One easy way to gain a new appreciation for home, family, friends and all the little details of one’s everyday surroundings that are often taken for granted … is to disappear.

Pack up and move somewhere completely foreign, stay gone, feel like you don't fit in, wish you were home, miss it, daydream about being there, stay gone longer, and in doing so, there is little better feeling in the world than finally returning to the place and people you love.

I rarely get homesick, but whenever I am away I always miss Hood River. After spending a year in Tsuruta, Japan, I made it home for a bit of catching up. A month home seemed like a week, and before I could do everything and see everyone I wanted, I was on a plane back to Tokyo with a blur of great new memories, a sunburn, a bit of the sandbar in my shoes, a new Slingshot 13-meter kite and a heavy heart full of fresh goodbyes. Something else I had, which was not expected, was a sense of missing my home and friends in Tsuruta, and excitement to be returning to Japan.

While visiting Hood River, I realized there were a lot of cool aspects of my life in Tsuruta that I had not fully appreciated until I left. I was so caught up in the emotion and fun of being home that I didn't have a chance to share some of the many interesting details and stories of a year in the life as Hood River's overseas Sister City liaison. Here are some that come to mind.

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I grew up in Parkdale and was, on occasion, made to eat trout caught fresh from Laurence Lake and the East Fork. I would like to say I loved and fully appreciated the opportunity, but in reality I credit it for my general dislike of fish and seafood as an adolescent. My diet in Japan, however, consists of sushi, sashimi, grilled squid, grilled octopus, breaded octopus, octopus salad, raw salmon salad, fish stew, fish wrapped in seaweed, fish eggs, fish on a stick, squid on a stick, eel on a stick, baby octopus on a stick, urchins, snails, sea pineapple, sea cucumber, an assortment of other seafaring creatures and a whole lot of rice.

Aside from extremely fresh seafood, the variety of delicious, inexpensive and healthy food here is exquisite. Look for some carnitas, pizza or a good microbrew, on the other hand, and you will starve before you find it.

That is not to say I like all of the aforementioned dishes, however; and I am often the laughingstock of the dinner table as the locals get their kicks from watching me taste and gag on their favorite, slimy mystery dishes. One disadvantage of not being able to read restaurant menus is that I am forced to either order the few items I know by name, point to something and hope it is good or trust my friends to order something I will like. I am, by default, a frequenter of the only restaurant in Tsuruta with pictures on its menu. In general, the food here is exquisite, the service is top-notch and it is actually considered rude to leave a tip.

Learning Japanese in my situation has proven to be a challenge, and far more difficult than people in Hood River might think. It cannot be compared, for example, to being immersed in a Spanish-speaking culture for a year. Although I have made great progress since my days of often incommunicable gesturing and general silence despite wanting to speak, my Japanese is still quite lousy. This is in part due to Japanese being a difficult language for Westerners to learn and in part because I spend as much of my free time as possible playing in the ocean and on the mountain and terrorizing the locals in between.

Terrorizing is a relative term, and in Tsuruta my causing trouble consists of acts like riding my bicycle the wrong way down a sidewalk, borrowing someone's spare umbrella from the office rack without permission and driving my sticker-covered surf van downtown with the reggae turned up and the windows rolled down. Laws here are strict and people follow them without question, and I am certainly no exception.

As a foreigner working as a public servant, I would be held more accountable than most for breaking the law, so many offenses would result in my immediate deportation following any imprisonment time. Needless to say, I follow all the rules.

Drinking and driving is a good example. The blood alcohol limit is zero, and if a person is caught on the road after drinking even a sip of beer, he/she can expect to be fired, fined massive amounts of money, jailed and downright put to shame. And if that person was drinking with friends or at an establishment, anyone who allowed or witnessed the crime can also be held responsible as an accomplice.

A simple and ingenious way to remedy drinking and driving in rural areas like Tsuruta, where trains stop running after about 10 p.m., is called "Daiko." They are available everywhere, at any time of night, so people always have an easy way to get home without driving. It is something Hood River could certainly use. Daiko is a taxi service that comes with two drivers — one drives the taxi and the other drives your car home for you. People generally pile into both cars and split the fee, which usually is a few hundred yen each for the 15-minute ride from the nearby cities back to Tsuruta.

