あけましておめでとうございます (Happy New Year!)
Today was the opening ceremony for third term at school. Third term only goes through the beginning of March (when graduation for third-year students happens) so I am sure this semester will fly by. (1st term - the beginning of the school year in Japan - starts in April).
Long story short...Maya ended up not coming ;-( Her flight was delayed twice and cancelled and by the time she would have gotten here she would have only had a week here (as compared to two) and would have had to pay more money and make more transfers. It just didn't seem worth it after all that hassle so we are hoping that she can come sometime later this year.
So for winter break the highlight was going to Kyoto for three days. We met up with May and some of her friends and toured around and saw numerous shrines, temples and famous places. I would go into detail but then this would be a long blog post. In short the weather was beautiful, everyone got along and we saw some amazing things.
Other than that I mostly just slept, ate and watched tv. For New Year's eve, however, I did go to the local shrine. There were performances, many booths selling good luck charms, people making their New Year's prayers/wishes, sake and soup, etc. In the morning I went over to the house of one of my supervising teacher's (from student teaching in MN) friends family. We had a delicious New Years breakfast (and soup with mochi!), went to the shrine, came back and the family looked at nengajoo (New Year's postcards - very popular in Japan...everyone sends and receives many), went shopping (they sell these surprise bags at all the stores where you don't know what is inside...too much of a risk for me), relaxed and ate dinner. I was so fortunate to be able to have a traditional Japanese New Years.
I am looking forward to getting back in the routine. I realize that I get semi-depressed when I am unproductive and don't have anything to do for long periods of time. I think because of that and also that it is cold and just that time of year I am getting homesick again. I realize that it is part of the process of living in a different country so I hope to get out of this feeling soon. I have this love hate relationship with Japan right now.
