and now it's overtime
my last visit to japan consisted of a only a week, and by day 5 i was realizing how short of time that actually is. i had so much more i wanted to do, so many more people i wanted to see...

this time 'round, it's different. i saw shannon off on her solo trek back to america, and was reflecting about what a full week we've had. i managed to see every single person i wanted to see in niigata... barely, but i did it. it came down to the wire, though, as shannon and i were hauling off to the bullet train and i instinctively turned my head to look into the office where setsuko used to work. she hasn't worked there for 2 years, but you know what they say about habits. i had been telling shannon that i was kinda sad; i hadn't really been able to reconnect with setty since i left japan the first time, and she was really the person i spent the most japanese-time with when i lived there. i paused for just a moment outside of her old office, reflecting on our good times, when a short-haired pregnant cute japanese woman (hobbled?) her way to me. setty happened to be at her old office, waiting to talk to a co-worker, when she mindlessly looked outside. we saw each other at the same moment, and from that instant, my japanese trip (round 3!) was complete. everything from then on is just bonus overtime : )

setty walked us to our train and we chattered a bit about life now, but there wasn't much either of us could say... we were too caught up in the fate of it all. but that's okay... it turns out we didn't really need words anyway.