And I am back... ... in Japan!

Yes, you are reading right. Only a few hours, exactly 8 of them to go back to one of the special places of my life.

Went out last night, one of the "shortest" nights of the year. Had fun. Not much sleep but luckily have 12 hours plane (and still -let´s cross fingers- no problems for sleeping while on the flight).

The last couple of months have been calm, in The Netherlands but at the same time interesting and somehow intense. My life rhythm has been very different to Tokyo and also miss that but also I am happy to be here... because it has been my decision!
I will summarize in my next post about things done in the last weeks (festivities and festivals, celebrations, birthday, trips to Germany, sports fair in Italy, Pilates, visitors, wedding invitation, mini-reunion in a month, visit to family and Friends in Spain... On the not so good side, eyes infection but now ok!!). The most important thing, in April, back to work. Really hard. Took me 2 months to "come back" but the feeling is that I have a "fresh" mind and eyes and feels good.

It is really exciting that I have the opportunity to be back to Japan and have such an exciting set of activities prepared with ex-colleagues from work, friends, Europeans, teachers, more colleagues.... also want to do and visit things that could not do during the hyper-intensive months spent there. Keeping in touch with all the valuable people met in Japan is hard and keeping up my Japanese takes a lot of will power but it is so rewarding that it is worth the effort.

Soccer world cup is a big issue now for people that like sports (am one of them) and although I did not watch TV since came back, now I do and follow with interest the progress of the Japanese teams among others. On Tuesday I will be with them enjoying a historical moment (remember that the national sports is baseball but haven´t met yet a young man that does not like "sakka" :-)

Weather is fantastic in NL at the moment and warm and humid in Tokyo as I expected. Already one year ago that landed there and was surprised by the "rainy season". Now I am mentally prepared.

There are several nice links about Japanese life or business found in the last weeks (by the way, not only NL changed government, also Japan did! -remember passing everyday by Hatoyama-san house when going to work... he is not there anymore!-).
Just posting one about Uniqlo (the Japanese ZARA ;-) ) http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2010/06/interview_uniqlos_boss?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/japan

Hope you enjoy. Talk to you in a few hours with the impressions!