UPON exiting the Ueno Keisei station last night after my long flight from Australia, and a train ride through the eastern suburbs of Tokyo, my first feeling was, well, "welcome back home, mate!" There was something about the Japanese smells on the train (a unique aroma perhaps concocted by the tatami mats people sleep on, the soy sauce and fish oils they intake, or maybe it is just a pheromone thing), the pre-rainy season humidity offset by a refreshing cool breeze, the endless vending machines with their blinking lights, the air pressure and the lie of the land... whatever it was, it made me feel at home after a long absence, and at ease. It is not too surprising... up until March 19 2011, Japan was my home. It was my home of more than 10 years. I had been over living there for a few years, truth be told, but inertia kept me there... it is an easy country to get stuck in. Then came the great earthquake and radiation plume of mid March 2011, and suddenly I was doing the unthinkable: packing my bags and heading for the airport! But then, just as suddenly, I found myself back in Japan last night, revisiting some of my old haunts. At first I thought I had made a big mistake coming back. Yesterday was a strange and hard day, to be sure, but today I felt good. I felt like I could resume my old life which I thought perished in the aftershocks and panic attacks of March. My phone still worked, even though I hadn't paid the bill in months. I could call people I knew. Just a pity I was only here courtesy of my folks. And they had an agenda. The plan, thrashed out two days earlier at the Ettalong Bowling Club, had been to board the 10.18am Max Toki shinkansen from Ueno Station to Niigata, and transfer there to a scenic route up the Nihonkai (Sea of Japan). And from there, we would explore northern Japan. Before boarding the train, I had an hour or so to enjoy Ueno. Deep in Ueno Park, cherry trees smelt like stale semen. It took me back to my cashstarved but happy days in Golden Week of 2004, when I caught the train up to Oji, and tried to lose myself in the musky park which rises there. Those days are gone, and will never come again.