I'm back in Japan. The flight was long but relatively painless (thanks to JAL's incredibly dedicated and uber-friendly agents and cabin attendants!), and Hero Material and I arrived home a little after 10:00 p.m. yesterday.

Hero Material's secretary had come by before our arrival and turned on the air conditioner. :wub: We were grateful since it was ridiculously hot and humid. She also left our hamsters in our living room. So we got to greet our little critters. Yay!

But bad thing is…my cell phone is more or less useless now. Well, I get my calls and stuff — I think — but for whatever reason, its memory went bad, and I lost my contact list. That means I can't call anyone because I don't know their number. Argh! (Hero Material tells me that back before they had cell phones people actually used to remember their friends' phone numbers, but I don't believe it.)

This morning I got woken up by a sound car blasting some candidate's names over and over again: “Vote for me! Don't forget my name XYZ! Vote for me! Don't forget my name XYZ!” Believe it or not, creating ungodly amount of noise pollution from 8:00 a.m. on Saturday (and every other day of the week) is how they conduct political campaigns in Japan.

Now I know I'm truly back.