Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year from Japan! The second term has finally come to a close which means, 3 more months until my time here in Mito is over! 😱
I would give anything to be at home this Christmas with family but instead, I’m at work because I didn’t want to use a vacation to take the day off. I’ve been in Japan long enough where working on Christmas doesn’t feel weird to me anymore. There are times I still find it sad and lonely, but I have a great group of friends here to lean on. The weekend before Christmas was a three day weekend to celebrate the emperor’s birthday. But in reality, people were just celebrating Christmas early, like me!
Christmas this year was definitely more eventful than last year. I had more friends staying in town this year to celebrate it with so it was nice. We didn’t do anything too special. Had a nice brunch, opened presents and enjoyed each other’s company. You know, typical Christmasy stuff. New Year’s is quickly approaching and the “city” is becoming quieter and quieter with families leaving to visit grandparents and other relatives in other areas of the country (mostly somewhere in the country). My travel’s continue as I go to Taiwan on the 27th for a couple days. Honestly, I never thought I would ever go to Taiwan. I’m not sure why, but I never gave it much thought. But as the trip gets closer and closer I find myself getting more and more excited. I hear the country is very pretty, the food is delicious, and it’s the origin of bubble tea! If I knew that before I would have gone to Taiwan way earlier during my time in Japan! My original plan was to escape the cold and go somewhere warm, but all the warm places were too expensive 🙄. But, Taiwan will be pretty warm (60s) so as long as it’s warmer than Japan I guess I can’t complain.
Once I return from Taiwan it’ll be crunch time in Mito. Crunch time to do everything I want to do, crunch time to teach the students what they need to know/ get 6th grade ready for graduation, and crunch time to pack and clean out my apartment 😳. Wish me luck.. I’m going to need all the help I can get (especially on the last one.. Looking at you Dad 😁)
