Oh, I'm so not going back to look at the 2003 post. ;)

It's really unfortunate that all your long stretches of travel happen so close together, although I know there's not much you could've done to change the scheduling. If you can swing it, i think you should take a few days off work after you get back from Japan and give yourself some time to ease back into things here; maybe it will help to not have to worry about dealing with all the accumulated work issues on top of trying to get used to being back at home.