Feels Like Home

I was just helping my mom out in the kitchen (she's on cooking duty tonight - Makoto and I get to take a breather), and I told her that while I'm looking forward to seeing more of Japan, I'm not really ready to leave tomorrow. Maybe not for another few weeks. Or months.

I took a walk around Shimoda this afternoon, exploring the village and enjoying the idyllic charm, just until the sun set behind the mountains, the brilliant light glimmering over the Pacific, shining up the Shimanto-gawa river, and casting everything in a warm, homey glow that just begs to be missed.

I'll miss the homegrown persimmons being dried in the sun... The old men fishing on the newly constructed (supposedly) Tsunami-proof sea wall...

I'll miss seeing the mark of my family all over the place. From the Moriyama crest adorning the graves in the local cemetery (which I visited again out of an uncharacteristic sense of obligation)... to the stone monument commemorating my family's place in the city of Nakamura's civic history.

And I'll miss seeing this every day: