Plus one. Going back next year — autumn this time (spring this year and 7 years ago). Probably spending more time in smaller cities.

100% I spend way too much time planning my next trip back.

It also probably doesn't help that it's winter now, so add that post vacation blues to seasonal depression.

I wonder how much of it just consists of being somewhere on vacation rather than living there, come to think of it. I have heard that spending time in Europe tends to instill a similar sense of reverse culture shock in Americans, at the realization of things like “it’s possible to build at a human scale instead of it requiring a fifteen-minute drive to get to the closest grocery store.”

Granted, well. I’ve lived in Japan for kind of my whole adult life, so the honeymoon phase ended long ago and it just kind of became where I do things like go to work and pay taxes and cook dinner, so I might be jaded to the novelty at this point.

I often feel this way coming back from The Netherlands to the US. Where i marvel at how pedestrian-hostile and generally unhealthy our design and some of our culture are.
Also coming back from Sweden. In Sweden there seemed to be a shared sense of community and social responsibility on a much larger scale. Different than in NL, and probably different than others parts of the EU. Coming back to the US was jarring. It's 'everyone for themselves' but cast as 'rugged individualism'.