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My parents go back to England tomorrow morning and then normal life resumes for me. Reiko bought a motorbike (kowai!) to go her new job which she starts on Saturday and I have to go through fighting with thousands of Westerners all vying for the English teaching jobs about so I can extend my visa past June.

These two weeks my parents have visited have been really great. I have taken over 300 pictures with my camera and discovered some beautiful places in and revisited some others. It was around a year ago that I came on a trip here so the sense of deja vu has been unsettling yet welcoming. I`ll try and put some pictures up of the best bits.

The weirdest part of the trip was having to “mother”my parents all the time such as encouraging them to try new things, training them how to do it and scolding them when they did something wrong or inappropriate. This role reversal is something which has been hard to take and unusual for me. We all agreed that staying for two weeks was the best thing to do. They had time to acclimatise their tongues to the food and accustom themselves to Japanese culture.

My dad was impressed by the pride they all took in their jobs whether they were a policeman or a street sweeper and also the state of the trains whilst my mum loved the shops. Coming from a town where the largest building there has eight floors, the skyscrapers and endless and varied stream of shopping centres were appealing to her. All in all it has been a fun two weeks and it will be sad to see them go.