Homesickness is not for chumps. It WILL happen.

Something people often warn you about when relocating to live in a foreign country is homesickness. For those of us who consider ourselves rather independent, emotionally strong, stoic, or even too in love with the new country's culture to miss our own be prepared for your "Pfft" and scoff to crumble.
     Homesickness is a real thing and it even happens to the best of us. Even the strongest can become weak when the wind blows just the right way or you have an off day. Any little reason like missing your train, taking a few extra seconds at the conbini counter because you are having problems counting out exact change, having to wait longer for the Western toilet, got caught rubbing your wooden chopsticks together (see last blog), etc can cause you to remember things fondly back home. An iMessage, email, FB post or something a friend or family member back home sends you could be the undoing of your composure. Especially if it has a pic. Or a video... verklempt. 
     My picture above was sent to me by my brother, Beau. It is a picture of two of my greatest loves, my niece Pippa and my cat Keats (aka Gumiho, aka, D.O.). They were just having a normal dinner barbecuing in the backyard and snapped a quick pic to send to me. When I got it on a Thursday morning with a message that said "Pippi is stealing your cat from you." I was a great big ball of emotions all day. I loved it was happy, sad, jealous, lonely, excited, cray-cray-crazy all day that day. Japan, I love you and all the cool things you give me, but you don't have my Pip and Kee.