Sweet, Sweet Visuals

well here you are, you lucky people you. after lazily posting picture-less posts over the last few intermittent entries, you are being handed a feast for your eyes. here is a small sampling of what's been going on in my life over the course of december and january. one of the other great surprises was the addition of molly to our household, and she's just sassy enough to fit right in with the rest of us. sadly, i probably won't get to see the little rascal again for around a year as after japan i'm going to be taking a massive trip through southeast asia to see what all the fuss is about. so, about going home to canada. i had decided that after being away for so long that it would really be tough to also miss christmas. it's the one time in the year when the whole family is around. i knew in august that i would be coming home, though i didn't start making plans to do so until around september and bought my ticket after returning from hong kong. when the day finally came, i had managed to keep it a secret from everyone with the exception of my mom and a few friends in guelph who were keeping tabs on everyone so that i could track people down to surprise them. something tells me that shawn and sticky may have leaked the big secret a little bit, but no harm was done. most of the craziness was worked by showing up at people's doors with presents from japan when they were expecting me to still be on the other side of the world. some notable surprises: sneaking up behind andrew on his driveway as he was returning to work 10 minutes after i had talked to him and mike "from japan" (i had called them using skype using my parents' internet connection and then borrowed there car to drive over); knocking on andrea's door with a bag of gifts when she was expecting my brother to come by and drop them off and so she mistook me for him even after about 10 seconds. ah, and carlos, where we managed to get up to no good within an hour of seeing each other. good times.

most rewarding was the staggered surprises of seeing each person in my family at a different time. shawn and sticky were kind enough to pick me up at the airport so that i could surprise jimmy when i walked in the door. a few days later my mom and i picked up my dad at the airport who had been in cape breton when i got home. and darby flew in from norway about an hour later, so the three of us sort of surprised him as a team. later that night, shane came home from kingston while i was out and wasn't aware that my stuff was in the house. i walked in and asked, "what did i miss?" and he looked pretty shocked. for a moment he thought that i had been kicked out of japan but then realized that he was really just the last person to know. kudos to my mom for not telling anyone about my pending arrival, but next time i'm home i'm going to make a big deal about it pre-emptively so that i can fit into everyone's schedule and maximize my visiting time. sorry alan. i really wanted to see you but things got hectic with my lack of organization.

christmas was fantastic. i did some magic tricks for the cousins and got to see my mom's side of the family. they were also unaware of my return to canada and i just walked in the door to my aunt and uncle's house in guelph to join everyone for christmas dinner. what a feast. half of me was hoping for some christmas sushi, but no harm done.

while in canada i think i ate sushi 5 or 6 times with people, plus a few trips to eat tempura at a fantastic vegetarian restaurant in kensington market and in a restaurant in markham with my friend christine. christine managed to make my surprise backfire because i didn't get to surprise her at her door and i just came clean with her to tell her i was in town. she later showed up at my door while i was still in my pajamas and caught me completely off-guard. you tricky girl.

new year's eve was the most relaxed new year's i've ever had. with my great friend andrew leaving for a south american adventure on january 4th i decided just to spend some quality time with him and dabble in the joy of indoor intoxicants without getting too tipsy. we watched a whole lot of hockey with his brother scott and his girlfriend. the next day i went home to have a birthday dinner with my family. my brother jim left for denmark on an exchange on january 2nd so i was really glad to get a chance to hang out with him before he took off. i didn't think that i would get to see him for a long time so coming home to see him before he left was one of the top bonuses of coming back to canada. we went for a steak dinner (something i hadn't had in over a year) and just relaxed.

and so i left canada on the 6th of january. that week was a whirlwind of emotions though all of them good. i got chance to reconnect with someone truly fantastic over the course of 36 hours. images flash through my mind like strobelight slides: secrets shared and kisses stolen in alleyways. broken televisions and fog and looming departure. rejected photos of marilyn monroe on a bedroom wall. the danforth. sigh.

leaving canada this time around to come back here was easier in some ways because i know that the people i care about will continue to care about me no matter how long i'm away, and i was reassured by how much canada felt like home. there are elements about japan that feel like home as well, but i realize that my future lies in canada, even if not in toronto. keep your head up, vancouver. you might see me soon. go leafs go nonetheless.

and so now, i'm back in the swing. it's cool here in a bone-chilling-damp kind of way. it was easier to get back to work than i had anticipated. the kids remembered me and didn't seem to miss me at all, but i am a bit of a dancing clown to them i suppose.

and on that note, i have to get to work. enjoy the pictures, post your comments, and please contact me. i'm sure we have a lot to talk about.

