No, not because of a night lost to heavy drinking. Periodically I suffer from bouts of depression 憂うつ about life here in Taiwan, and the last thing I want to do then is to go out and be among hundreds of people (and even in small towns in Taiwan, you are often among hundreds, if not thousands of people - "Ren shan ren hai" 人山人海 as they say in Chinese). So I end up doing mostly nothing, as I did this weekend.
This weekend's blues were no doubt brought on by the letdown that always happens following a visit back home. The mood is further darkened by memories of what Octobers were like back in Setagaya 世田谷区, Komae 狛江市 and Yokkaichi 四日市 (I wasn't in Okazaki 岡崎市 long enough to experience autumn there) - the weather becoming cooler and crisper, and the leaves beginning to change colors. Here it's still hot, the air is smoggy and there are no fall colors to alleviate the general ugliness all around. And it didn't help things either on Saturday morning when I turned on one of the Japanese channels on TV, and saw a program about winter in the north of Hokkaido. Seeing all that snow just drove home the fact that as long as I live in Taiwan I will probably never experience snow again, and Amber will never have the opportunity. Hehuanshan just doesn't cut it!
If there's any silver lining to all this, it's that I can watch not one, but two baseball championships - the World Series on ESPN and the Japan Series 日本シリーズ on NHK. This year I'm rooting for Detroit, and for Nippon Ham 日本ハム.
Here's a picture of Pamela in Japan, taken in November of 2004:
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