Always lagging several months behind. It is ok. Above, the view from the hotel window in Niagara Falls. Cheese plate at CN tower in Toronto.

All of the sushi pictures are from Take Sushi in Toronto. Very Japanese-style sushi, and all the people working there were also Japanese. The uni was of remarkable quality. I used the opportunity to order tobiko with a quail egg on top – they do not serve it many places in Japan (despite having both tobiko and qual eggs on the sushi menu), but it is one of my favorite pieces. I had a nice chat with the chef, and he gave us little origami penguins to bring with us back home.

Walking around Niagara, it was almost like getting a little taste of Japan again with all the flashing neon lights and the crowds of people. I missed Japan for an hour or two, and wanted to go back home for the first time in weeks.

We found an amazing food store in the gay district in Toronto. I don’t even like cupcakes.

Doodling with new pens and noticing that even the banks in the gay district in Toronto had rainbow flags. Adorable.

We finished off Canada with even more drinks and started planning our return to Japan.

Final seaweed salad in Toronto, and *boom* – I was back in Japan. It still felt like summer.

It was as though we never left, yet something had shifted in me.

Heading into a traditional sushi shop around the corner from our house, I felt blessed that I have gotten to see much of the world and made myself familiar with places and people I never thought I would encounter. If someone told me 10 years ago that this would be my life, I would laugh at them. Moving is easier than one might think. After you have picked up your things and ran half across the world once, nothing seems impossible. I ate my uni and thought that just a week before I had eaten the same dish, 8500 km away.

The days rolled by, the earthquakes were back, and I am still trying to hold on tightly as the world starts to spin faster and faster around me again.