Off to Kyoto

Hi everybody,

I had a wonderful, wonderful Christmas even though I was sick for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I missed my end-of-year party because I didn't feel well, but I did make it to a Christmas Eve party and a Christmas Day get-together! I had dinner with my host family on Christmas Eve night (chicken, albeit not KFC), and afterwards went to a bar and socialized with a bunch of cool Japanese people for a couple of hours. It was a little terrifying being one of only two gaijin there, plus I was just getting over being sick so I felt kind of woozy, but I ended up meeting a bunch of cool people. I just wish I could speak Japanese better so we could have more meaningful conversations than "Where do you work?" and "How old are you?" and "What are your hobbies?" Little by little, I have to keep reminding myself!

Christmas Day I spent with a bunch of other ALTs with no place to go; we had a really fun time sitting around and watching "Christmas Vacation" and "A Christmas Story" and a couple of Disney cartoons. I think I've watched every Christmas movie I've wanted to see except Rudolph, so I'm happy! The day after I Skyped with every member of my family, and even though it kind of made me sad not to be with them, it made me happy to be able to talk.

I'm off now to Kyoto with my friend Anna. We'll be gone for about a week. We're taking the Shinkansen there tomorrow morning (because we travel in style), and staying in some cheap hotel once we arrive. A couple other of our friends are also going to be there, so hopefully we'll all be able to hang out once we arrive. (Side note: the Japanese word for "hang out" or "get together" is the same word as "play". "Let's play!" really means "Let's go do something." Does anyone else find that odd? If I go back to the States saying, "Let's play!" I'd sound like a 5-year old...)

I'll try to keep you posted on these end-of-year adventures. It will probably be a nice cheap trip of walking around and looking at famous buildings, and eating whatever food Kyoto is famous for. They're also calling for snow so that might be fun--! My first Japanese snow!

I hope you're all doing well and I'll write back in a week or so.

Love!

Jaimie