There's no place like home...?

After far too long attaching ourselves to the inside of transport devices and waiting patiently for them to carry us at high speeds over land, sea, and rail to our destination, we have returned.

As the plane came to a stop at Kansai, the Japanese woman I had been sitting next to on the plane for thirteen hours turned to me and spoke: "Do you often visit Japan?" she asked.
"I live here!" I replied with a grin.
"Oh? Osaka?" she inquired.
"No," I shook my head. "Shiga, Shiga-ken," I repeated above the growing din of travellers hauling things out of overhead lockers.
She nodded. "You're an unusual foreigner," she said.
"Well," I replied, laughing, "I teach English."

Yup. There's no place like home. Though I like Japanese customs: with a brief glance to our luggage tags just to make sure we'd actually grabbed our own luggage, they waved us through. Ahh.