i am home from japan. it was a very well-rounded 10-day trip in the sense that i got to do a bit of everything:

-shopping
-sightseeing
-over-eating (compensated with puking, see below)
-riding on the bullet train
-getting a haircut
-seeing old friends
-making new friends
-spending time with family

on top of those, i also suffered from an unprecedentedly severe heat stroke and was up all night one day vomiting every 30 minutes in kyoto, which was gorgeous and HOT in the summer and of course, required a lot of walking. i still managed to see a handful of temples, a few modern-day geishas fading in and out of back alleys of the Gion, even biked around and climbed a mountain to see monkeys. so all in all, very complete.

i always have many little thoughts on trips which i lose grasp of once i get home. i will try to write about them little by little, if they come back to me.