First Post of 2007
Happy New Year! Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! I hope that the new year brings happiness, health, and prosperity to all of us!
It's my first day back at work and it's kind of slow, since the students don't return to school until January 8th. So I'm trying to motivate myself to work on my Japanese conversation class homework but don't really feel like it. So I thought, hmm...maybe I'll update!
Spending Christmas and New Year's in the Philippines was fun and chilled out. I didn't do much sightseeing but instead just hung out with the relatives, ate TONS of awesome food (halo-halo, sisig, crispy pata, turon, sago gulaman, lechon...Shara and Dee, you hungry yet??), and just relaxed. I did a lot of shopping (I flipped out because they have Topshop, that store in England that I LOVE...and with the favorable exchange rate I was able to save a bit of money) and got two massages, because apparently this is my aunt's new hobby, getting massages. I was able to get an hour long massage for the equivalent of $10. It was amazing. I felt almost bad because I'm not used to so much pampering...usually when I go on trips I'm in a hostel or trekking around with a backpack. Then I realized I should just enjoy it while I could, so I did! =)
I arrived in Manila on Christmas Eve evening. We all went to church, which was cool, because church in the Philippines feels so much more festive and reverent (yeah, at the same time...not sure how to explain it..) than it does in the states. I'm usually not so keen about going to church because usually it's really stale, but this was cool. Then we stayed up and opened presents (my parents sent my gifts with my cousins Mickey and Martin, which was a surprise!) and then ate a midnight snack. Yeah, I did a lot of eating while I was there, it's like the national pastime (besides being a biological necessity of course...). Breakfast, mid morning snack, lunch, afternoon merienda, dinner, late night snack. I gained back all that weight I lost when I had mono and then some!
For New Year's Eve we stayed in just watching a movie until it got too loud because everyone outside was lighting fireworks. And when I say fireworks I mean like bottle rockets and roman candles, not wimpy little sparklers. It sounded like a war zone. So we went outside and watched the festivities. My aunt made me hold a wet towel over my mouth and nose because the air was thick with black smoke from the fireworks. My cousin told me that last year when he blew his nose out after watching the fireworks his snot was black. Watching tons of people lighting fireworks on the street was raw and intense, awesome!
The week went by all too fast, and now here I am, back in Japan. It felt sooo weird flying "home" to Japan instead of "home" to America, but once I was back here it felt alright. It was just strange, landing at Fukuoka Airport and making my way back to my apartment. Not sure how to describe the feeling. My heart was sort of tight at the thought of being alone back in my apartment again. Something that was cool though, was that on the way back I was in 4 different countries in one day. I left the Philippines, had a 3 hour stopover in Hong Kong (China), we dropped off passengers in Taipei (Taiwan), and then I arrived in Japan. I didn't get to leave the airport in China and Taiwan, but seeing the landscape, which is really different and striking, was good enough for now. It was weird too, going from the Philippines, where I understand most everything that I hear in the language and don't really think twice about it, to China, where the language is completely foreign to me, and then coming back to Japan, where the language is familiar enough. It's such a cool feeling to be able to pinpoint what language is being spoken and understand a little bit of it. It was also really cool to be bowed to when I got off the plane, haha. I'm just so floored about the experiences I've been having...but I don't know how much of it I'm comprehending really. I think if I thought about what I've been up to in depth my brain would explode. What I'm doing is not normal but for some reason it feels like it is!!
So I'm back to the daily grind, gaaaah. Not really ready to be back at work yet of course. Not much planned for the upcoming month, just looking forward to getting back to my routine. I have to kick into high gear thinking about whether I'm going to recontract for another year or not. The deadline is February 2nd. I'm leaning towards yes right now, but I feel so guilty leaving my sister at home. And I miss you ladies more than you can possibly understand! I felt so sad this holiday knowing that I couldn't have dinner with you guys or go to Borders and browse, or have a little holiday get together with the usual garlic bread, pizza, and Monopoly. I hope you are all doing well in your respective locations. Miss you miss you miss you. Here's to a fabulous 2007!
Here's some visuals:
* Basashi (raw horse sashimi...yes you read that right, horse. Like Mr. Ed.) served at our bounenkai, the end of year party for my job.
*Me about to eat the basashi. It was kinda chewy...strange. Didn't taste like anything except the soy sauce I dipped it in. Will probably never eat it again, I felt too guilty.
*What Japanese people do on Christmas Eve, that is, watch parades with people dressed up as Santa Claus. It's more like Halloween here than anything else.
* The Philippines! This is the landscape near my aunt's house.
* Me and my Auntie Bilog outside of her house celebrating the New Year.
