First Post of 2009

08Jan09

The new year came 15 hours sooner than it would have came if I was still in the United States.  So I guess that means my 2008 was 15 hours shorter than my friends’ and families’ 2008s.  Anyway, here is a bit of a recap of some of the things that happened over the past three weeks or so:

• We made a return trip to Osaka since we really didn’t really get to see the city last time.  Highlights were taking a boat down the river that runs through the city and going to the top of the Umeda sky building (pictures are on my Picasa site).
• For Christmas, we had a small party in the dorm (a lot of people were gone due to vacations or because they weren’t continuing on to the spring semester in Japan).  We had “Christmas cake”, which are small, delicious cakes that are sold specifically for Christmas.
• My Swedish roommate left about a week ago to go study in Tokyo.  I have two new roommates, one from Leeds, UK, and one from Portland, Oregon.
• For New Years, we had another small party with some home cooked Japanese food.  After midnight, we went to the temple near here to celebrate the new year in a more traditional fashion.
• We made a second trip to Nara, the ancient capitol of Japan.  Last time was for sightseeing, so the purpose of this trip was mainly to visit an Indian restaurant that we went to last time we were in Nara.  Only a restaurant that good could warrant a return trip to someplace so far out of the way… However, me and one other person from our dorm decided to climb one of the mountains on the outskirts of the city.  Pretty much on a whim.  That was fun.
• I now have medium-brown hair.  Yay.

As for 2009… school starts in about a week.  Looking forward to actually having something to do again, but not looking forward to the unrelenting homework that accompanies.  I still have yet to choose classes, so I don’t know what I’ll be taking besides Japanese.  I also need to get an internship abroad at some point (presumably here in Japan, but we’ll see what crops up).  After I get home in the summer, I’ll only have one year of university left.  During summer and early fall, I’ll need to decide whether I’m going to enter the working world or enter graduate school.  I’ve decided that if I go to graduate school, it probably won’t be in the US.

Until next time!

Filed under: Japan, Stuff, Trips   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: 2008, 2009, christmas, Japan, nagoya, new years, osaka