-first. The enthusiasm was fairly short-lived though - going out to get radioactively drunk didn't particularly appeal and neither did the idea of having to pack up yet more costume stuff. So we kind of just sat around and ate instead and Lord help me I think we made the right decision.

Kicking and screaming

No doubt the worst bit about holidays is the horrendous comedown - the first few days of being back in the grind that really hits home how far from more holidays you are. I made my inglorious return to the workplace on Thursday and for the most part felt like a plump Christmas turkey dreading the sound of knives on sharpeners; I'm a captive audience for the next year and at some point I'm going to have to perform. It's reverse (reverse?) culture shock, I keep telling myself, but that isn't helping me feel any less hunted - my head is full of the faces of disappointed coworkers and empty blog posts. Time to do something about the latter, I think.

Back in black (and white)

And with that, a month at home passes in about as long as it takes your eyes to move from the last post of 2010 to the first of 2011. Welcome back, I suppose, although I don't really feel qualified to be a host at the moment. We've been back in Japan for a week now trying to recalibrate the instruments, mostly shambling around Osaka and Kobe as we used to. The faces, places and bases haven't changed but it doesn't feel entirely natural again yet; I think we've spent enough time in Australia and Japan respectively to defamiliarise us with both. Our first trip to the supermarket was particularly strange - a mundane task in a fantastical world, like taking Gandalf's robe to the drycleaner. There be magic here, just not as you imagined.

Cha-ching

The showpiece of last week had to be Culture Day, a glorious midweek public holiday that I'm not entirely sure of the purpose of; it's probably another one of Japan's many examples of "let's think of a provocative name for a day off". Being the refined creatures we are, we decided to focus our attention on Osaka shopping culture and had what I think was my 3rd successful trip out there in a row. At this rate I might actually start liking the place.