New Year's Day and beyond...

A welcome change to recent New Years in Japan was the fact that the whole family (including Clara) stayed up for the countdown to New Year. That felt a bit special, although I am never in my best form during the Festive Season in Japan as I feel like I am missing a lot of fun back in Scotland. The next Festive Season will be different though, as we will all return to Scotland for a couple of weeks as Joep will be 60 years old on 28th December. Even though that is a year away, I am starting to look forward to it already.

However, New Year's Day was nice nonetheless and it was spent relaxing, eating, drinking, and singing karaoke from the new microphone and software bought for the Nintendo Wii. My excuse for not singing was that I had a sore throat. We ate the traditional soba on New Year's Day (thank you Satoshi) and then slowly worked through the rest of the food and wine.

The best part of my 9 days off was simply spending time at home. I now spend most of my time working at Weathernews and then by myself in my small Makuhari apartment. The time spent at home was greatly valued.

On the 2nd January, we all went to Hon Kawagoe to make the yearly visit to a temple to pray/wish for good fortune throughout the year. Clara's wish was that I would find a job closer to Kumegawa so that I would not have to live in Makuhari. That really is pressure!