Our blog left us right in the middle of our last country, Japan, finishing the end of the Shimanami Kaido Cycle Route in Imabari.  And there our digital selves stayed, while our real selves spent two more months chasing the cherry blossom season up through Japan, cycling on up to Tokyo, where we hopped on a plane home to be welcomed with open arms from our friends and family.

So it’s actually been about one whole year since we’ve finished our trip.  One whole year.  What the frick happened? Well, life really.  Just sweet simple everyday life, in all its forms.  When you’re catching up with all your friends and family who you haven’t seen, all the brand new babies that were born while you were away, finding your feet and a place to live, searching for a job, succeeding and then back to full-time work, and just basically enjoying being back home, suddenly time just gets away.  I’m not going to lie, there was probably a little post-travel depression, of coming back home after such a long time away with excitingly new experiences to be had at every corner, to return back to the anti-climatic routines and schedules.  For a time we avoided even looking at our photos, and the blog, and successfully covered over how we were really feeling with more family time,  just one more catch up with friends and just one more checking out this thing or that thing we had missed about Sydney.  Which was quite effective in helping us ignore the blog, consuming our downtime and keeping us busy.

But ultimately, we needed to rescue our digital selves from perpetually cycling, and give them the ending their tired legs deserve.  And they have so much more to experience, and coming home didn’t finish as neatly as they predicted.

So question is, did we slot neatly back into our past lifestyle and selves, with the predictable and familiar routines and schedules?  Yes and no. But right now, let’s get back to Japan…