Visiting Home After 18 Months

In May I went home to be the maid of honor in my friend’s wedding. The other two times I visited home were during Christmas break, but since my friend was getting married in May, I didn’t go home last Christmas vacation and instead waited until May which meant I didn’t see my friends or family for a full year and a half, the longest in my life. It was a long and difficult wait, but it was actually quite nice to go home in May because the weather was absolutely beautiful, and although I left at the beginning of Golden week, I still took off two weeks of work which was kind of nice haha!

The first time I went home, it had only been six months since I had left, so nothing felt really different. The next trip home was after a year, and I had pretty bad reverse culture shock…bowing to the cashiers at Wal-Mart, starring at everyone because they are bigger and all have different color hair, skin, etc., and being surprised by the rudeness of people in general. This time however, it was a strange feeling. I just felt comfortable. I felt home. I didn’t feel shocked by anything, just like I fit in and belonged. It was so nice. I embraced the American that I am without feeling like some weird outcast.

My trip home was very busy with the wedding, meeting friends and family, and taking care of things like renewing my driver’s license, getting a new Costco card, guest speaking to my mother’s students, and getting shopping done. Even though my trip was longer than the other times, it flew by faster than I expected. I wasn’t ready to go back to Japan when the trip was over. I felt like I wanted to stay a couple months. When I think about it now, I get pretty depressed thinking about how long it will be until I can go home again. This post is turning out to be kind of sad, so let me tell you about some of the yummy things I ate, fun things I did, and good memories.

FOOD: There were so many things I wanted and got to eat. Number one being Taco Bell! Of course I was looking forward to my mother’s cooking, but I also had a list of particular things too including Turtle’s Tap, Casey’s taco pizza, Buffalo Wild Wings, authentic Mexican, Chinese (particularly crab rangoon and sweet and sour chicken), Panera Bread, deep-dish pizza, Wendy’s spicy chicken nuggets, Chipotle, a cookie dough blizzard from Dairy Queen, pizza rolls, hot fudge sundae Pop-Tarts, American sushi, and basically anything I could get my hands on that is not common in Japan like veggie burgers, alfredo pasta,  bleu cheese dressing wedge salads, baby carrots with hummus, cheeses, dips, cheap fresh fruit, and a s’mores flavored frappuccino. I also was able to enjoy going to really nice expensive places too, and eating fancy seafood dishes like scallops over risotto and mussels in a garlic tomato sauce. Seriously, food is just so dang good in America!!!

Taco Bell! :D :D :D

Chicken crunchwrap and supreme and cheesy bean and rice
buritto.

Oh, hello there wedge salad.

Delicious mussels and crab rangoon.

Bdubs. I ate half a new ghost pepper blazin' wing
and thought I was gona die.

Deep Dish!

My first Chiptole in over three years!

Mmmm....enchiladas.

Haha, pizza rolls.

FUN TIMES:

·         Going shopping with my mom, grandmother, and sister. So many new clothes!

·         Playing with my pets/Walking the dogs.

·         Going to downtown Chicago and Chinatown (for the first time) with my mom.

·         Seeing my friends Rodney, Kaitlyn, Mitch, CJ, and Stephanie.

·         Seeing and spending time with my family/Chilling at home (wish I would’ve had more time to do that).

·         Exercising with my sister.

·         Getting drunk with my parents at a super nice restaurant on Mother’s Day.

·         My last dinner with my parents.

·         My friend Kaitlyn’s shower, bachelorette party, and wedding. I was so happy I could participate in everything. Spending time with her in general was so nice.

·         Playing Wii and eating Taco pizza with Rodney.

·         Watching movies and playing Wii at home (Mariokart, Warioware, and Cooking Mama).

·         Spending time talking with CJ. <3

·         Seeing my Grandpa and having lunch with him.

·         Teaching at my mother’s school.

·         Taco Bell, Taco Bell, and TACO BELL!

·         Driving a car again/Listening to music loudly.

·         Spending time chilling with my sister and her boyfriend.

·         SCRAPBOOKING!

·         Sleeping in my own bed.

·         Laughing so hard and almost peeing myself with my sister on many occasions/Crazy face pictures.

·         Rum Chata

Shopping!! :)

Puppy!!

Sister!!!

Mother's Day dinner.

Gettin' crunk. Lol!

I love Warioware so much!

Day drinking Rum Chata & Fireball with CJ.

Scrapbooking...or at least trying to.

Chinatown.

Chicago and The Bean.

Mitch!

Bachelorette.

Happy Wedding!

The crew.

Luckily I had my boyfriend waiting for me to come back to Japan which helped ease the pain of leaving America. I do like my like my life here in Japan. I have friends, a good job, and I still enjoy the culture, but I simply was not ready to return. I want so badly to have friends and family to come here and visit me. I want to show them my life here. I think I have finally hit that point in my time living abroad where instead of trying to abandon my own culture and embrace a new one, I want to cling to my roots and be proud of who I am and where I was raised. I love Japan. I have embraced their culture fully. However, I am American. I love that about me. I don’t want to change.