My office and work environment is one of the most challenging social differences I deal with on a daily basis. It is an excellent learning experience and I am fortunate that everyone in my department is very nice. But the system, the structure and general order of operation here is something a young American male with lots of ideas must learn to have great patience with. I have little weight in most issues that concern my job and am generally expected to do what I am asked without question or variation. It is a system of strict hierarchy, and I am on the very bottom.

I generally visit three or four classes a day as a guest teacher — 30 minutes each at the kindergartens and 45 minutes at the grade schools. My time in each of the 15 schools I visit is by far my favorite work duty. I am happy to report that after a year of foiling terrorist plots and slapping away hands aimed below the belt, my students have all but given up on karate kicks and Conchos. I have also managed to teach the rascals a bit of English.

All high school and junior high school students wear uniforms, as well as some kindergarteners. School is five days a week and students participate in mandatory school clubs or sports after school and on Saturdays. Students of all ages always wear special indoor shoes from the entryway of schools inward. Special guest slippers are available for at the door for visitors.

Students are placed in kindergarten, elementary and junior high school based on where they live in town. Students do not have to go to high school in their town. Those who perform well in junior high can choose to attend schools in the surrounding cities, so for some Tsuruta kids the day starts with a train ride to Goshogowara, Itayanagi or Hirosaki.

Snow days do not exist here (although typhoon days do), despite the town receiving on average more annual snowfall than the parking lot of Mt. Hood Meadows. Students bundle up and walk or ride their bikes to class in conditions the Hood River County School District Superintendent wouldn't think twice to cancel school over. Granted, Tsuruta is very flat and driving in the snow and ice around here is far safer than many of Hood River County's roads.

Teaching my first elementary school lesson in Japan was a painful experience, literally. With no idea what to do or anticipate, I strolled into the first of my 15 new schools as green as a Chia Pet, expecting the students to be serious, quiet, polite and well-disciplined. As an appropriate defying of my expectations, a group of about 10 third-grade boys gave me the proper introduction to Tsuruta Elementary School, and to the notorious tag-team "Cancho."

To imagine the Cancho experience, extend your arms in front of you and interlock your fingers. Now extend your pointer fingers out and your thumbs up so it looks like you are aiming an imaginary pistol at a target in front of you. This is the weapon. The target: the behinds and crotches of unfortunate, unknowing foreign English teachers like myself.

The key to a good gang-Cancho, as I quickly learned, is an effective diversion of the victim's attention from what is going on behind him. In my case, the diversion came in the form of a polite, "Hello, what's your name?" from a boy with a nice smile, followed abruptly by a flying jump kick to the crotch. Buckled in pain and shock, I left myself vulnerable from behind and consequently received my first elementary school lesson in 15 years.

The second came as the pain of the first was still in effect. With the extent of my Japanese vocabulary being "Domo arigato Mr. Roboto" and "Toire wa doko des ka (where is the toilet?)," how in the world do I communicate to the home room teacher that I was just karate- kicked in the crotch and jabbed from behind by 20 eager little fingers? I had already found body language to be valuable in many simple situations, but somehow gesturing the scene to a teacher I just met didn't seem appropriate. I let it go, laughed and realized I just received payment for a bit of the trouble I caused as a third-grader.

Today, after living, teaching and experiencing Japan for over a year, I realize that one of my first experiences here would prove to be a metaphor for much of my life in Tsuruta: Expectations defied, surprises, clever and energetic kids, a sense of alienation, difficulty with communication, self-reflection, and, ultimately, finding humor in the inevitable difficulties and follies of life as a foreigner immersed in a culture so different from my own.

My time in Tsuruta is something I will never forget. When I leave and move on to something else, I'm sure I will miss my life here, all the great people and all the cool little details I am currently taking for granted. And that is the sting I have found in traveling as a lifestyle and making great friends and memories everywhere I go. I say goodbye to one home knowing it will not be the same if I return. I show up somewhere new, work to make friends and find happiness, then, when everything seems to fit, I say goodbye, leave a piece of myself behind, and start the process all over again.

Why do I bother?

Life is short. No regrets.

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