It's my first day back at work and it's kind of slow, since the students don't return to school until January 8th. So I'm trying to motivate myself to work on my Japanese conversation class homework but don't really feel like it. So I thought, hmm...maybe I'll update!
Spending Christmas and New Year's in the Philippines was fun and chilled out. I didn't do much sightseeing but instead just hung out with the relatives, ate TONS of awesome food (halo-halo, sisig, crispy pata, turon, sago gulaman, lechon...Shara and Dee, you hungry yet??), and just relaxed. I did a lot of shopping (I flipped out because they have Topshop, that store in England that I LOVE...and with the favorable exchange rate I was able to save a bit of money) and got two massages, because apparently this is my aunt's new hobby, getting massages. I was able to get an hour long massage for the equivalent of $10. It was amazing. I felt almost bad because I'm not used to so much pampering...usually when I go on trips I'm in a hostel or trekking around with a backpack. Then I realized I should just enjoy it while I could, so I did! =)
I arrived in Manila on Christmas Eve evening. We all went to church, which was cool, because church in the Philippines feels so much more festive and reverent (yeah, at the same time...not sure how to explain it..) than it does in the states. I'm usually not so keen about going to church because usually it's really stale, but this was cool. Then we stayed up and opened presents (my parents sent my gifts with my cousins Mickey and Martin, which was a surprise!) and then ate a midnight snack. Yeah, I did a lot of eating while I was there, it's like the national pastime (besides being a biological necessity of course...). Breakfast, mid morning snack, lunch, afternoon merienda, dinner, late night snack. I gained back all that weight I lost when I had mono and then some!
For New Year's Eve we stayed in just watching a movie until it got too loud because everyone outside was lighting fireworks. And when I say fireworks I mean like bottle rockets and roman candles, not wimpy little sparklers. It sounded like a war zone. So we went outside and watched the festivities. My aunt made me hold a wet towel over my mouth and nose because the air was thick with black smoke from the fireworks. My cousin told me that last year when he blew his nose out after watching the fireworks his snot was black. Watching tons of people lighting fireworks on the street was raw and intense, awesome!
The week went by all too fast, and now here I am, back in Japan. It felt sooo weird flying "home" to Japan instead of "home" to America, but once I was back here it felt alright. It was just strange, landing at Fukuoka Airport and making my way back to my apartment. Not sure how to describe the feeling. My heart was sort of tight at the thought of being alone back in my apartment again. Something that was cool though, was that on the way back I was in 4 different countries in one day. I left the Philippines, had a 3 hour stopover in Hong Kong (China), we dropped off passengers in Taipei (Taiwan), and then I arrived in Japan. I didn't get to leave the airport in China and Taiwan, but seeing the landscape, which is really different and striking, was good enough for now. It was weird too, going from the Philippines, where I understand most everything that I hear in the language and don't really think twice about it, to China, where the language is completely foreign to me, and then coming back to Japan, where the language is familiar enough. It's such a cool feeling to be able to pinpoint what language is being spoken and understand a little bit of it. It was also really cool to be bowed to when I got off the plane, haha. I'm just so floored about the experiences I've been having...but I don't know how much of it I'm comprehending really. I think if I thought about what I've been up to in depth my brain would explode. What I'm doing is not normal but for some reason it feels like it is!!
So I'm back to the daily grind, gaaaah. Not really ready to be back at work yet of course. Not much planned for the upcoming month, just looking forward to getting back to my routine. I have to kick into high gear thinking about whether I'm going to recontract for another year or not. The deadline is February 2nd. I'm leaning towards yes right now, but I feel so guilty leaving my sister at home. And I miss you ladies more than you can possibly understand! I felt so sad this holiday knowing that I couldn't have dinner with you guys or go to Borders and browse, or have a little holiday get together with the usual garlic bread, pizza, and Monopoly. I hope you are all doing well in your respective locations. Miss you miss you miss you. Here's to a fabulous 2007!
Here's some visuals:
* Basashi (raw horse sashimi...yes you read that right, horse. Like Mr. Ed.) served at our bounenkai, the end of year party for my job.
*Me about to eat the basashi. It was kinda chewy...strange. Didn't taste like anything except the soy sauce I dipped it in. Will probably never eat it again, I felt too guilty.
*What Japanese people do on Christmas Eve, that is, watch parades with people dressed up as Santa Claus. It's more like Halloween here than anything else.
* The Philippines! This is the landscape near my aunt's house.
* Me and my Auntie Bilog outside of her house celebrating the New Year.
posted by Johanna at
5:22 PM
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