Happy Monday! As I've told viewers in a number of other articles over the past dozen years, the nearest station to my home in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture was Minami-Gyotoku Station（南行徳駅）on the Tozai Line. Although Toronto has been my home once again for well over a decade now since returning from Japan, I've always retained a soft spot for my old neighbourhood. Whenever I returned from Toronto after the biannual Christmas vacation there, there would be Nangyo (the abbreviated nickname for Minami-Gyotoku) as the sun was setting; my flights back to Narita Airport always ended up arriving in the afternoon. It was my station, my neighbourhood, my home. I could buy a bento at the konbini and crash on my sofa in my 2K.
Still, I think my feelings on returning to my apartment in Ichikawa probably pale to those of Tokyoites heading back to their hometowns after several years of working hard in the megalopolis to help get Japan back onto its feet. Koichi Aoki's（青木光一）"Furusato no Eki" (Hometown Station) from 1956 is a classic bokyo kayo（望郷歌謡...song of longing for home） with those old-fashioned strings and the down-home rhythms paired with the singer's nasal vocals. Written by Miyuki Ishimoto（石本美由紀）and composed by Hideo Hirakawa（平川英夫）, "Furusato no Eki" seems to be the ideal song to welcome back the mature son and daughter at the station with warm hugs and promises of food, drink and warmth.
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