go chiso sama deshita

I've just come back from two glorious weeks in Japan. What a country. I've been there several times already and I always come back looking forward to the next time that I will visit. Even though it can be a stressful and frenetic place, the culture is ever fascinating to me and of course the amazing food...

There are lots of reasons why I love Japan, it simply fulfils a lot of the things that I enjoy. Good quality and variety of food and sweets. Film and animation. Cute cuddly things. Gadgets. Natural beauty.

One of the things that I was determined to try this time was the famed Kobe beef. I went on a day trip to Kobe just for this! Sadly, it was a little over-rated although very delicious.

It's kind of strange. As I was wandering home from work this evening, it occurred to me that I was smiling and in a really good mood. I've been like this since I got back from Japan. At work I have been pretty laid back, despite having hundreds of emails to catch up on, 3 new members of my team to train up and days of meetings to attend. At first I thought that I was just procrastinating - I swang by several colleagues desks for no reason other than to just chat. I had a 90 minute lunch with my old line manager. And yet as I was walking home I realised something extremely important about myself - that I was myself again.

It's kind of hard to explain - but for a long time, since my new role as manager of the team that I'm in now, working on this stressful project, I have felt my old self slipping away. I have felt myself becoming this stressed out person, defensive and frustrated.

I'm normally quite a laidback person, cheerful and self-motivated. I get on well with people and I'm optimistic by nature. I haven't felt like this for so many months. Not until today. I realised this as I walked home from a long day in the office. I felt tired, having been in the office some 11 hours, but I felt relaxed and happy.

It's so strange. Can I really attribute it to having been on holiday? It wasn't that relaxing - I did a lot of sightseeing and travelled around quite a bit. One of the things that I observed when I got back was that this was the first holiday this entire year that I had totally been able to forget about work. Something about being some 6000 miles away probably helped.

I like this me. She's cute.