Its been a long time in the coming, but finally I'm getting around to updating this blog with Mike's winter adventures in the land of the rising sun. Since I dont think I did much after the Hong Kong students trip until Christmas, I'll just get started with Christmas time itself. The only problem is, since I've left updating this for an entire month after the birth of Christ, my memory has diminished ever so slightly and I doubt I'll be able to remember everything that went on during the festive period but maybe I can distract you with... hey look, pretty pictures!
So, Christmas eve. That joyful occasion that I can't remember much of. Not suprised really, because I don't think I actually did anything at all. Probably just stayed in the flat all day. One thing I did do, though, was to open all of the Christmas presents/cards that people sent. I'm not one to get soppy and sentimental at all but I did come close when I was opening the presents and cards. All of the encouraging and really nice messages that people sent, the thoughtful presents, and that card from my sister that had a woman in a bikini with a chimps head calling me a bumface, really made homesickness kick in and I realised how painful Christmas was going to be without my family - and knowing that I'd still have to wait another 8 and a half months before seeing everyone again didn't really soften the blow.
Needless to say, I battled on and made my way through work on Christmas day. That's right, work on Christmas day. Work that, months before, I was told I needed to attend but work that, on the day, I was told wasn't necessary. Not funny Junten. Not funny at all. It turns out that I didn't actually need to go to the End of Year ceremonies, and no one missed me when I stayed in the ELC instead. So with my new found time I mished off to Ueno to find something to do that wasn't just sitting in work or in the flat before the teachers' Bonenkai (end of year party) on the evening that I actually had to attend.
Now when someone mentions the words "Christmas dinner", it conjures up an image of me eating a mouth-watering meal of ham, chicken, vegetables, yorkshires, etc, until I'm stuffed and refuse to eat anymore in case I collapse due to not being able to support my own bodyweight. That is until they bring out the chocolate cake, in which case I give up all my inhibitions and take the risk of killing myself by eating more. I mean, if we take the words "Christmas dinner" down to their latin roots they more or less mean "best meal of the year". This year I had a kebab. On my own. In Ueno.
The bonenkai wasn't so interesting so here's a quick overview: alcohol available, us not drinking, teachers drunk, us not drunk, teachers acting like idiots due to alcohol intake, us not drunk, Mike gives a godawful speech in Japanese, us not drunk.
So yeah, a little bit of a depressing post, but that's because Christmas was indeed depressing but New Years and the rest of the winter holidays completely made up for it. More on that in the next post.
Also, my favourite video of the festive period (a little late for it now but I still love it): http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=lmCrIZeob4w
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