Capital Letters (because this post was originally a group email before I remembered that I don't do that anymore, and I'm too lazy to change them)

Would it kill me to write an email now an then? No, it wouldn't. Is it too much effort or somehow illogical? Not at all. Am I still alive, having a good time, eating well, safe and learning Japanese? Yes, all these things apply. Is it for lack of challenge, story or excitement? No, not entirely.

So what's with the silent treatment? I think mainly that I refrain from writing to you all because I am keeping a blog. Or was, at least, until things got busy and/or normal-like and I found that sending an update just didn't make the priority list. And for this, as you all know, I am regualrly guilty. With a heavy heart, I request your attention at this latest posting.

Another reason might have to do with the fact that because I have regular access to the internet. I don't normally pass an internet cafe and consider popping in to let everyone know what the other side of the world is like. I'm somehow taking the internet for granted now that I have it and, ironically, use it less for sending home emails than I would if I had to go to a local internet cafe to pay for it.

So, where was I? The Asian autumn flew by in droves of colours. Classes went on as usual and the kids grew more and more demanding of my card tricks in class that I began to dedicate long periods to getting something new right before having to see them again. Fortunately I never have to see the same students more than once a month. To keep from getting rusty in that period I would flash a few at a bar for the sole purpose of hearing the recognizable sounds of Japanese surprise. Of the people I've met here, no one reacts to surprise more vividly than the locals at an izakaya after a few drinks.

In November I was the M.C. at my friend Kelley's wedding and then that month crept steadily along. Much of my time was consumed planning my then-pending trip back to Canada to surprise the family for Christmas and by not logging it day to day I've managed to forget a lot of what I was doing in the time. Fortunately, I have a few month's worth of keitai (cellphone) email history to try and jog the memory. Let's go through it together now, shall we?

Ah yes, here's a message about Kelley forgetting his sweater at my house after a boisterous night of drinking during his stag. The party was very low-key because in Japan, from what I understand, they typically throw the party after the wedding and there is a high probabilty that both karaoke and nudity will make an appearance, although not usually in a sexy kind of way. Kelley's party featured neither nudity nor karaoke; for a stint the bartender was nice enough to track down some adult-oriented Japanese material without being asked, complete with all the naughty bits censored out in behind a digital mosaic. C'mon now. You were curious.

Here's another entry completely in Japanese. And not in the child-like need-based village-idiot Japanese that I use on a daily basis. This is some craziness here. How did all that happen? Apparently I was signed up to help the Hyogo-Ken University conduct a map survey with other students. I'm entirely sure how they found out about my closet obsession with cartography and topography, but I have to be sure to high-five their investigative department. Unfortunately, they signed me up to help out while I was at work and thus went missing from the project. Surely in a panic over my safety, I received four or five more emails in lengthy "actual" Japanese that I was unable to decipher beyond the "from" address line. Oh, life is silly.

Ah yes, and here's the email to one of my supervisors about (deep breath) how my bicycle was stolen from right outside of the classroom, and how my house-key was with it and that I know I'm an idiot but will I really have to pay another ¥20,000 (about $200) for a replacement house-key when the landlady shows up in heels and "changes the locks" without the aid of tools of any kind and still demands that I return the old key if I recover it? Yes Christian. You will. Don't lose the key again.

Looking over this post, I realize that I've been extremely long-winded and we haven't even gotten to the 6th day in November when Kelley actually got married. That being said, I'll bring you to the present and post something or other about returning to Canada* at a future date. This evening I'm glad to be back and with a few friends we're hitting up Osaka so that hopefully I can lose all of my belongings only to find all of them still together - again. For this journey to be a success, I must surely wash myself off and get changed. Please be sure to tune in again next time. I promise that the network didn't cancel us. The producers are just foolish.

*Note from Christian: I went back to Canada for Christmas and it was one of the greatest times in my life because I was immediately reminded of all the great things we have and of all the people I love. The entire return trip home was a big surprise set-up by me and my mother, so I didn't advertise that I was home even once I had arrived. As a result, I didn't get to see a lot of the people I really wanted to and if you're still reading at this point and have it in your heart to forgive me for not calling or letting you know I was in town, then I'm really sorry about it. Next time. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year anyway.