...and so it ends.

Well, been back in England now for almost a week, and it's high time to finally put this blog to bed. Since both Ogura and my time spent there already seem so far away, it makes sense to wind up this corner of teh interweb and start afresh. Thus, I hereby announce that a blog aiming to detail my no doubt considerably more humdrum existence in the land of my birth is now open for business in the form of Pickled Flex. More info after the jump.

Moving on from pretentious self-promotion, then, how have things been? Well, after all the excitement of the Kokawa Matsuri, there was little left for me to do besides throw my things into the bags I was taking home and hope that getting to the airport the following morning wouldn't be too difficult. Thanks to the selflessly generous offer of ex-colleague Yamamoto Sensei to drive me all the way to Kansai from Naga Town I needn't have worried. He was at the local train station considerably brighter and earlier than I was and got me to Kansai in record time, almost three hours before departure.

Further satisfaction was had when I glided through check-in without needing to pay so much as a penny of excess baggage, despite my 23kg+ packing opportunism. From there I was reminded why Kansai is so meh compared to other international airports (my main gripes being the lack of foreign media at its news stands and difficult-to-locate smoking areas) until before I knew it, I was back aboard a plane in leaving Japan for the final time, at least for the forseeable future.

Mixed emotions really - I find flying internationally to be such a dazing, spacey experience that I wasn't really able to focus on what it meant to be going home for good. That said though, I certainly felt a bit of a twinge when I had to hand over my gaijin card at immigration. I wanted to keep it as memento, as you do, but it can't be helped.

So, 15 hours of flying and a one hour stopover in Amsterdam later and I was back once again in the family nest, seeing little that was all that different, and happy that all of my boxes had arrived ahead of me.

Over the past week I've been taking it pretty easy to say the least - pottering around the house, wandering around town, seeing mates, going to the pub - and so far it feels much the same as the two-week visit home I made last year. I expect it to be at least a month or so until it properly dawns on me that this is what life is going to consist of from now on - no more living solo in a cosy flat, no undemanding job, no late-night chu-hi dispensing combinis, no Gemma, Sean, Sarah, Mercedes, Jared, Noel, Rich, etc. etc...

But that's all yet to come. Otherwise, my initial observations indicate that first and foremost, news of England's all-consuming heatwave appears to have been greatly exaggerated. I've had to unearth my beloved flea-bitten leather jacket whenever I've ventured out the house and have spent time shivering in my local's beer garden. It's damn cold. People here assure me that I missed it all, but that there'll be some kind of second wind within the next fortnight. Bloody hope so, it'll make adjusting to the climate of Northern Europe a damn sight easier if it's hot.

Also, following a conversation with the similarly recently-returned Mark, we both observed how casual everyone is when you're out and about in town. No one expects to walk into Debenhams or M & S to a chorus of shrill 'irrashaimase!'s, but the random conversations I had with sales staff when ordering a cheque book from the bank and buying a new keitai (it sounds so much cooler than the word 'mobile') were like nothing I could ever expect from Japan, even if I had ever mastered the language fluently.

There's a certain ease and informality here that's utterly at odds with the Japanese way - an obvious thing to say, but you do start to miss the 'customer is God' philosophy a little when you leave a cafe, as I did, eliciting no response at all from the staff and wondering if it's because you said or did something wrong.

Oh yeah, and not to forget the mild case of information overload that comes from actually being able to understand signs and comprehend overheard conversations. The latter is especially distracting after two years of automatically filtering out incomprehensible Wakayama-ben chattering in school staff rooms and on the JR Wakayama line. My attention filters need a considerable amount of work, I feel...

Overall, it's still early days yet. I don't doubt some of CLAIR's dark warnings about reverse culture-shock will come true, but I just have to take things as they come. What matters now is formulating some kind of plan regarding what I'm going to actually do with the rest of my life. The past two years have been great and no mistake, but they're gone and it's time to look ahead. So, signing off here for the very last time, sayonara to you all...