5 Years
Rounding out the ex-pat experience, I made the trip back to the States, making sure to experience the full range of U.S. culture, including domestic air travel, as noted earlier (although that was only the half of it). Christmas in Buffalo with the Counsellor, who’s the one with the kids, which makes all the difference, included snow on the ground, until global warming caught up and melted it all the next day.

Travelling down to North Carolina included a stop-over in D.C. for some federal entertainment: training drug-sniffing dogs. Well, why not? My flight was already delayed, so another fifteen minutes to watch the enthusiastic puppies sniff the agents planted around the terminal and jetway couldn’t hurt. Not that they asked anyone if we’d mind.

NC itself was sere. They’re having a bit of a drought there right now, so added to winter, pretty much only the golf courses show much green. The weather was disappointing only insofar as I had hoped for cold throughout my visit, so as to store it up against my return to high summer. (The humidity here even in the air conditioned airport was like a smack in the face.) Mom & Dad didn’t make a scene of my prodigal return, but their friends did. A little. We also made the traditional visit to a cinema for New Year’s Eve, and I can recommend Enchanted. It was very entertaining. I don’t know much about Amy Adams, but she was very good.

From a number of perspectives, the highlight of the trip was California, visiting my brother the chef and his wife the jazz musician, very notably the culinary experience. T.’s career has been varied, and I’d heard he was doing take-out lunches as “some sushi bar,” but that’s such an inaccurate gloss.

Oco Time, in Ukiah, deserves to be central to anyone’s experience of Nor Cal. It’s hella good, as the expression goes. This isn’t just sushi, this is Japanese dining at it’s very best. While Australians visiting the West Coast are likely to stick to Los Angeles and San Francisco, Ukiah is redwood country, only three hours north of SF, and worth a trip just for dinner.

While I didn’t think it would be possible to exceed the Oco Time experience, we made the trip down to SF and hit The Slanted Door for Vietnamese food. That’s an inaccurate description, too. Calling this food simply “Vietnamese” pigeonholes it. It’s far more. While I’m sure SF is full of many wonderful restaurants, this one made me think I’ve either got to either move back to the States or import my brother to start something like it (or Oco Time) here. There must be restaurants like this in Sydney, and I’ve been to some that are close, but, well, wow.

As much fun as I had, and as pleasant as it is to travel on two passports (like Jason Bourne), the flights were gritty. I’ll do it all differently next time, probably in three years, when the Counsellor’s two youngest have their respective university and high school graduations, approximately, and with less hopping around, although the flight delays coming in helped me adjust from jet lag and leaving from California provided a relatively minimal return folded into coach. For now, if the weather clears, it’s time to get back some of the vitamin D I left in the northern hemisphere’s winter.