My Journey Home (Part 1)

I guess that a lot of people have been wondering what the hell has happened to me since I left Melbourne - and to be honest, I feel a little shitty that I haven't really kept in touch that much (mind you its only been 2 and a half weeks) but I find that its been really hard to try and adjust to being here, back in Canada, again. Talk about a complete 180 from where I was sitting a month ago.Its cold here, snow flies intermittently and I'm living with my parents - couldn't be different if I'd tried!Anyway, I got to Sydney and immediately hated the thought of having to stay there very long (thankfully the hostel was nice, and the roommates I had were really decent blokes from London - father and his two sons, no partiers there!) The weather was crap, I felt like crap - depressed, miserable, anxious about leaving and wanting to get on the way already. Spent way too much money just trying to kill time - picked up a few interesting things though - more manga to feed my current obsession and a few odds and ends. Didn't even want to talk to anyone really - so I read a book and smoked instead - The Three Pillars of Zen. I'm planning on attending a one day introduction to Zen at the Toronto Zen Centre at the end of January - I'm really looking forward to it.Felt kinda bad that I didn't talk to Robert or Liz, but I just couldn't face having to say goodbye even once more to anyone. I SO needed to be able to say hello to someone, anyone that I knew, and know that this time I wasn't going to be leaving for a while. After saying bye to Kat, Melissa, Ant, Becky (oh my god!), Allie, Mark, Michelle, Monkey, and everyone else I fell in love with I didn't think I could cope with it again.Anyway, after lugging my shit round to the airport, a 12 hour delay and a complete hassle getting accomodation in Tokyo as a result (yep, they stuffed up my flight so badly that there was no way I'd get my hostel reservation for the next night so JAL gave me a free room at their hotel near the airport). Talked with a few cool Canadian guys waiting for the plane (including this TOTAL spunk from Vancouver, man he REALLY did it for me!).Anyway, gotta have dinner and start the Lord of the Rings Festival (extended versions of both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers!)