It is over four years since we moved out of Japan. Time flies depressingly fast. We made our annual trip back to the Land of the Rising Sun in September, and it was already our fourth journey. I'm not complaining though, I absolutely love going back. Tokyo is hands down my favourite city and it still is the home away from home. Since it was a vacation, I got to just kick back and relax. It's fun to see family and friends, and to eat in my old favourite places (I set myself objectives like "benchmarking Salvatore's pizza using genuine Neapolitan pizza as a reference point" - yes it still qualifies!). My wife went to work for a few days, so I wandered around the city and explored both old and new places, and took way too many photos while doing that. I didn't run into any dead ends, though.

Our trip didn't start on a high note. For some reason a connecting flight was much cheaper than a direct, so we flew from Zürich to Düsseldorf, Germany and from there to Japan. The flight to Düsseldorf was delayed and upon arrival we had only 20 minutes for changing planes. We made it but our luggage didn't. That wasn't a huge surprise, but the fact that our bags were completely missing was. ANA was not able to provide a tracking code or anything. It appears that Düsseldorf airport is run worse than your average banana republic. They had some kind of a failure with their baggage system again, and they were unable or unwilling to sort it out manually in a timely manner. After being in dark for four days, we finally got our bags back. It was a huge relief, otherwise I would've needed to purchase a new suit. Finding regular clothes that fit me is a challenge in Tokyo and a suit would have added a new level of difficulty. The lesson learned was to avoid Düsseldorf and choose someplace more reliable like Moscow or Pyongyang instead.

Certain things about Tokyo still keep surprising me. The sheer amount of people always comes as a shock. The morning trains are absolutely crazy, I had somehow forgotten that. The service level, if possible, has actually gotten even better; Tokyo is in my opinion more tourist friendly than ever. I got helpful and professional service in good English in my regular joints like Yodobashi and Bic Camera (language was definitely an issue when I moved there in 2005), and you get some sweet discounts when purchasing tax-free with a credit card. The best part is that people are genuinely delighted and treat me like a VIP when I speak Japanese, despite my language being on the level of a (very) small child. Perhaps some of the charm would be lost if they knew that I lived there for eight years, so I circle around telling unnecessary minor details like that.

During our stay in Japan we also did a family trip to the lovely prefecture of Kōchi - lots of beautiful landscapes and delicious food. There's something about the countryside of Japan: it is picturesque and peaceful and a complete opposite to the big cities. The main reason for our trip to Japan this year was that our Korean friends were finally tying the knot, so after departing Japan we spent a long weekend in Seoul – a comfortable 50 kilometers away from the Rocket Man's borders. I took almost 7000 photos in total (meaning: over 6000 crappy photos I had to filter and delete) during the two weeks. Because of the sheer amount of the content, I will be splitting it over a couple of blog postings so please bear with me.