Home, sweet home

I've been back home for about 5 days now. And it feels great : ) I'm still feeling tired, which means I'm still jet-lagged. I've been told it takes about 1 day to recover for each time zone you pass. Between Canada and Japan, there are 14 time zones... so 14 days = 2 weeks. So I'm not completely recovered yet. Plus, I'm probably tired because of all the sleep I missed out on in Japan. But I'm toughing it out. Even when I feel sleepy and don't want to do anything but sleep, I don't sleep because it'll just confuse my body and possibly slow down my recovery time.

It was easy coming back home, even after being gone for a year. Nothing much has changed. I just eased back into my old routines, going to the pool with my mom, helping her with the groceries, etc. I start classes only in January, so I have some time to relax and breathe a bit.

I've lived in Canada for much longer than I have in Japan but it seems I still managed to forget some things while I was in Japan. For example, when I exchanged Japanese yens into Canadian dollars at the airport in Vancouver, I was given lots of 20$ bills. At first I looked at them a bit perplexed. I had completely forgotten we had 20$ bills! And then later, when I came to pay for a magazine and a snack at the airport, it took me so much time just to find the right amount. The currency felt foreign to me, kind of like Japanese yens were when I first arrived in Japan. I had to concentrate quite intensely to give the cashier the $8.48 I owed. And she looked at me a bit weird as I was counting, wondering what was taking so much time.

The weather was also a shock. I left Japan, where it was still around 30°C and arrived in Manitoba, where the ground was covered in snow and the temperature was about 2°C. We just had hail today as well. In the house, I'm dressed in warm clothes and walk around with a blanket draped over my shoulders because my body still isn't used to the cold.



The first snowfall of the year

Today, after swimming, my mother and I went to the supermarket to buy groceries. Heaven!!! I filled our cart with many of the food items I wanted to eat in Japan but couldn't find in any grocery stores there: tadziki, feta cheese, milk to go, mars bar, gouda cheese, baby carrots and dip, rye bread, my favorite kind of cereal, frozen yogurt, and much more. But I tried not to go overboard ; )

So that's it for now. For the next three months, even though I don't have classes, I'll be busy studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) I'm taking in December, preparing for my university courses, finishing to unpack and stow away my belongings and enjoying being able to spend time with my family every day.

Our cat, trying to help me unpack...

That's it for now. I would like to write about differences that exist between Japanese and Canadians in terms of behaviour, attitude, or way of thinking but since I've been at home since I've arrived, I haven't had the chance to mingle with other Canadians. So I'll wait a bit to be able to write something on that topic. Toot-a-loo!