rivendellrose | show me the way to go home.... (dee dee dee)...

I probably should have made this post several hours ago, but a shower seemed more vital than the internet, and then I briefly broke my jetlag-fighting rule by taking an hour nap which really seems only to have made the situation worse, but hey! I'm home! I've been awake for over 24 hours straight (minus the hour-long-nap)! I'm totally brain-dead! It's kind of awesome how spastic I feel, seriously. But I made it through security and customs and all that (despite at one point going through the scanners with a double-handful of change and my metal belt-buckle still on, oops), and I didn't even murder the annoying teenagers on the light rail or the gaggle of tourists who prevented me from going up the stairs out of the transit tunnel. There was definitely muttering, though, oh, yes.

There will be more pictures when I am not exhausted, and there will be fic as well, because I did actually manage to write things on this trip! But suffice to say:

1. Even (especially?) in another country, I cannot escape constant reminders of Certain Things I Should Be Writing. Seriously, this got a bit silly toward the end of the trip. Not to mention surreal. And also Not Just Me. Pictorial evidence will follow, but I think at this point that

ryunohi and

maymargaret can vouch for me that, yes, the universe wants me to finish this stupid fic. And also that I do, actually, have slightly more random-crap-purchase-avoiding willpower than might otherwise be obvious. (I swear, I will make this make more sense at some point - at the moment typing complete words is enough of a challenge.)

2. Shinjuku may be a very nice area, but all in all if I'm going to get lost in a high-class shopping district with Eddie Bauer, the Gap, Starbucks, Tully's, Lush, and Krispy Kreme all within a four-block radius and while getting mildly drizzled on out of a pale grey sky... I might just as well be at home in Seattle where the street maps make sense.

3. Asakusa Kannon temple is awesome. Asakusa in general is awesome. Despite having, for no apparent reason, the highest bead store per capita rating of anywhere that I can possibly imagine. And a lot of scary Christmas stores.

4. Little old women don't care if you don't speak Japanese - they will just boss you louder and more vehemently. I literally got pulled by tiny old women a few times on this trip. It's adorable, if slightly scary. Although I will add that I was tickled the one time one of these women actually asked me (in Japanese) if I spoke Japanese. I can understand just well enough to tell what she was asking. And that, at least, made me feel ever so slightly less pathetic about having to make my now-patented "I'm a stupid gaijin, I'm so sorry" smiley-embarrassed face and shake my head.

5. Inevitably, yes, the adorably nice nurse-and-physiotherapist couple from Britain with whom we've been having a lovely multi-hour conversation in the hostel will turn out to be alt-med supporters. Seriously, where do I go to print out a handy pocket-size "This stuff is shit and here's why" pamphlet for passing out? Because 11pm in a hostel, my brain is not quite up to explaining to the very sweet couple "no, there so is not a lot of scientific evidence - you're mistaking 'lots of crap' for 'scientific evidence,' and that makes me sad!" I was good, though. I was polite. Really. But geeeeahhhhh.

6. My cat just knocked over the recycling. This is his idea of telling me he's glad to have me home, I suspect.