I suffered a bit of reverse culture shock having returned from Japan. I got off the plane at my transfer in Copenhagen and, upon entering the airport, my first thoughts were how tall everyone looked and how ‘strange’ they all looked. For the first week of my return I would wake up at 5am regardless of what time I’d gone to bed, not just wake up, but completely awake to the point that I just had to get up and do something. I’d also fall asleep at all times of the afternoon and evening, and it took me over a week to get into a remotely normal sleeping pattern. As I tried to reflect on the last three months, I began to feel like I’d been abducted by aliens for a long happy dream and then dropped back down to earth, where I was left wandering around a bit aimlessly. My aikido quota has dropped from 3 times a day to 3 times a week, which hasn’t yet hit me as hard as I thought it would, but I think that’s partly because I’m not sure if this isn’t the alien abduction and Japan was the reality. The imminence of Christmas added to the surreality of my surroundings, and things are now just beginning to come into focus. Although I miss the frequency of practice, I feel very refreshed and clear of mind, and looking forward to starting my new job in a couple of weeks’ time, with all the changes that will bring.