A new year, a long vacation

Well 2010 is now a few days old and its been an enjoyable start to the new decade. Mainly thanks to the fact that I was off for two straight weeks, and sixteen out of seventeen days. It was a mostly relaxing time for me, with a few hiccups along the way. I went traveling a bit during the vacation. I went once again to Shosenkyo to take an American friend of mine from Sophia to see the falls. It was nice since it wasn't as crowded as last time. I also went to Matsumoto to see a famous old Japanese castle. I took a lot of pictures and I'll post some soon.

The rest of the vacation I spent with my girlfriend Yuuki, which was the best part of the entire vacation. I had a wonderful Christmas dinner with her family, and we saw many great movies at home and the theater. At the theater we saw the new "Nodame Cantibile" film that just opened here. Since we are both fans of the manga and drama, and love classical music, it was a fun movie for us. We also watched a lot of funny Japanese TV, which is in abundance at this time of the year with all the New Years specials. And of course I especially spent a lot of free time, especially when I was alone, playing Final Fantasy XIII. For those that care, the game looks amazing and has been fun for me. Although not perfect. Still it was nice to have that to go to whenever things got boring at home.

There were a few frustrating things that happened this year. On Christmas day I found out my big Christmas package from my family had been sent back home to the states because two pieces of beef jerky were in the package. Thats a big no no here in Japan since US beef is highly regulated due to a mad cow scare a few years ago. That made me pretty upset and a little mad. Thankfully my package is being re-mailed today I'm told, so I still have a ton of Christmas goodies to look forward too. I also sadly caught a nasty little stomach bug. I was in a lot of pain this past week, but thankfully its starting to disappear.

Overall my vacation was a wonderful time for me, and I was able to do everything I had wanted. The only regret I have is that I don't feel that all my stress has been relieved, which is something I really wanted to work on these past few weeks. With work about to get extremely busy over the next couple of weeks, I'm worried that my stress level will rise high again. Thankfully I have some plans to help relieve those things in the coming weeks.

Looking back at last years goals, I did achieve some of them. I got to go to one concert, I met new friends, and I did study my Japanese a little (but didn't take the JLPT). I didn't climb Mt. Fuji or go skiing, thanks to my knee issues. I also didn't go to Kyoto or Osaka last year, but I will this year. So overall while I didn't achieve them all I did well. I plan on making new goals shortly for 2010.

I will post pictures of my vacation in the coming few days.