I met Shoh while he was freeloading off a friend’s room in college in 2005.
The following year I did the same to him when I visited Japan for the very first time.
I tasted his mum’s cooking – my first Japanese home cooked meal.
Karaage, su-buta, potata-salada, BLT sandwich, miso soup.
To be honest, the taste is a blur to me now, but I remember the strong belonging of home.
So vivid, that I made a mental promise to myself to replicate it for my own family in the future.
His family visited Melbourne recently and yesterday we spent a day together.
Somehow I managed to convince them to stay for dinner.
There’s something you can only experience after being a parent.
Like cooking dinner for your estranged friend’s kid like how his mum cooked dinner for you.
Realising you didn’t change, yet changed so much at the same time.
It was also the anniversary of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.
The year I quit my old life full time to pursue this one.
So it was a day of cosmic nostalgia of the ball of past, future, and present.
