I’m slowly approaching a milestone of sorts – one unbroken year outside American borders. Fittingly, the last day I slept on American soil was my birthday, February 4th. With no plans to return home in the foreseeable future, I am just over 3 months away from hitting that aforementioned mark.

Therefore, I think it be high time to compose a short list of the things I’m beginning to long for most. This group is by no means complete, nor in any sort of order either of importance or of strength of longing. I’m just gonna toss stuff out as it comes to me…

Pizza

You have no idea how hard it is to get a good, American-style pizza in this country. To date, I have not succeeded in doing it so much as once. Pizzas here are afflicted by two main problems – a complete lack of understanding on what ingredients (& in what ratios) constitute an acceptable pie, and completely, maddeningly exorbitant prices. Tomato sauce is doled out in war ration quantities, crust is paper thin and overcooked, and toppings may include anything from fish eggs to mayonnaise. You want pepperoni and mushroom? Catch the next flight to L.A., bub! Oh, and that’ll be $30 for a 14″ diameter pie, please! Thank you, come again!

Cereal for Breakfast

I haven’t had cereal for breakfast since January of this year, nearly 10 months ago. What was once a staple of my morning routine, a glorious feast of sugar, polyunsaturated fats, maltodexterin, and BHT for freshness, is now but a distant memory. Now don’t get me wrong, you can buy Frosted Flakes in nearly any supermarket here… but only if you want to pay $4 for a tiny box that would retail for 99¢ back home and which I could finish in two sittings. My normal breakfast of rice and eggs costs approximately 30¢ a meal, thank you very much. But boy oh boy do I long for the days of Capt. Crunch w/ Crunchberries…

Dark Beer

This is something that obviously not everyone will be missing, but I’m a dark beer guy and Japanese are decidedly lager people. If you’re a Budweiser or Michelob kinda dude, you’d be perfectly satisfied with the Kirin, Sapporo, and Asahi on draft around the country. But for us dark beer people, the occasional can of Guinness is all we can scrounge up.

Clothes that Fit Me

Going off on a non-food tangent here, I can’t remember the last time I walked into a store that had clothes in my size. Now it’s true I can find the occasional XL or LL shirt if I’m really lucky, but those moments are few and far between. What’s much, much more common is the scene of a tall, slim foreigner strolling into a store, looking through rack after rack, occasionally stopping to try something on, and inevitably walking out dejected and empty-handed after 20 minutes or so.

Lightning, Thunder, & Rain

I’m a Floridian born and raised, and even though we’re called the Sunshine State, true Floridians know the summer thunderstorms and hurricanes are what really makes the state wonderful. When it rains in Japan it’s the usual pissy, do I really need an umbrella? sort of rain. I’ve heard a clap of thunder exactly THREE times in the approximately 12 months I’ve been here. I long for the massive raindrops, the 4 o’ clock thunderheads you could set your watch to, sitting on the back porch watching the blinding flashes of lightning and counting seconds on your fingers until the thunder comes rolling in, and so on…

Outdoor Sports

This is another one that might not be on everyone’s list, but it sure is on mine. I come from a family of canoers, bike riders, campers, hikers, and fishers. You can fish plenty here, provided it’s from a pier or jetty for harbor trashfish, but that’s about it. As for the rest? Forget it. It’s only logical that a country whose very cultural & historical fabric is anchored in a deep adversarial relationship with Nature would have a populace that virtually never ventures outside the urban environment. There are exceptions to this reality, and they are a growing segment of the population, but they still remain very, very few in number.

Fruit

Lastly, and to return to food where we began, I really miss fruit. They have fruit in Japan, obviously, but the prices are beyond insane. One cantaloupe will set you back $6, a watermelon the size of a bowling ball $5, and oranges are at least $1 a piece and not very good. Once again, I’m from Florida. We grow some citrus there… you may have heard. We also have strawberries, and our neighbors to the north grow peaches from time to time. In short, life in Florida is brightened by an abundance of cheap and delicious fruit. Don’t even get me started on the smell of orange groves in bloom…

There are good things and bad things about living anywhere, and that’s why the best possible way to live is regularly traveling back and forth between two (or more) wonderful places. Because that way, folks, I could have my sushi and my sunshine…