Four Weeks Until Canada: What I Won’t Miss

I’m looking forward to and I’m not looking forward to the move to Canada. I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends again, seeing familiar places, going to new places, eating favourite food, and more. I’m not looking forward to packing, cleaning, the whole immigration process, and flying with a four-year-old.

What I will miss about Japan far outweighs what I won’t miss. I love Japan, and I’ve loved living in Japan. There’s so much about it I will miss that I could write a book about it. But there are some things that I won’t miss.

• Dealing with renewing my visa. That will be nice to not have to do regularly.
• Japanese banking system and ATMs. The banks in Japan are rather inefficient and slow. They still use a lot of paperwork. Also, the ATMs close for the night and over some holidays.
• Poor insulation. Every place I’ve lived has been damn cold inside in winter.
• Stares and comments by people, mostly children. I stand out in Japan. People see me, they look a bit longer than they should, and they whisper to each other as if I couldn’t hear them.
• City tax. I won’t have to pay that in Canada. Expensive!
• Health insurance payments. Also expensive in Japan. Far, far cheaper in Canada.
• Extra cost for cheese at Subway. Cheese is complementary in Canada.
• Shopping for clothes. It’s not always easy to find my size, even though I find I’m average sized when compared with younger Japanese people. Companies still make smaller sizes, though. Same thing for shoes.
• Pollen allergy. I hope I don’t have it in Canada.

I will miss the food. I will miss the transportation system. I will miss the seaside. I will miss Yokohama, Tokyo, Kamakura, and Fujisawa. I will miss the temples and shrines. I will miss the gardens. I will miss the hot springs. I will miss hearing the language around me. I will miss Japanese TV. I will miss the atmosphere everywhere I’ve been in Japan. I will miss Mt. Fuji.

I think those things will far outweigh the things I won’t miss. That’s what makes it so difficult to leave Japan. But, we’ll be back from time to time.

Ever move away from a country? What are some things you missed and didn’t miss? Leave your comments below.

Month in Review – February 2016

January was good. February was amazing. Best month ever in terms of stats! There were at least three records I can think of. You’ll have to read on to find out. The month ended with 1,244 followers, which was an increase of 46.

February Stats

February started off very strong. So strong that it was on pace to exceed 4,000 views this month. But there was a bit of a slowdown in the middle of the month. However, it still outpaced every month before. The average number of views per day was 132, which is a lot more than January 2015’s 119. 23 out of 29 days were over 100 views. The second record for the month is that there were 2 days of more than 200 views. First time that’s happened in a single month. And just so you know, 10 days reached at least 150 views. The busiest day was February 7th with 205 views. The total number of views in February was 3,833, making it the top month ever. It was the 17th month in a row over 2,000 and 8th time over 3,000. The month ended with 70,074 views total. There were 70 posts in February, bringing it to 1,649 posts total.

And for the first time ever, there were more than 1,000 comments in a month, but just barely. There were 1,017 comments in the entire month, bringing the total to 12,581. However, my WordPress app says I have 12,721 comments. Not sure where I went wrong.

The top ten countries were:

1. United States (2,217 views)
2. Canada (437 views)
3. United Kingdom (308 views)
4. Australia (195 views)
5. Japan (157 views)
6. India (81 views)
7. Norway (37 views)
8. Philippines (35 views)
9. France (31 views)
10. Germany (26 views)

Top Posts

The top five posts in February were:

1. Should I Respond to Your Blog Post? (85 views)
2. Expanding Your Blog Network and Readers (67 views)
3. The End of a Blog (61 views)
4. What You Think Is Japanese Isn’t Japanese (59 views)
5. Authors Answer 66 – The Urge to Quit Writing (55 views)

The most popular post written before February was Book Review – Macbeth with 31 views. This has been one of the more popular posts in the past.

Next up are posts that I think you should read. They didn’t get as many views, but are still worth reading.

• Week in Review – February 28, 2016
• Science Sunday – LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves
• One-Sentence Summaries – Part Two
• Choose My Best Instagram Photos – Round 1, Group 34

Reviews

Well, there weren’t any. I have a bit of a backlog to post, and I’ll get to them before we move to Canada. Expect some this month.

Social Media

On Twitter, I have 3,171 followers, which is an increase of 64.  I follow 3,108, which is up by 61. I finished with 8,378 tweets, with 152 coming in February.

On YouTube, I uploaded 6 videos in February.  I have 49 subscribers, which is an increase of 5 from last month.  The month ended with 9,311 views, which is an increase of 235. The numbers are doing much better now. I still have 33 videos to do about Japanese sites, plus more videos about our move to Canada, and videos about living in Japan. I’m finally getting busy with the videos.

Looking Ahead to March

I’m not expecting much from this month. While February was an amazing step forward in terms of numbers, March may be a step back. But it’s hard to tell. Since we’re going to be very busy packing and cleaning, I’ll have less time to post. Also, we’ll be spending a week at my wife’s parents’ house, so I don’t know how much time I’ll have there. And then we’re flying to Canada and traveling for a week. So, we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, I do plan on continuing the regular videos about our move to Canada, and I’d like to work on a couple Japan videos, as well. I hope to get caught up on book reviews, so I don’t have to worry about them. And as always, more posts, and I’ll try doing at least two per day, even on the days we’re traveling. The Top Ten and Quick Facts posts have kind of taken the back burner for now, but they’ll be back soon. I may try one or two this month.

Thanks for reading my blog. Without all of my readers, this wouldn’t be as much fun. You’ve been great! Look forward to another great month in March!