Repatriation, kind of...

This past weekend my assignment in Japan ended. You can see my effort to clean up my apartment actually ended up producing what seemed to be a larger mess.

Amazingly, I was in Japan exactly 5 years, I landed on March 10, 2008 and left on March 10, 2013.  Well, a little less then 5 years, I arrived at 4pm and departed at 9:30am.  It's sad to leave, I made many good friends, found lots of great food and traveled around like I never imagined I would during my time in Japan.

After a cold winter, I was lucky to see my garden bloom one last time (no effort on my part). 

 Typically when an assignment like this ends you repatriate. Repatriation is the process of returning to ones place of origin or citizenship. It turns out I'm not really going to do that.  I am returning to Seattle for a couple of weeks but will start a new assignment in Italy later this month.

These movers are actually packing up stuff and sending it direct to Italy, but I have not told them where in Italy to send it yet, because I don't know.  The shipment also includes two folding bikes.  I'm still working on the details but I'm planning on living in town in Southern Italy called Martina Franca (in the heel).  

For now I will pause from updating this blog, but will keep this blog on-deck for next time I visit Japan or Asia, hopefully after my Italian assignment ends.

Shortly after handing over my keys, the management company quickly taped over my mailbox.

Like Son Seals said "when you got to go, you got to go...  ...hopefully we'll get together again real soon."

I am starting a new blog for Italy, bookmark it: Mediterranean Central

Pick it up. Flip it open.

I recently turned my blog into a series of books and if you want I think you can purchase a copy of each book. You can visit my book store at this link: Demian's Bookstore

The books are broken down by year, I'm still working on 2012 * 2013.  And I kind of made these books for myself and my family but it turns out I can share with everyone.  Also, I don't trust Google or myself that we won't accidentally click on the wrong thing and delete this blog. These books are actually a good collection of photos and stories of living in Japan.

But of course, there are many reasons to ignore this... For example, the content of these books are available for free on this blog, this is not a literately classic (I'm almost sure it's a grammatical mess) and it's not ECO to print stuff.

But if their was a year of post you enjoyed, you can feel free to get that years book.  Let me know if you do.  These are at cost!

Sushimasa

The Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo is famous and well known outside of Japan.  But most other cities in  Japan have fish markets too, including Nagoya.  Nagoya's fish market is not far from the east side of Nagoya station, it's smaller than the Tokyo fish market, I feel it's just as good in terms of quality.

One of my favorite restaurants in the Nagoya market is Sushimasa, I have been going here since 2008!

The recommended menu is posted on the wall and wall and updated based on the fresh fish from the market.

 But the menu is not so important, you can ask the sushi master for almost anything, and if he has the ingredients, he can make it.

I tend to order the same pieces of sushi over and over again, my typical order consist of Salmon, Maguro (tuna) and Hotate (scallop).  

The sushi restaurants in and around the Nagoya fish market remind me of what I would imagine in an old Japanese movie. 

Typical Hanger

These are typical clothing hangers in Japan.

This post is kind-of-dumb, BUT the shape and material of Japanese clothing hangers is a little different from the US.  I usually use the hanger on the right for pants and left for shirts.  I picked these up at a store called Nitori, which is similar to US Bed Bath and Beyond.