The final portion of Mom’s holiday was a fun time. I think I needed to get away too. We went down to Kyoto for about three days. I saw a bunch of things I didn’t see the first time I went there. We saw a zoo, a bunch of temples and some beautiful gardens. Here are a bunch of photos of how things looked and what we got up to. We were in the Arashayama district which is the area most frequently photographed in Kyoto. If you have ever seen pictures of Kyoto it is probably pictures of this. It is a very relaxed paced there and quite hot. The humidity was very high even when it wasn't all that hot. I know that it has been very hot here in Canada for the last week or so. I am glad that I missed that! We left Kyoto on Wednesday and went for our last day in Tokyo. We were pretty tired by then and the timing was such that it didn't make sense to travel too far. I bought the textbooks I need for a course I am taking in Japan and just some general rummaging around in the Ueno and Shinjuku districts. I have been home for about 4 days now. It is strange to be home but not bad. It is nice to visit everyone and see family and friends. It is definitely strange though. I had to wait a few days to get used to it before writing about being back in North America. I had a very long trip to get home due to numerous screw ups. I left Narita about an hour before mom and came through the gates in Toronto about 6 hours after her. Ridiculous. I did enjoy the Narita Airport though. I ate lunch with the under 20's Mexican karate team. It was great to see both them and the Japanese trying to communicate in English to order their lunch. I flew with Continental which was just fine between Japan and Newark. It is fairly comfortable and they have that on demand TV on every seat. The food was fairly good and there was lots of it. I had a disastrous stop over in Newark though and was quite glad to leave it behind. That was the part of my trip that took loads of extra time and was hugely stressful. And since when did Canadians have to finger print at US customs. I refused to do it. How ridiculous. All I could think when I landed there was how loud and fat everyone was. Everywhere I looked families were arguing with each other or cramming fast-food in their faces. There was just no composure. That is probably a bit of reverse culture shock. The food is upsetting my stomach here because there is too much meat and rich foods. I love those foods but I need to just stop eating them. Being back in home grocery stores blows my mind. It's so big and there is some much cereal! We eat so much convenience food here. Everything is prepackaged or some kind of heat and serve item. I will be loving it again by the time I am to leave again. Since I have been home I have been visiting as much as possible. I want to catch up and see how everyone's first year in teaching went. I have also done just obscene amounts of shopping. And believe that is no where near finished. I still want a few classic DVDs and some new books to read. I also want some teaching resources to take back with me. The basic update I am getting is that everyone is now married or will be and has bought a house. It is exciting to see how everyone is progressing. My cat Waffles has become giant and the other cat Jennifer has gone a little mental. She is quite old though. I hug them both quite a lot. Most of the pictures are self explanatory. The last one is one Mom took over Saskatchewan; I love the look of the river. I can remember learning about the rivers in Saskatchewan in 9th grade geography. I remember the description of how they twist across the prairies. I have never seen it from that kind of angle though. It looks like we are having a typhoon across all of Southern Japan right now so I will be dodging the rain here for a while. I love how long the sun lasts when there are no mountains to block it out in the evening. That’s about it for today. Please get in touch if I haven't contacted you yet. I want to talk to everyone while I am home but I might not have your email or phone number. Just drop me a line and I will make time. It's great to see you all.