Well, today marks my two-week anniversary of being back in Canada.

I'm glad to say there are things about BC that are shining dazzlingly in my newly widened field of vision; masses of trees in their spring-green glory, expanses of sky and field and rock and ocean, as yet uncluttered and unlittered by human hands, etc, et al. There is also lovely mindless crappy television, and pet fur on my sweaters, and giant barbequed steaks and baked potatoes. There are welcoming family members that have plied me with wine and sparkling conversation and rides on a fishing boat. To get prawns. And crabs. Which we ate and ate and ate!

Sea creatures beware! I will EAT YOU!

Many of my Japanese friends and ex-students have been faithfully emailing me and updating me on the weather and general happenings in Tokushima. Some mornings I wake up, and it is inconceivable to me that I won't be hopping on my bike and coasting to Kitajima. I have a divided sense of 'belonging' now. I think I knew that it would be like this. It's not hard. It's not easy. It's just... meeehhhhh. I miss working. I miss the students. I miss Bubu and Haruko, okonomiyaki and my blue Crispy bike. But there are a million things here that have been made new and fresh from time and space, and I would be a fool to sink into reverie when I could be enjoying life. Right?

Right.

So today I will live the comfy Cobble Hill cowboy home of my cousin Scott and his wife Kelly-Anne (and their currently travelling daughter, Charlotte, whose bed I have been sleeping in-- thanks Charlotte), and go a little further up the coast of Vancouver Island, to Courtenay, BC. I'll reconnect with my old coworker, Jess, and her husband Ryan, and have a look at their fruit trees and drink Ryan's flawless coffee. Then on I go, up up up to Port Hardy BC, then on a twenty-hour ferry ride to Prince Rupert, BC, to see my folks. Then... well, don't ask me.

The adventure continues.