A Pre-Holiday Update

Day pass into weeks, weeks into months, and now we find ourselves in the closing stage of the reign of the Heisei emperor.  If you didn’t know, the emperor of Japan is retiring at the end of the fiscal/school year, so the traditional Japanese calendar will start from year zero next April.  Who knew the emperor was allowed to retire? 

So I have largely been neglecting my blog as my life has settled into a routine that feels very little like the adventure of my first year or two here.  Work has settled down and classes are finally as easy as they were by the end of my first stint in Japan.  My kids know me, and the fear of being hit with ever-present balloon seems to deter most bad behavior.  My large apartment is nice, although these days few of my friends come to visit.  I started running again almost daily in October, because I signed up for a relay race in February.  I’ll be doing it right here in Ogaki with some old buddies that I used to run with years ago.  My time is widely expected to blow.  Oh well, my teammates mostly have full time jobs and kids.  I learn a tiny bit more Japanese every day, although I don’t really use much at work.  I passed the top level of the Japanese language proficiency test back in July (I got the result in September).  I now feel fully qualified to read a newspaper article and answer a multiple choice question about it with 70 percent accuracy.  I’ve done a number of things that I’ve blogged about in the past, but don’t really feel like re-reporting.  I went to the Ogaki festival in October and caught flying rice balls.  I went to thanksgiving at a coworker’s house and cooked mac and cheese this time, which outperformed last year’s crappy potatoes.  We had a Halloween party for the kids and I crossed dressed again, this time as a witch.  Our Christmas party is coming up next week, and I’m going to be sort of an anti-Santa; I basically plan on walking around with a big sack of crappy presents like newspaper and old socks.  Should be a good time.  I’ve been on a couple mediocre tinder dates, which wound up feeling more like language exchanges than dates (that is to say work, where I get to speak Japanese!)  I’ve done some bike rides and hikes as well, but at this point it just feels like normal exercise rather than exploration…

If this blog seems like a bit of a downer, don’t get the wrong idea.  I’m enjoying myself more than last year or even the first half of this year.  I just haven’t done much that I feel like bragging about on the internet.

Looking forward I’m coming home as usual for Christmas.  For the second year in a row I got super cheap tickets, this time $740 for the 12/24 to New Years.  Speaking of cheap tickets I also snagged a $250 ticket to Vietnam for our January break.  I’m going for 4 days to Hanoi with the same two friends that went to Malaysia in September.  I’m pretty stoked for that because it seemed like they weren’t going to have enough money to make it happen for a while.  Plus who knows when the next time I’ll be able to travel Asia with two 25 year old women again??

Well, we are nearing the end of 2018, so have a merry Christmas, jolly Chanukah, festive Kwanza or whimsical pagan solstice celebration.  Let’s start 2019 on the attack!