What are you looking forward to going back to?

Yesterday someone asked me this after we'd spoke at a church. It took me a moment to find an answer. First thing that came to mind: "Friends."

After that. . . "getting the boys settled back at the school and some more 'normal' life."

Now, after a bit more time to think, I'd add:

Our shower in Japan. Freezing in winter, boiling in
 summer but nice and large!

• The shower. Though it's very hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, it is large, unlike our caustrophobic-inducing shower here.
• My bike with its large baskets. My bike is very functional and the baskets are wonderful for carrying all sorts of things. Though I will miss the wonderful shopping choices I have here, and that I can read all the labels! Also, the bikes we have there, though they're on the cheap side, don't break down anywhere near as much as our bikes here do.
• Various appliances in our house, including an ice cream maker, rice cooker, and huge ancient American-style oven.

  

  My enormous gas oven (that you have to lay on the floor to turn on).
  

  
  

  

  The gas oven in my kitchen in Japan.
  You can see the oven is a little
  too large for the kitchen, but it works
  pretty well.

• My new camping kitchen. We bought this second hand off a fellow missionary just before we left last year and I'm keen to try it out. 
• Another camping adventure. We're planning to go camping when we get back (we arrive back more than a month before school starts), hopefully a tour down to the Kyoto/Nara/Osaka area.
• Not travelling so much. Not that we've had it all that bad, compared to some missionaries we hear about, it will be wonderful to have our weekends back, and (dare I say it) not quite so many social engagements.
• Japanese convenience stores. They really are very convenient, especially for a cheap, yet relatively healthy lunch.
• School where I know a lot more about what's going on (in part because my husband works there, but also because we've been there for eight years now).
• Rice. Yes, I'm a Japanese rice snob. Other Japanese food will be good too, though I'm not craving it terribly, there's too much good stuff here.

That's a long enough list. Probably as this year wears on (and wears thin) there will be more that I'll be looking forward to. The boys would have a different list. I'll have to ask them and tell you what they've got, but I suspect a biggie for our eldest will be "no uniform"!