Theres no place like home

Just looked up this website on the net....made me so homesick.

http://www.davedobbyn.co.nz/

I wanted to experience a really big city and utterly different culture, but MY GOD I miss the beach!!!!

Oh god my heart aches so much just thinking about it. People at home say oh but it's winter here, but you know that doesn't matter to me the beach is beautiful in ANY weather.

Hot, crowded and glistening or deserted, wild and stormy, or even on a moonlit summers evening, it's a place where I always felt so at home and in tune with myself and life. So at peace. My friend sent me the link to this website (below) and its a lot to admit to other people...but I cried when I heard/saw it... http://www.davedobbyn.co.nz/

That scene, the beach pictured, is just so very distinctively a NEW ZEALAND beach and the song resonates so very much kiwi culture and well the combination just conjours so many memories... guess it's true for any New Zealander overseas though huh, for us as a culture the beach IS where we cultivate so many of our memories...

I wrote this in my diary the other day...

"When you're young you walk the sand and dream of foreign shores and adventures... only to find the real benefit of travel is realising just how beautiful home is."

So yes I couldn't agree with that thought more. ESPECIALLY since being in Japan. I'd NEVER give back the experience, but I REALLY appreciate home now. The lifestyle here is non existent, people work. That's it. In NZ I had a swimming pool at home AND one at my work, not to mention volleyball and tennis courts and yoga at lunchtime...and in summer I'd finish work at 4.30 and go to the beach for the afternoon!

Surprising what we take for granted huh. I've lost count the number of earthquakes we've had since I've been here, not to mention the Typhoons! And it's summer yeh, but everyone is so so adverse to showing skin they're wearing jeans or suits even though its 35 degrees!

Never mind it's the same temperature in Phuket today, which is a holiday resort!... which brings me back to beaches again and the decidedly odd feeling of experincing summer and not actually going to the beach, ugh I'm ACHING for it!

My flatmate and I are going to Vietnam in October though and it's allllll coastline there baby, so I can't wait! That's the whole reason I travelled in the first place, to build the memories I'll stroll the beach reminiscing when I'm old :)

Yay bring on the travelling! And for those of you near a beach, winter OR summer, get out and make the most of it!

Smiles and buckets and buckets of love!
your Fernleaf in Japan :)